I didn’t read this series when I was a kid, but I finally got around to reading Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber.
Given it’s an older series, I wasn’t sure how much I’d like it (some of those older series age horribly), but it was actually REALLY good still, and the few minor things that’d aged too much wouldn’t be hard to update for a modern audience.
But the concept of Amber is fantastic, Corwin’s behavior and arc perfect, and I think a TV series could do it justice nowadays. Man, some CGI artists could do some beautiful work depicting a hellride through shadow.
I also would really, really love to see Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern adapted…but there’s a few parts that have aged pretty badly, so it’d need careful handling of things like Lessa and F’lar’s relationship and such. And maybe, you know, keep Jaxom the hell away from Corana.
But I think the whole idea of threadfall, and Impressing dragons, could be done beautifully on the screen. I think a run from Dragonflight to All The Weyrs of Pern (including the Harper Hall Trilogy) could be done. (Then leave the later books out, they don’t really add much, lol.)
The series would need a top-notch composer scoring it, though. I’d vote for Natalie Holt. She did wonderfully with Loki, and it’d be a nice touch having a woman score the series that’d have the Harper Hall Trilogy included in it.
Hyperion Cantos (Dan Simmons)
Any of the Xeelee series (Stephen Baxter)
Quantum Magician series (Derek Künsken)
Second the hyperion cantos. I’m surprised it’s not mentioned more
Dan Simmons is an incredible author, I really should check more of his books out. The only other ones I read (before Hyperion actually) were the Ilium / Olympos ones which were very enjoyable.
Quantum Magician is really cool. If it was made into a movie it would look like The Mechanic or the Equalizer
Hyperion would be cool but for gods sake they better stop after the second book.
Aww. I loved all three, though perhaps that opinion is formed in some way because I was heavily into learning about Buddhism at the time.
There’s 4 aren’t there? Fair enough, I liked his writing but a third of the way through the 4th book I realized I didn’t give a shit about the characters anymore.
The age dynamic between them is really fucking gross and pointless too.
That first book was amazing though, no doubt about it.
xD fair point. I guess we all have different tolerances for different stuff. I was dating women in their 40s when I was in my 20s so maybe the age gap stuff flew over my head when I read them. I just finished a really enjoyable book by Stephen Baxter called ‘World Engines’, the main character also appears in other books by him and I really, really struggled with it purely based on the character.
He’s called Malenfant, and would you believe it, he’s bad-tempered! ‘Malenfant grunted:’, ‘Malenfant snorted’, Malenfant scowled, oh very subtle Stephen. He is capable of imagining such diverse creatures, thought patterns and genuine ‘hard sci’ concepts, then went with ‘grumpy old man’ for the protag. There’s enough grumpy old men running the place already, I’d prefer my fiction to be a respite from that!
Looking forward to his next book about a protaganist paralysed by indecision called Soppy McSimpleton.