I thought of one, and being uncertain, I looked up Joyce on the imdb, to see if it had been done. They listed a 2000 Danish effort called The Wake. Seven hours and forty two minutes long. Silent. That must be pretty breathtaking. Or maybe just unendurable.
Actually, I thought Wishbone pulled it off pretty well…
The ones I’d like to see are best delt with as SciFy Channel miniseries
StarRigger/Red Limit Freeway/Paradox Alley by John DeChancie
Terms of Enlistment series by Marko Kloos
I read this and immediately thought that Morgan Freeman or David Attenborough would be the perfect narrator for the Centuries.
This is the quote referenced, tell me who you hear reading it in voice-over.
“We are the centuries… We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient impregnated) artifacts. We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do – Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris, telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve and a traveling salesman called Lucifer. We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries. Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon’s slap, seek manhood, taste a little godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb: (Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.) Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens – and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn’t the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH! – an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)”
Ah, yes. When I want to see a really good adaptation of my favorite literature, I like to see it performed with a Jack Russell terrier in the lead role. I still fondly recall Wishbone in A Man for All Seasons.
His rendition of Dysart in Equus was technically good, but I kept being afraid that the horses would step on him.
Rumor has it that, if they had gone on to do one more season, Wishbone would have done Caligula.
Nonsense.
It was to be I, Claudius
Kem Nunns “surf noir”…Tapping the Source, Dogs of Winter…they tried before and it ended up as Point Break :smack: although he wasn’t directly involved.
(he ended up writing John from Cincinnati, which i guess was horrible. He also wrote screenplays for Sons of Anarchy, which I wasn’t interested in, but seemed to do well.)
another vote for William S. Gibsons first 3 books, quite visual.
And Stevensons Snow Crash etc…although IMHO his later stuff after Crytononimicon was so wordy and weird I had a hard time reading it and abandoned him…
I’m going to be semi-onboard and counter-propose his Bridge trilogy. That’s a universe that’s closer to what we may recognize, and a bit more externalized (less cyberspace stuff, so overdone). And IMHO, the stories are a little more compelling.
Someone British. Bill Nighy?
Ah yes always mix those two up.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn would make a great movie or TV series. Same with The Elementals by Michael McDowell.
I’d love to see a big-screen/small-screen adaptation of Johannes Cabal the Necromancer.
The Paper Grail by James Blaylock
Has Good Omens been mentioned?
Scalzi’s Old Man’s War.
Damn. I just found audio of Robert Carlyle reading from some part of Canticle. Very unsettling. He needs to stick to his native accent.
Thanks, I saw that, but forgot to mention I was thinking rather about a modern film adaptation. My bad.
Try reading Baking Cakes in Kigali and not picture a movie starring Whoopi Goldberg.
I want this so bad just for the scene where the surfer smacks into a skyscraper.
Good choice.
Production Hell:
Freeman and Attenborough are both great narrators, of course… but to me, that monologue is totally Cate Blanchett.
Judy Dench?