From File 770 I happened across a link to this tidbit:
Well, okay. But I can think of ten SFF books that would be waaaay cooler as a television series than Stranger. In no particular order, or rather in the order I thought of them —
1. Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells
2. The Fall of Ile-Rien by Martha Wells
3. The Touchstone trilogy by Andrea Höst
4. And All the Stars by Andrea Höst
5. Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly
6. The Thousand Names by Django Wexler
7. Practically anything by Lois McMaster Bujold, but if I had to pick, um … how about starting with The Warrior’s Apprentice. I guess.
8. Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon
9. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Wouldn’t that be a lot of fun?
And, I don’t know, how about —
10. Black Dog, by yours truly
Wow, that was easy. I could probably come up with a list of 100 before I would even start to get close to thinking about Stranger, which I must confess was never one of my favorites and hasn’t held up at all with re-reads. If I were determined to do a Heinlein book, it certainly wouldn’t be my choice. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress strikes me as a much better choice.
Granted, I’m not thinking about how expensive the sets and special effects would be. But for what, at least half of the books listed above, I wouldn’t think that would be prohibitive.
Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath to see Stranger on Syfy.
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Wow. Stranger is a strange selection. It is slow moving, with very few places where glorious CGI would help. MiaHM is a much better choice. Butterfly people in a huge bubble! Vistas of black and grey! And Death of the Necromancer would be a fantastic atmospheric horror movie. Maybe in black and white?
…Speaking of which, time to go re-watch “Wages of Fear.”
SIGH. (not a Heinlein fan)
What about the Foreigner series? I mean, it seems like they combine action & political intrigue in a way that fits so well into the current Game of Thrones landscape.
Maureen, I would LOVE to see that! I bet they could make a screen adaptation that would be faster paced than the books, though I’d personally want to keep quite a bit of the introspection — Bran could write reports and journal entries and stuff. The visuals could be wonderful! Oh, what a great idea and what a shame that TV execs haven’t thought of it (as far as we know).
Pete, that’s what I thought. It’s just not a very appealing story to me, none of the characters really work for me now that I’m an adult, the story is slow and frankly boring, and nothing about the book lends itself to visual artistry.
Although it’s been a while since I read it, to be fair.
Also, yes, I would enjoy seeing Necromancer in black and white.
I would just love to see Black Dog as a series. But House of Shadows would also make an excellent movie. It has so many cool elements (especially the cats!)
Becky Chambers’ book would be a particularly good one because the story is so much more about the characters and the world, rather than the plot. It’d be easy to make it into a sci fi hangout show.