Every single thing Brandon Sanderson ever wrote
The graphic audiobooks are pretty great already. Would love some visuals to go with it. Would need a big budget though…
Similarly, I’m reading through the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks and I think it would be a great candidate for an adaptation. It’s a really good story and the magic is all based on the colour of light which I think would make the special effects pretty easy to create and should also look nice.
I know I recognise the name Brent Weeks, and I know I remember a magic system based around colour. Does that book start with someone who brings his cloak to life with colour magic? And as you get more magically powerful, you can see more and richer colours?
No, that’s another Brandon Sanderson book called Warbreaker.
Lightbringer has people who can do magic, but you have to see the colour in order to start using it. And all the colours do slightly different things as well as affect your emotions.
Lots of great world building too.
Thanks.
I’ve read Night Angel series, that’s where I know the name from. Not the sort of book I’d usually enjoy but I remember good things. I think I’ll add Lightbringer to my list of books to read :)
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Hyperion Cantos.
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Neuromancer.
For being what I would consider one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk, I’m surprised there hasn’t been a Neuromancer film yet. Especially when so many of the tropes we know from the cyberpunk genre originated from Neuromancer, to begin with.
The question is do they stick with the existing Johnny Mnemonic movie as the prequel story, recap it in an intro scene, or ignore it completely?
I think neuromancer is being done? Maybe it’s something else tho I forget
https://www.theverge.com/24086056/apple-tv-plus-neuromancer-streaming-series-william-gibson
Neuromancer Might be getting made.
The first book seems ideal for a mini series
An anthology-like mini series where each episode deals with one pilgrim and is written and directed by different people. As many different styles as there are pilgrims, just like how the book is written. Would translate very well to screen IMO.
Exactly!
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The Iliad. Not a “take” or an “adaptation” or a “re-imagining”. Just play it straight as it is, cut out some of the monologues and replace the “throwing spears at each other” parts with swordfights.
I want to see the gods descend from Olympus to fight on the battlefield.
Ringworld :)
Apparently in the woks by Amazon
No shit. I’m very suprised. Some of it gets rather technical for the masses.
Don’t worry, they’ll cut that
Prolly true. Maybe we can get an extended cut for us nerds.
Announced over 3 years ago (2021) in this article that mentions Amazon Prime optioned it in 2017: Tech Advisor article about “Ringworld” on Amazon Prime
So…
So, it’s still not here :P
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and some guy who’s name is harder to remember.
An inventor uploads a schematic to the Internet for a cheap, easy-to-assemble device that lets anyone (or almost anyone) “step” into parallel earths. A nearly infinite stretch of untamed wilderness sees people abandoning the polluted, crowded, government-run Old Earth in search of new opportunities. The catch: No iron or iron alloys can “step” across, sending these new earths back to the bronze age.
Also: Zeppelins that are also reincarnated Buddhists that are also the first true machine intelligence; robot cats; libertarian communes; sapient nonhuman primates; sapient nonhuman non-primates; radioactive ziggurats; space programs to parallel moons; and grumpy survival chicks.
Stephen Baxter
The premise was better than the execution, but I’ve definitely been curious if you could use the world stepping premise in an RPG in a compelling way.
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi was made for this, I swear. His latest books also read a lot like movie scripts are contained therein.
Charles Stross’ Laundry series has a ton of potential too, if less Chtullu is required, I wouldn’t mind a Merchant Princes series either.
I heard rumours about Forever War being optioned at some point, but nothing came of it.
I vote for laundry series too
Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey. Currently doing my umpteenth read-through completely accidentally. I wanted to read one of the books then got sucked in. I’m nine books in and read several of them in one sitting, despite having read them all plenty of times.
And while I’m on the subject, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone taking about Pern online but I see mentions of Isaac Asimov every few weeks. They’re of a similar age and Pern is equally good as Isaac’s work, if not better. Grumble grumble…
I’m a lifelong pern fan, but… the immense fear of thread won’t come across well on the screen in my opinion. And thread fighting will be hard to make such that it has the same magnitude as it can in your imagination. All in all, thread is over played. It can’t be such a harrowing fight in the skies, and still be so devastating if one got through unnoticed. Cause if the fight in the skies was so hard, more would get by, and some would get missed over the years. And that is played off as the end of the world. In your imagination, that can work, but on screen, not so much. That means they would need to make some fundamental change to film it.
