Sci Fi Channel Plans 'Earthsea' Miniseries

Gumpy writes "The Sci-Fi Channel has started producing a TV miniseries based on the first two books of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series. The Earthsea miniseries is supposed to start on the Sci Fi Channel in December 2004."

Comments

DragonLance

[ruronikenshin83]

I'd personally rather see a DragonLance miniseries.

Re:DragonLance

[B'Trey]

The Earthsea series is one of the defining series of fantasy. It is a classic in every sense of he word. The Dragonlance series is mildly entertaining escapist fiction with stock characters and a predictable plot. A Dragonlance movie or series might be amusing, but it wouldn't be near as significant an event.

Re:DragonLance

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dragonlance series is mildly entertaining escapist fiction with stock characters and a predictable plot. A Dragonlance movie or series might be amusing, but it wouldn't be near as significant an event.

Just replace dragonlance with belgariad, I enjoyed these books as a teen only to reread them and realize that what I once thought was fantastic foreshadowing, was more along the lines of a plot summary, and the characters were written to be oblivious to it. Its as if the prophacy were as follows

A great hero will come, he is standing right beside you, he is that kid, you can't miss him, yes him, the one pointing to himself and shaking his head, yes he is the next great wizard and hero and is going to marry that chick over their, yeah her. He is going to defeat the big bad guy, yeah that one over there, yes you mr brooding arch type, the string bean kid is going to whip your butt. Just to make this more prophecy like, it will all happen after the sun rises in the east, your cat coughs up a fur ball that looks like jay leno, and the ground hog sees his shadow runs and hides but spring come early anyways because he is in fact just a ground hog and not soothsayer of doom and weather.

Re:DragonLance

[blancolioni]

I'd personally rather see a DragonLance miniseries.

What a bizarre non-sequitur.

Earthsea is widely regarded as a classic, and not just within the genre. Dragonlance is somebody's D&D campaign written up with pedestrian prose, shallow characterisation and a corny plot.

Though I admit Ged doesn't roll nearly as many natural 20s as whoever those PCs were.

Re:DragonLance

[B'Trey]

Narnia is escapist and Dragonlance is not? Surely you're trolling.

Re:DragonLance

[BJH]

Heh. I agree with you.
I tried re-reading the Belgariad just recently, nearly twenty years after I initially read it.
I loved it when I was a pre-teen; now it just gets up my nose. All the twee repartee, the fantasy cliches piled on top of each other, the utter lack of anything approaching suspense in the plot... taken all together, the books are just unbearable.

Re:DragonLance

[jd142]

There is definitely a stock element to some of the characters

The big problem I had with the books is that not only are the characters stock characters, but the world they lives in demand that they be that way. Any person born in *that* country must act like this. Sure, it made sense within the book that the people would be affected by their patron god and take after him in personality, but it made the characters that much flatter. Not only are they stock, but they can never grow beyond it because they are limited by the rules of the world they live in.

Rereading the Belgariad and the Mallorean is like reading a checklist. You just check things off as you go. Flowers supposed to bloom? Check. Person supposed to be saved? Check. Evil defeated? Check.

Re:DragonLance

[B'Trey]

Escapist fiction is writing with no other pretense than to entertain. It's meant to distract you from your day to day existence. It doesn't attempt to address any issues; it doesn't attempt to teach any lessons; it has no theme or moral; it says absolutely nothing about the human condition. It's simply fun to read.

The Chronicles of Narnia are children's literature but they are most definitely literature. They address and examine a number of moral and ethical issues. Their purpose is to teach children WHILE they entertain, not just to while away some time.

Re:DragonLance

[dustmote]

Thank you. To follow up the above poster, the Chronicles of Narnia are widely considered classics of children's literature, and the series is an allegory to the religious themes that Lewis explored much more fully in his adult writing. They teach graduate level courses over CS Lewis, spending the first two months on the heavy symbolism and messages inherent in the Narnia books. My mother just finished one such course as a part of her Masters program. Aslan as a Christ figure, et al. If you think there are no themes being explored through them, I submit that maybe you haven't read them since you were a kid?

Not trying to flame or anything, seriously, but I think that if this is the case, there's a whole 'nother level to those books that you may not have been able to catch when you were young. I know I didn't. Now bear in mind, I think Lewis' heavy-handed Christianity as displayed in his other works kind of makes me leery of actually taking on the undertaking of reading them all again, and they are children's literature, after all, but having to listen to endless analysis after analysis of C S Lewis' books over the last semester or two from my mother has given me a different viewpoint on them than the you seem to have.

