My vote would first go to CalMeacham’s choices - I second your vote for Bester’s novels. Great stuff and dynamically plotted.
My less-well-known choice would go to Liege-Killer by Christopher Hinz. I have always loved this book for the fast-moving thriller that it tries to be - in other words, it doesn’t do anything big and fancy, but what a great plot:
Thousands of years in the future, humanity lives in space stations ringing the Earth, which was blasted into nuclear/biological ruin during a war to end all wars. The war was against the Paratwa, a laboratory-developed race of telepathically linked pair-humans, bred as weapons who then took over. The decimation of the Earth was thought to have eliminated the Paratwa until a lone witness sees a murder and the description of the two killers sounds suspiciously like a paratwa. Desperate, the science section researches its archives, where it comes across a note “if you encounter a Paratwa, resuscitate statis cell x.” They locate it and awaken two indivduals in it - Paratwa hunters. And the chase begins."
Moves superfast with an interesting enough world to support a movie - I always read it thinking it could be as fun and interesting as the Terminator movies, on a popcorn-munching level…
William Sleator’s Interstellar Pig and its follow-up, Parasite Pig, could be a lot of fun. Amazed it hasn’t been optioned yet.
Octavia Butler’s Kindred could be very good if they got Angela Bassett to play the time tossed Diana; although another younger actress who could pull it ff might be Nona Gaye cast Edward Norton against type as the abusive Rufus. I think Thomas Gibson might be an interesting choice to play Diana’s husband.
Butler’s Wild Seed could work if they could get good voice actor to portray the immortal parasitic Doro as he ‘leaps’ from character to character: I always did like the voice of the guy who played Oz’s Adebisi, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje.
Yeah, the Stainless Steel Rat books might be a good choice. Not too deep or anything–deepness in a book is hard to convey in a movie.
(Now that I’m learning about screenwriting, I can see why. Things in a screenplay must be visual–no interior monologues or vast chunks of exposition or anything–which is why I thought that LORD OF THE RINGS was essentially unfilmable, and I’m amazed that Jackson did as good a job as he did, even though I have major issues with some of his choices… but that’s another thread.)
And doind the Rat books would be a chance to put Esperanto in a movie again [sub]not that I’m biased or anything.[/sub]
Spider Robinson’s Callahan series would be awesome as a movie if done right, what with Mickey Finn, time traveling, the Lucky Duck, and telepathy, just off the top of my head. However, it probably wouldn’t be done right, and probably also wouldn’t be very faithful to the books.
And I’d like to Mention the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, sadly, they have had so many elements ripped off by other movies over the years that it would probubly look stale by the time it gets made faithfully.
I’d love to see some sword fights with the Tharks, heck throw in some Bantoomians and the “Chessmen” scenario and I think you’ve got a hell of a movie.
Okay, got a few other ideas. People have mentioned Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, but there are some other series of hers that I think would do pretty well on screen.
Crystal singer. Not that much action in these books, a lot of character stuff, but there’d be some great opportunities for CGI cinematography out in the ballybran ranges, and a lot of good drama, especially off-planet. Drawing a fine-line for exactly how forgetful to make singers is a must.
Ireta/planet pirate books. starting with dinosaur planet probably. Do I really need to spell it out for anyone who’s read the books?
Back in the 1930s, somebody animated a few brief bits of Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars stories. I’ve seen the bits, and the looked great. I don’t recall who did them – they look kinda like the Fleischer studio style, but Cabarga doesn’t mention them in his book (I don’t think). I seem to recall that Burroughs liked them, too. But they apparently couldn’t get funding. Too bad. Hand-drawn animation was the CGI of the 1930s, and until recently this was the best way to do it.
Another good one might be that book by Andre Norton, the one with the intelligent cat-descendants known as the People, Barkers (dogs), Tuskers (pigs?) and Rattons (rats), living in a world where humans have been wiped out by disease or a final war. The People start exploring the ruins of the Human city, and one day a Human ship arrived looking for their ancestors…
We have the CGI to do the People and the other species. There’s good action as Furtig, one of the people, is banished from his tribe after losing a ceremonial fight for a mate. He goes to explore one of the ruins, looking for a legendary member of the People who has been exploring them and sending back technical gifts. He’s ambushed by the Rattons, escapes with another prisoner, and wakes up among strangely-advanced People…
The already mentioned Childhood’s End was my first pick, but I’d also like to see a movie for the Rings of the Master series, by Jack L. Chalker. I can’t even begin to imagine what a nightmare the casting would be though. You’ve got about 10 main characters, one of whom keeps changing form, and the others are almost all transformed at some point.
I think several of Stephenson’s books could be made into great movies - Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Zodiac. Maybe Interface. I’ve wondered if there’s a way to do a movie of Cryptonomicon. It seems like there’s way too much material for a single film, but I had the idea that it could be split into 2: one for the WWII stuff, and the other for the modern-day stuff. The two timelines are self-contained enough to each make for a complete story, and when you see both you get all the connections. Call them Cryptonomicon Alpha and Cryptonomicon Omega or something.
They’re already making an Ender’s Game movie. Apparently it is going to include material from both Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow, so that may help with the limited settings.
It’s been awhile since I’ve read it, but from what I remember, I think Pohl & Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants could, with appropriate modernization, be made both exciting and relevant.
Another vote for Spider Robinson here - I’m thinking of TELEMPATH or perhaps the MINDKILLER/TIME PRESSURE set.
Possibly Denzel Washington as the lead in TELEMPATH…maybe a bit too old in that role though.
