Ask Lemmy

The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik.

Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson

The Sword of Truth series. My favorite series of all time. It had an attempt at a show, but I refuse to accept it. They took a story that's 10x more adult than Game of Thrones and made a CW show that had events from the 5th book in episode one.

Zero. It totally destroys everything about a book. I have found though that horrible series can make good TV. Like Twilight or Dexter or Harry Potter. Horribly written trash but popular with those in the center of the bell curve.

There already has been a movie (L.A. Confidential), which is one of my favourite movies of all time. But to get it on the screen required a lot of rewriting to fit a complex weave of plots that intersect and takes 10 years to resolve. It was brilliantly done for what it was, but it left a LOT on the floor.

I would love love love to see an HBO or similar series that is as true to the novel by James Ellroy as it could possibly be.

Fritz Leiber's short story "A Pail of Air".

This story portrays the effects of the most terrifying natural calamity I have ever encountered in fiction: Earth being ejected from the solar system. In any other disaster there's still hope because even though humanity might die out, life on Earth would eventually recover. Not so in this case. Without the Sun we're fucked. Even the air freezes (hence the title).

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Could be a fun mini series to adapt. The video game never grabbed me though.

Snow Crash.

Sanderson's Mistborn series could make some good film or TV. Honestly they could probably even pull off a whole cosmere MC universesque type thing... Although I think deals keep falling through because the author wants full creative control.

Deserves? Not sure, but I feel like Gideon will get one. It seems pretty popular.

I guess its kinda fringe but the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Either the parents or little admiral would be pretty good if she is involved in the writing. Or, one of her other books. Great writer.

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle. I was expecting a trashy slasher with some queer elements and an autistic protagonist, what I got was a good supernatural thriller with some queer elements and a very believable autistic protagonist - I would genuinely recommend it.

The writing is the weakest part, it feels very kind of pedestrian, like "here's some words explaining what's happening" rather than being artistic or beautiful or evocative but it's good enough for the story and characters to come through, and they're great. So remove the writing quality from the equation and it could be absolutely excellent

You ask as if that was a good thing. Like an honor for a book. But I way too often find myself defending books with "It's nothing like the movie. Don't juge it by the awful movie."

Especially fantasy adaptions are regularly awful and damaging for the books.

Examples: The Dark Tower, Eragon, Percy Jackson, The Giver, Inkheart.
Netflix's Persuasion, The Beach to name a couple of non fantasy as well.

So I'd rather they leave the books alone and make original stories into movies.

Low Town and its sequels, especially She Who Waits. They're by Daniel Polansky and not my typical reads but dang were they good.

Random Acts Of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack.

From comic books, Bitch Planet and Archer And Armstrong.

The Devil in the White City - would love to see the Chicago Worlds Fair brought to life in all it's splendor, and to be directly contrasted with the horror that was HH Holmes murder castle. The book brought that history to life so vividly, and I feel like mini series with great casting would do incredibly well.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - mysteries and whodunnits are popular again (thank god) and this one has such an interesting premise. When I first read it I was convinced it would be a great video game. But a movie would also be a hit.

Something Wicked this way Comes - not sure if this has ever been adapted, but I've never seen it. The book is so atmospheric and has such a rich cast of characters. We haven't had a movie that really celebrates the moodiness of autumn in a while.

Something from Iain M. Banks The Culture. The best books, like Excession would probably be hard to adapt due to the protagonists being mostly ships, but others like Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games could probably make great films or miniseries (and Use of Weapons would probably be great as the later).

Probably excessively expensive in the CGI department if done well, but one can dream.

Dresden files not popular among these parts or how come nobody's mentioned it yet?

It has technically already been adapted, but it was a stupid procedural cop show with a twist rather than what it should be. If you want a more formulaic thing, just copy Amazon's Reacher.

Plus, since it's an urban fantasy, it should be cheaper to make than most other fantasy/sci-fi shows, I think.

mass effect could be a huge tv and movie franchise but the designs of the aliens would make the effects budgets prohibitively expensive. damn would I love it though.