Another thing that I think a lot of people don't think about with the Narnia series is that they were written in the 50's. They predate pretty much all of the modern fantasy genre. Even if they don't seem that fresh or thought provoking to you, (though they do to me), they were astoundingly original at the time, and helped shape a generation of authors. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Dragonlance series, but I don't think that a hundred years from now they will be considered classics. I imagine the Narnia series still will.

Nice synopsis for Earthsea Trilogy newbies

[bcolflesh]

Ursula LeGuin's Magical World of Earthsea

Re:Nice synopsis for Earthsea Trilogy newbies

[The Grassy Knoll]

"The hero, Ged, born with the name Duny, learns magic tricks from his aunt, the town witch, who sees in him the possibility of great power. When his home island of Gont is attacked by the vicious Kargs, Duny casts a simple fog spell which enshrouds the village, hiding the villagers from the enemies and saving the village from certain massacre. Word of this deed spreads to Ogion, the great mage of Re Albi"

Lordy! What a bucket of absolute toss.

Re:Nice synopsis for Earthsea Trilogy newbies

[BJH]

Please don't think that summary is in any way representative of the novels.

In fact, I would recommend people not to read those summaries, because they give completely the wrong impression.

What about Riverworld?!?

[Roger Keith Barrett]

Aren't SCI-Fi ever going to continue with the Riverworld books, or was the response to that too disapointing?

Re:What about Riverworld?!?

[kannibal_klown]

First, I think the remake of Dune and the following books was damn good.

As for the Hecules / Xena: WP -> Riverworld reference, I can sort of see that. Kevin Smith (the one that played Aries on Hercules and Xena, not the cool one) was playing a warlord in much the same way he acted on both Olympian shows. The "bad guys" also sort of looked like a batallion from Hercules or Xena: WP.

But in my opinion, that's where it ended. Like I said, I've never read the books, but it appeared to be pretty good. It was more of a group dynamic than Herc Xena, where those 2 shows focuses on 2-and-only-2 characters 98% of the time. While the astronaut was the main focus, you can easily see how the rest of the eps focus mroe on the larger group that got away on the boat (though probably more on like 7 of them: alien, Mark Twain, little girl, British girl, etc).

I mean, in my mind, that's exactly how I'd imagine the scenario given to us. People "wake up" to this lush, green world. Obviously, there's no known tech or infrastructure in place, so they'd need to go the whole "old-school" route; with bamboo, forges, etc. Heck, for a a good chunk of the population, that was probably the norm when they were alive anyway.

Woah... How was "The Lathe of Heaven"...?

[Mitleid]

I meant to watch The Lathe of Heaven when Sci-Fi aired that a few years back, but missed it, so I'm whether or not to have my hopes up or not. I was sort of impartial to their interpretation of Dune, but then again I only saw the first miniseries. A Wizard of Earthsea wasn't the most "dense" of LeGuinn's novels, so hopefully Sci-Fi won't be able to mangle it too bad. This should be sort of interesting to check out; I might be actually excited. Heh...

Re:Woah... How was "The Lathe of Heaven"...?

[RLiegh]

the A&E version is SHIT. This is the one you want. (apparently broadcast in 80, not 79, my bad)

Prepare for disappointment

[rjstanford]

More than most fantasy, the Earthsea books spend time on internal character development. They can make you think. Their plots, frankly, are nothing to write home about - in my opinion, at least. Unless this is going to be an "adaptation" along the lines of Starship Troopers, I can't see it doing very well. But, who knows - I'd love to be wrong about that...

Re:Prepare for disappointment

[mariox19]

[T]he Earthsea books spend time on internal character development.

The first one, especially, is a kind of Once and Future King with a touch of Harry Potter (though of course it predates H.P.). I'm thinking about the old wizard tutoring Ged a la Merlin, before sending him off to wizard school.

The whole way to make this successful would be to concentrate on character and philosophy. These were the most enjoyable parts of the book, as I recall.

I still remember being fascinated with the idea that Ged, having transformed himself into a bird to effect an escape, might lose himself in the bird's nature and not be able to transform himself back. (The old wizard eventually had to lend him a hand.)

Television might have a hard time carrying this off without a lot of boring exposition. (Of course, well-written dialog and charismatic casting would avoid all that.)

Re:Prepare for disappointment

[Otter]

Certainly my tastes are a long way from standard sci-fi fan -- you couldn't pay me to read anything by Robert Heinlein except Starship Troopers and his older space opera-ish short stories. So take this with a large grain of salt:

I find Ursula LeGuin's books utterly painful, the most boring things this side of, well, Robert Heinlein. Even Left Hand of Darkness, pretty much a consensus all-time top ten, bored the hell out of me.

