My candidate would be a five-book series, The Demon Princes by Jack Vance, where Kirth Gersen tracks down the five so-called Demon Princes that killed his parents: Attel Malagate the Woe, Kokor Hekkus, Viole Falushe, Lens Larque and Howard Allan Treesong.
One of the great classics of science fiction, I’ve always thought it would make a wonderful cinematic experience in the right hands. I did hear that Vance has a distrust of Hollywood, for which one can easily forgive him. I live in hope though.
An interesting choice. I personally think that Vance’s Planet of Adventure novels (City of the Chasch, Servants of the Wankh, The Dirdir, and The Pnume) would make a fine series. Lots of scope for CGI aliens there.
Of course, the novel that would make the best movie is Bester’s The Stars My Destination. I would loooooove to see a good movie made from it. Which is why I hope Hollywood never does one.
I don’t think either Ringworld or Rendevous with Rama are filmable. They’re both basically exploration stories. To do them right, it would cost $100 million+, and I don’t think there’s enough conflict in the stories to draw enough people to make the cost worthwhile for a studio. They’re basically niche movies. My idea would be to do them animated, which would be cheaper and which would be cool with their audiences.
It might be possible to do Gateway live action, but I think animated would be better for that one, too.
Actually, I am serious, this might be the single best book in the history of Sci-Fi. I think it is still relevant today.
We got revolution, war, political intrigue, economics lessons, physics lessons, an AI supercomputer, a penal colony, space colonization and lessons in forming revolutionary cells. Laser fight and tossing rocks would be way cool. The characters are fleshed out in quick order.
It might need some reconceptualizing, however. Kinda hard, nowadays, to sell the premise that the Earth is using the Moon as a farm. Or that the Lunar colony is thereby doomed to starvation because of a water deficit. Only way the Moon will ever be colonized on that scale is if there’s a way to make water out of local materials; which there probably is.
Footfall could make a fairly good movie. It wasn’t all that good as a book, so no problem with the fan base, either. Gotta add a bit of sex interest, though.
The thing about “The Stars My Destination” is that some of the best stuff takes place in the dark, or in the minds of the players. Good reading, sure, good cinema, maybe not.
Charlise Theron can play Olivia Prestigan, though, and I won’t mind. And Jessica Alba for the telepath chick, whose name I cannot remember.
The advertisements for Jumper make me wish for a screen adaptation of The Stars My Destination . I also wouldn’t mind seeing if someone could bring Zelazny’s Amber series to the big screen.