Canonically some gets by every time, which is why they need ground crews with flame throwers, right?
It changes based on the book and situation, honestly. Sometimes a weyr boasts than none has got through their wings for several years. Sometimes it’s just a couple of Threads. But often, whenever a character is caught outside, it’s taken to be certain death. For example
Spoiler
Menolly’s fire lizards die as they’re hatching and go out into thread
I can’t remember the book, but one punishment for murderers is to leave them outside in Threadfall to be killed
In Renegades of Pern, many of the traders die in the opening chapter despite there being dragonriders nearby
I feel like a lot of Anne McCaffrey’s writing is inconsistent and is more based on what’s good for the plot than anything else. And (at least in the early editions I own) could have done with a better proofreader. Couple of spelling mistakes, but a lot of people and dragon names changing and other consistency errors. But I still love the books, don’t get me wrong!
Yes, this. The assumption of certain death outside during threadfall, and the supposed inate fear humans have of Thread just doesn’t work. If only a few Thread get through for the ground crews, you could just run away. It falls slow enough. For books, you can get away with that. But film would need to rework Thread significantly.
You’re probably right, but I was trying to say it deserves more recognition. I don’t think it would be a good TV show either. And Eragon has put me off all dragon-related adaptations I think!
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.
Although I think deals keep falling through because the author wants full creative control.
I mean looking at the ruins of the Game of Thrones franchise that David Benioff and D. B. Weiss left behind, maybe that’s not such a bad idea.
Stormlight has to be an anime. Especially for the “magical girl Kaladin” memes
Old Man’s War
Tom Godwin’s The Survivors, it’s pretty short so they could do their thing where they always mess with the story and it wouldn’t have much effect.
Asimov’s Robots stories, particularly those with Powell and Donovan, US Robots, etc could be the basis for a cool series, ideally retro-futuristic…
Surely you’ve seen the 100% faithful adaption, “Will Smith Shoots Stuff”?
And apparently Amazon made an adaptation of Foundation, not that I’ve watched it yet. Not sure if I even want to, part of the charm is how long ago it was written and how crazy some parts of it are
I watched the first couple of episodes of Amazon’s foundation… Then I abandoned it
Almost anything from Neal Stephenson.
Seveneves would be the bomb (eta : they could even do the last part as a separate animated short)
First part as a movie, second part as a tabletop roleplaying setting
Yeah, it certainly doesn’t hold up as well as the “origin” story, but silly though it was I liked the last part of Seveneves. It could definitely work as an animation.
FALL could as well, or at least kind of a Tron-like thing.
Seveneves is functionally two separate books jammed together. I hope they do the serious TV show on just the first book.
Seconded.
I’ve lost faith in adaptations of books
I don’t mind it if it’s a labour of misguided love, like Stephen King’s many many many hit-or-miss film adaptations pre-2020.
I do mind being told repeatedly that I should like it by viral media, it being overhyped to the point of ridiculousness, it being given the full red carpet treatment by one of the two main studios, and then when I actually watch it it’s been changed to suit some audience mass appeal (e.g. make the clown scarier / less scary / not like that) .
I guess what I’m saying is, I like it when books are adapted into films where the director can do whatever the hell they want, for good or for worse, without the studio whipping them to appeal to the mass audience, many who weren’t even fans until they were told to be 5 minutes ago.
The Dark Tower.
Whatever that monstrosity they released a few years ago was doesn’t count.
Any of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
There are a couple animated adaptations of some of the books, and the live-action adaptation of Hogfather is pretty good!
There’s also a Sky One live action of Color of Magic and Going Postal that are pretty solid.
Edit: Thanks Madjo!
Sky One, not BBC.
Hyperion series. That thing’s gonna be hard to adapt though.
I would love a true to the book series of World War Z. I’m not even sure anyone involved with that movie read the book. It should be a 3 season HBO series with an episode for each persons vignette. Intros and outros of each episode has the recurring reporter meeting the person and starting his recording as they launch into their narrative of what happened. If you need more episodes, just write additional vignettes. Season 1 is the events that lead up to the outbreak, season 2 is the war itself, season 3 is the aftermath. I’m pretty sure this is what Max Brooks was writing towards. It could be amazing.