(As an aside, where's Connie Willis' rabid fan base? Her books range from excellent to mindblowing, but I've never heard people fawn over her like they do LeGuin or the other tedious female sci-fi authors. Is a general warmth towards tradition and religion too politically incorrect to be assigned in those classes that are always pushing LeGuin? It's not like she's Margaret Thatcher.)

Re:Prepare for disappointment

[david.given]

I find Ursula LeGuin's books utterly painful, the most boring things this side of, well, Robert Heinlein. Even Left Hand of Darkness, pretty much a consensus all-time top ten, bored the hell out of me.

You should be aware that Ursula LeGuin has an evil twin, Skippy. Quite a lot of her books were in fact written by Skippy.

For example: the original Earthsea trilogy was written by Ursula LeGuin, and is wonderful. Tehanu, on the other hand, was written by Skippy.

Likewise, The Eye of the Heron is by Skippy, The Lathe of Heaven is by Ursula. The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness are collaborations, however.

Basically, while Skippy is not necessarily a bad writer, she's so concerned about pushing her message that the plot suffers immensely. Tehanu just doesn't fit in Earthsea: but instead of designing a new world were the message could fit comfortably, Earthsea got twisted until the message could be wedged in somehow. In my opinion I think the book's terrible. (The huge deus ex machina at the end is just clumsy, too.)

But when Ursula manages to keep Skippy under control, she can be fabulous. You didn't like The Left Hand of Darkness, but I love it. There's a message, but it fits so beautifully...

Re:Prepare for disappointment

[BJH]

Skippy - heh.
I didn't particularly like Tehanu either, but I don't think her "message" did the book in - I think it was just that my memories of the original Earthsea trilogy come from my childhood, and Tehanu took a point of view that tended to stomp those rather naive memories into the ground.

Re:Prepare for disappointment

[Mr. Slippery]

Tehanu just doesn't fit in Earthsea: but instead of designing a new world were the message could fit comfortably, Earthsea got twisted until the message could be wedged in somehow. In my opinion I think the book's terrible.

I was disappointed with it initially too, it's a jarring change in tone from the original trilogy. It went down better on a re-read, and with the last two books in place, it fits pretty well (even the deus ex machina at the end of Tehanu makes sense at the end of the The Other Wind).

But I don't have high hopes for this miniseries - they're doing A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, which means a lot of restructuring to get a single plot line out of both books. (The ending of A Wizard of Earthsea still amazes me almost a quarter-century after I first read it.)

Re:Prepare for disappointment

[Gilmoure]

When I read the first two HP books, I was totally bummed out by how they had missed the whole awe factor in magic, unlike the Earthsea books. In Harry Potter, magic is basicly the same as James Bond gadgets; cool but meaningless.

In the Earthsea books, Le Guin really captures the wonder of magic and the danger it's use carries. Another set of books that really explore the whole consequences of power is Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy. Would like to see a big screen version of those books.

I hope this production doesn't miss out on that as well.

Rehash

[Captain_Amigo]

Oh, come on now...let's be honest. They're just re-airing Seaquest episodes.

Never really clicked for me

[AnonymousKev]

It's been a long time since I read the Earthsea trilogy. I remember enjoying the first book, but the other two just didn't click. The premise was really interesting and held a lot of promise, but I just couldn't get interested in the plot.

Not sure why. I like the Lathe of Heaven and think The Ones Who Walk Away from Oomlas is one of the best short stories ever written. If I had cable, I'd probably watch it out of curiosity. But since I don't ... oh well.

Re:Never really clicked for me

[R.Caley]

The premise was really interesting and held a lot of promise, but I just couldn't get interested in the plot.

That's rather the problem for a visual adaptation. They aren't really plot driven. The plot is just an excuse to watch the characters grow. The first three are little studies of three aspects of becoming adult (responsibility, identity, mortality).

The fourth never spoke to me, and I haven't yet read the fourth.

I can't imagine them manageing to recreate that when the temptation to jump at magic battles with dragons is there.

Re:Never really clicked for me

[Mr. Slippery]

But I read Earthsea at the same time I read The Prydain Chronicles. I was more drawn to Taran's journey of maturity than Ged's.

Taran's is a straightforward tale of becomming a man. Ged's is a complex tale of becoming a wise man. So yeah, you might have been too young to realize the character development. :-)

I might re-read The Prydain Chronicles for fun and escape if I came across a copy; but even now as an adult, each time I re-read the Earthsea novels I feel a little wiser.

Re:Never really clicked for me

[AnonymousKev]

Lloyd Alexander wrote these in the late-60's/early-70's. They are: The Book of Three, The Black Caldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer (my favorite), and The High King. There is also a book of short stories but I can't recall the title.

Prydain is only classified as fantasy because of the setting (based on Welsh mythology).

