That seems common–books are optioned, then the project never gets out of the ground. Then the options are sold again for X number of years, and rinse and repeat.
Man, I’ve been stuck in this place where I really want to read those books (somehow I missed them), but I write SFF too and have some near-future thoughts that I don’t want to get tangled up with his stuff. (Part of the reason I went back and read the Chronicles of Amber was to keep my mind away from modern SFF while I work on projects.)
Some day I think I’ll just have to give in and read it and my own stuff is too close to his…oh well. I feel like I’d enjoy his work based on what everyone says about it.
I have to reread that series. I loved it, but it’s not easy to digest in one sitting.
I kinda think it’d do better as a high-concept anime, like the original Ghost in the Shell anime. I think some of the concepts/cultures would be easier to render in animated form than live action.
The book Ender’s Game has a psychological component that it’s nigh-impossible to nail in a visual medium with child actors. The story works in book form because books are the closest thing we have to telepathy, but it’s harder to do in a visual medium simply because visual storytelling is different from written storytelling.
You could probably do the movie with really good adult actors–but most of the cast are children. And really good child actors are rare to come by–you’re lucky to have one, much less multiple. And when the cast is made entirely up of children who are all supposed to be geniuses, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get the casting and talent you need.
The Ender’s Game movie wasn’t terrible–it was surprisingly watchable compared to other adaptations of other books–but it didn’t come close to nailing the feel of the book.
Reminds me of how things like flood myths might have actually come from times of great natural disasters that got passed down in stories.
I’ve also always wondered if stories about elves, dwarves, etc. are ancient, tattered memories of prehistoric times when homo sapiens was not the only hominid walking the earth.
We overlapped with Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo floresiensis, etc. (And interbred. nationalgeographic.com/…/enigmatic-human-relative… ) So there was a time when anatomically modern humans walked the earth when other almost-human-but-not species still lived.
And it’s always seemed to me the variety of almost-humans in mythology from around the world might be in some cases an ancient memory of that.
It doesn’t seem likely–but you never know, which is why I thought raising the question might be useful. As you said, you’re not allowed to import lots of stuff…which, if you poured all your food money into food you’re bringing with you, would be devastating to find out at the last moment. Esp. if you were on a tight budget to begin with.
Funny thing…being short, I’m also not that strong. I buy furniture that I have the strength to put together/take apart and move solo, without helpers. Camping tables are lightweight and sturdy enough, and best thing–I can move them around with ease, I don’t even break a sweat which is awesome.
I promise this isn’t a “OMG, AI!” question. But it involves kinda that thing.
A long time ago–probably over 15 years–I once read an article about some sort of…“evolved”?..method of generating novel antenna designs. Basically, the article said that the researchers said they had an algorithm or computer “evolve” some potential designs, and it spat out this really weird unintuitive design that was nothing like the human made designs. But it ended up working fantastically well or something when they actually prototyped it and tried it?
Thanks that was a great analysis. Once you started in I did recall about half those details, but mostly I guess it needs to go on my reread pile since I’ve forgotten so much.
I find, when I re-read, one thing that stays with me is how vibrant and beautiful her narration is. I think the books are still worth reading, but that modern audiences who’ve been participating in more modern discussions around storytelling would recoil at some of the bits we sort of just accepted as being “normal”, as standards for what is “normal” have shifted. The spirit of the books always was forward-thinking, even if she got some stuff wrong.
When Anne McCaffrey did a signing in Chicago when she won her Grand Master award, I had a battered copy of Damia (from her Talents series), and she told me Afra Lyon was her own 2nd favorite character, behind Robinton.
I was on “The New Kitchen Table”, which is where her online fandom ended up in the late 90s for a while, but her fandom was HUGE and had already been around for nigh 20 years with Weyrfest and all at Dragon*Con so aside from the one in-person comment (after I waited hours in a line that twined around the bookstore–the only time since that I’ve seen a bookstore event line that long was for a Harry Potter release), I was very much on the periphery of the fandom vs. those who’d been in it for 20 years already.
In my experience, this usually fills in for something that people need to be true.
I’m not religious, but I’ve noticed religion can (successfully) act as a mental buffer to help people through hard times. To keep them from simply clocking themselves out during the lowest of lows.
Whether someone else likes that idea or not because it’s “lies” doesn’t really matter if it’s a technique for pure animal survival that works for some members of a species.
Personally, I’ve seen a lot of damage done to perfectly good people done via religious institutions, so I’d prefer if a formalized network of mental health services that was affordable and accessible existed. But, again, my preferences for the type of system that performs a function aren’t going to erase what happens in real life with real people faced with survival problems on the ground.
Stranger in a Strange Land was popular enough and written late enough in Heinlein’s career that I’d be somewhat surprised if movie options truly earned him more than book sales (I mean, “stranger in a strange land” and “grok” both entered common parlance)–then again, it’s possible Heinlein got a shit contract for that book, or there were some heavy-hitters optioning the movie for tons of money even if it never got made. He was savvy enough too that he might have jacked up the cost of optioning the book a lot if it was getting a lot of Hollywood nibbles. So maybe it’s not urban legend.
