I think Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn universe would work well as a series. There’s actually a lot of magic, but it’s very physical and action-y magic. And it has a concrete-ness to the magic that can be explained to the viewer in simple terms.
I’ll admit, I never want to see an Inquisitor on screen though. Blech.
I feel like the constant changing characters would make it a little difficult. Maybe do it American Horror Story style and have each season be a jump with the same actors playing different characters.
They wanted to capitalize on the not yet aired GoT, and so created, conceptualized, filmed, and produced a series 16 days before its competitor came out?
I didn’t see it, but might someday. IMHO GoT is more intriguing because it’s not a story that has been done many times before, but “with a twist” each time.
I don’t have cable, but recall that HBO and Starz are separate where I lived. Encore came with Starz. HBO and Starz together sounds great!
GoT is like 5% torture scenes.
(10% boobs, 20% travelling, 30% gore, 30% courtroom intrigue, and 5% HODOR)
I think the major hurtle with them is that they’re just a little bit too funny to be a serious-most-of-the-time drama like GoT but are way too dark to even be a black comedy. I think the “comedies where terrible things happen to people” thing works a little better in the UK, but I couldn’t really see them being made by a major US network.
I don’t think it is any funnier than GoT (TV show), the only difference is the funny stuff is actually in the book rather than mostly made up for TV.
I thought Game of Thrones was the next Rome.
I would nominate Roger Zelazny’s “Chronicles of Amber” series. It’s got everything Game of Thrones has, in spades. Dynastic struggle for succession … of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE! Strong, well developed characters who will DO ANYTHING to win? Oh, YEAH, baby!
This. A great idea for a series.
I recommend Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry. Part modern, part a medieval world, with modern sensibilities but doom waiting around the corner. To me, Guy Gavriel Kay is the best writer in English today. I adore his Tigana, but it’s a stand-alone book.
Amber would be OK if they ditch all the 1970’s slang. I love Zelazny with a passion, but a lot of the dialog in Amber hasn’t aged well (and to be honest, it’s not his best work to begin with).
I’m a big fan of Kay, and of *Tigana *in particular - who’d have thought? - but I’m not sure the Tapestry would work on TV. It’s just too much: too much magic, too much pilfered mythology, too much melodrama. Even many Kay fans think a little Tapestry goes a long way.
I love Kay but didn’t read beyond the first book of the Tapestry. I thought it was pretty bad.
I’d love to see Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion series. Not sure you could get away with it, though. None of the plots really make sense without going into details of the Five Gods, and I can just see Christian militants going berserk over the pagan theology.
If it’s more George R.R. Martin the HBO suits want, his novel Fevre Dream (vampires along the Mississippi before the Civil War) would make a great miniseries; likewise Tuf Voyaging (a sf environmental satire set in the distant future). Martin’s even said that the actor who plays Varys would be well-suited to play the lead character, Haviland Tuf.
Tolkien’s The Silmarillion could easily be made into a multiple-season series. Not as much sex, unless that’s added, but plenty of bloodshed and epic adventure. With a big budget and the right casting, I’d be all over that.
Here’s an idea to strike horror in us all: What if it’s Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series?
:eek:…:eek:…:eek:…:eek:…:eek:
Oh my God, that’s what they’re going to do, isn’t it?
As much as I’d love to see a Mistborn series, I think it’s got two problems: First, the magic in the universe is pretty easily explained in text, but on screen, it’s either going to lead to a lot of repetitive exposition, either to remind current viewers, or introduce new ones, to what’s going on, or it will have to rely on people turning to the Internet for explanation. And unlike GoT, the magic in the Mistborn universe is pretty foreign to what people are familiar with. In GoT, we get dragons and zombie-ish wights, already pretty familiar concepts, and even then we get them only occasionally. The story, so far at least, is really about the politics and people. In the Mistborn series, though, the magic is much more unique to that particular universe, more central to the story, and gets used a lot more frequently.
But I think the bigger problem is exactly what you said: the magic is very action-y. Combine that with how frequently it’s employed, and the special effects and stunts required are just going to make such a television series unattractive budget-wise. Or it will wind up poorly done.
Ooh, good one. I’m also a fan of his Rigante series… those might make for good TV. Split it up into two separate series, since there’s a few hundred years or so between the first two and second two books. Good character moments, and a couple of big fight scenes that they could spend most of the budget on. Not a lot of magic, except maybe for the end of the fourth book.
How about Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun? Or Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber?
OK, so seriously,what do I win here?
Two for two, pretty impressive.
Yes. Pushing and pulling are really the ones that would be most effects-heavy, and there’s a LOT of that. The rest of them are more in the non-visual category, which has its own problems. How do you convey that someone is soothing or rioting? Pewter can be shown by the usual tropes for great strength or balance or speed, but that’s not anywhere near as dramatic as pushing or pulling. I’d love to see it done, though.
How about the Empire trilogy, by Janny Wurts and Raymond Feist?