Ask Lemmy

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deserves a good adaptation, rather than that trash movie and that too short BBC series.

• Hyperion Cantos.

• Neuromancer.

Every single thing Brandon Sanderson ever wrote

Always felt like that Eragon series could have been good. Too bad they never made a movie for it. Never once. I'm sure it would have been solid if they had. But they didn't.

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.

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.

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.

Ringworld :)

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...

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.

The original TSR Dragonlance D&D series from the '80s by Weis and Hickman.

Any of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

I would have loved Name of the Wind, but that lazy fuck Rothfuss is going the way of George Reorge Reorge Martin: he's been promising book 3 for a decade and can't finish it.

The Dark Tower.

Whatever that monstrosity they released a few years ago was doesn't count.

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.

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.

Almost anything from Neal Stephenson.

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...

The Red Rising series would be an awesome TV show. Each of the 6 (so far) books would be excellent as long seasons.

Infinite Jest. Just for the sheer impossibility of any attempt to do so :-)

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.

A well-done Brothers Karamazov could put your Downton Abbeys and Bridgertons to shame.

Maybe call it "Three Brothers..."

Hyperion series. That thing's gonna be hard to adapt though.

Any Batman story that focuses more on how he's mainly a detective and only breaks out the concussion gloves if he's attacked or there's literally no other way to resolve the situation at hand?

Society thinks he's The Punisher in a funny hat because of those damned nolanverse films.

Blood Meridian (decades of false starts not withstanding).

One of my favorite books is called Inherit the Stars.

Mankind is starting to reach out into the solar system, but finds a man on the moon entombed in a space suit, and he's been dead for 50,000 years.

It'd make a pretty good movie, 2 hours tops.

It does one of my favorite things, by strongly blending two genres: mystery, and sci-fi. A sci-fi show, movie, or book that's purely sci-fi is rarely good. Same goes for fantasy. Season 1 of Game of Thrones is good because it's primarily a mystery/drama story in a fantasy setting. A New Hope is great because it's a western, coming-of-age story in a sci-fi setting. Rebel Moon is garbage (for many reasons) because it's pure sci-fi schlock with no nuance.

Any Brandon Sanderson books of course.

House of leaves.

They need to do a good Dark Tower series. Make it a mini-series or a series of films.

Not a book, but a true story from WW2:

5 May 1945 Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Lieut. John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers led by Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, and recently freed French prisoners of war defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castle_Itter?wprov=sfla1

The Lies of Locke Lamora is just begging for an Ocean's Eleven-type treatment.

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.

Lot of good ones in here. Only idea I can think of is The Black Company. Not specifically to follow Croakers story either. Could be about battles and drama of the past from the annals.

Assassin's trilogy by Robin Hobb.

Would love to see (and probably be disappointed by) a Revelation Space adaptation.

The Rama Series by Arthur C Clarke

Lord of Light, high sci Fi mashed with epic Indian mythology and eastern philosophy.

First Law series by Joe Abercrombie