I bet some sci-fi author out there knows if it’s true or not.
I read the original two trilogies in the 80s so I’ve forgotten some bits, but what were the things that would be problematic today? I don’t think I remember any details relating to the above. Lessa is always one of the first people I think of when someone says “so and so was the first strong woman in scifi” and it’s a character that came 30+ years later.
So, when the books were originally published, it actually was pretty feminist/forward-thinking that Lessa got to lead Benden Weyr as an equal partner, and she’s the one that saved Pern, and she’s the heroine who gets songs sung about her. Sure, F’lar “saved” her by slaying Fax and bringing her to Benden, but she mind-manipulated him into it so it was really her using him as her tool, and then she went on to save the WORLD all on her own. And that was all pretty forward-thinking, when most SFF of the era had ladies being damsels in distress, or running around in chainmail bikinis.
The bits that haven’t aged well today is how Anne McCaffrey writes romance. Basically, back when the books were written, there was this cultural trope that “good” women didn’t want sex. Like, even if the main gal obviously wanted the romantic lead, you had to put up a show of resisting, of saying no, for some dramatic tension or something, because if you said yes too quickly you were a slutty slut just slutting around or the like. Good girls don’t say yes, even to the people they want, too quickly. And it was “romantic” for the man to be pushy and not take no for an answer.
So McCaffrey has a lot of her lead men “ravishing” their partners in some way after the female resists or says no, which reads as really rapey with today’s understanding of sex and consent. F’lar grabs and shakes Lessa physically at times (I don’t recall if he outright hits her at all or not–he might, once or twice. I’d have to re-read). And Jaxom basically rapes Corana–she says no, but he’s just so horned up by dragons and goes ahead anyway, and the whole scene seems to be some attempt by the author to “show” that Jaxom is as virile a lead as any other dragonman, even if Ruth is asexual. It reads as if she were afraid Ruth not being a bronze would make people doubt Jaxom’s manhood or something, so she writes a scene to supposedly “prove” it.
And then the dragonlust thing during mating flights initially suggests between the lines the queen rider is going to have sex with the bronzerider whose dragon catches her queen, whether she wants to or not. “Aliens made us do it” is totally an old-school SFF trope especially any time a human or alien is telepathic, but again, in modern eyes it’s super-rapey since consent and being able to say no is important.
McCaffrey rolled the rapey sort of thing back in later Pern books as social mores changed going into the 90s–but the books written in the 60s and 70s mostly didn’t age great when it came to romance/sex. So there’s inconsistencies between the Pern portrayed in the early Pern books, vs. the ones written before her death in the 2000s, with the early Pern having some of the “heros” doing kinda awful things, and the later ones sort of forgetting or erasing that.
I don’t think it’d be going against the spirit of the books to update the mores here, though, for a modern audience. Anne McCaffrey was obviously trying to be forward-thinking with certain things, and it’s honestly really hard to be ahead of your time when it comes to the social/cultural stuff, esp. in the pre-internet era.
Personally, if I were to update Pern for a modern audience, I’d keep some of the dragon mating stuff, like I’d purposefully keep some of the huge downsides of being telepathically bonded to a mind that is not fully human and which can cause a human to act in inhuman ways when the dragon gets over-emotional. Mostly so there can be this cultural tension between the Weyrs and the Holds so that the Oldtimer storylines work better. Dramatically-speaking, it’d be a great scene to watch a dragon get hurt–but it’s the dragonman howling and clutching his eye or something, when he clearly isn’t bleeding at all and is getting feedback from his dragon. (Or, dragonwoman…I think I’m recalling Brekke right there.) And there’d be a huge contrast between the weyrs who have fluid relationships with other riders that start and stop on a whim, and the Holds that are very traditional and still do arranged marriages and such.
Also, if the Weyrs are seen as hotbeds of greed and depravity, it’ll be easier to take Pern through a story such as Dragonquest where the Holds and Halls start to rebel against the people who saved them from thread. The Oldtimer storylines from the books. Cultural friction, where the planet’s heroes also act in ways that are strange and different to ordinary men and women, and a way to play with modern cultural concerns too.
But I’d do away with things like the Jaxom and Corana plotline because there’s tons of other ways to make Jaxom an appealing lead character that don’t involve the future Lord of Ruatha Hold abusing his power over a peasant girl. I don’t think a modern audience would consider Jaxom weak or feminine just because Ruth is ace/nonbinary. In fact, him having a possibly nonbinary dragon might be a super-interesting story to follow. ::shrug::
Fitz, Althea, or the entire series as a whole with all the casts?
I feel like it’d be hard to adapt Robin Hobb’s work, mostly because it’d be so easy to get the wrong tone. She has a very specific tone with her work, and I have no idea how one would work it for TV without making the entire series too light or too dark.