Be warned, these are filed under "Juvenile Fiction" and are written at a Middle School/High School level. If you can't get past that part, I don't recommend them. I do believe in spite of the reading level, the books present very adult (in the good sense of the word) concepts and situations.

And a recent interview

[tiltowait]

from this Feb. here.

Re:And a recent interview

[Pastey]

Favorite part of that interview:

Q: Do you have a favourite TV programme?

UKL: I used to watch Star Trek, until they went off the rails with Voyager, and when we were in England about two centuries ago we got hooked on Dr Who - the guy with the long scarf and the great nose, not the one after him who looked like he needed some vitamins. There isn't much to watch on American TV now unless you are into violence and/or canned laughter. Did you know that most of the laugh tracks they use are so old that the people you hear laughing at the sitcom are mostly dead? It seems appropriate.

Appropriate indeed. I always wondered why "Friends" left me feeling "unclean". Now I know it was the living dead laugh-track.

Or David Schwimmer's acting abilities....

Hate to be a Cassandra

[arivanov]

Time to put the asbestous suit.

Hate to say it. It is likely to be a flop. Compared to Earthsea the Lord of the Rings is simple. I(very biased)MO this is the second most impossible movie after the Lord of Light. The reason is that you have both an extremely complex, logical and well described world along with a complex story line and complex characters.

I love the rings, but the rings characters are like cartoons compared to the Earthsea (or nearly any Ursula Le Guin book).

Re:Hate to be a Cassandra

[jfengel]

Earthsea's characters are much better developed than LotR's. I think that's an opportunity for them, not a predicament. The script for LotR is tricky because the dialogue, which reads beautifully as an epic poem, sounds silly coming out of the mouths of actual characters. Additional plots were written in to give the characters some depth. They used distressingly little of the original dialogue.

If the writers, director, and actors of Earthsea can use this to their advantage, they have an opportunity to give strong, interesting performances.

The strength of LotR is the depth of its background material. That allowed them to create extraordinary visuals, and that's the real reason for the success of the films. Not that I have any particular faith in the Academy, but they roughly reflected its strengths: many awards for visual elements, zero for acting. Not that the actors were bad, but the roles don't give them many opportunities to really succeed.

Earthsea, on the other hand, was written more like a modern story and less like an ancient epic. They've got a real opportunity here, a great work by a master storyteller. I hope it works out.

Re:Hate to be a Cassandra

[Unknown Kadath]

I don't know if they have any designs on Lord of Light yet, but last I heard, Sci-Fi was planning on an Amber miniseries, written by Richard Christian Matheson, whose past writing credits include such tours de force as The A-Team, Knight Rider, and The Incredible Hulk.

P.S. You're not a Cassandra if people believe you. ;)

-Carolyn

Re:Hate to be a Cassandra

[hey!]

I think you are right here. Earthsea is clearly much easier to dramatize than LotR, because it is much closer in spirit to drama to begin with. This has nothing to do with its relative merits.

Earthsea, on the other hand, was written more like a modern story and less like an ancient epic. They've got a real opportunity here, a great work by a master storyteller. I hope it works out.

LotR is not really written like an ancient epic either. I know, I've read the Kalevala and the Illiad and, of course, Beowulf. Although imbued with the spirit of the ancient epic, LotR is totally unlike any of them.

The key to LotR's difficulty is its elaborately non-linear structure, the parallel pieces of which are finely and accurately dovetailed together with scenic details in a way a movie goer can't be expected to follow. If a characer looks at the sky and notes the phase of the moon, it is not a throw away scene, but a clue to chronology. It's a very skillful way of letting the careful reader in on details that the charcters are not privvy to without lots of exposition.

With respect to the language used, Tolkien is much more careful than he is usually given credit. He doesn't put archaic speach into characters' mouths willy nilly. Elrond speaks archaicly, because that's how an immortal who learn your language hundreds of years ago would sound. On the other hand as TA Shippey points out, Saruman speaks exactly like a modern politician; the fact that he speaks this way has signficance.

In any case while the dialog in the movie is somewhat different (lines are often moved to different characters), the movie pretty much proved that its archaism is not a cinematic problem. The only place where the dialog felt awkward was when it was forced into performing some script writing function ("Now the battle for Helm's Deep has ended..." etc.).

Very cool

[0x0d0a]

The Wizard of Earthsea series is one of the most underread fantasy series I know of. It isn't the best fantasy out there (that's reserved for Paula Volsky -- try Illusion and see what you think), but it's very good, and very different from most fantasy.

I'd read the first book before anything else. I was kind of disappointed with The Tombs of Atuan book 2), which was very different from the first book. The third book was okay, but not as good as the first -- sort of the Dune syndrome.

The setting is different from most fantasy -- a bunch of islands, lots of emphasis on sailing around. There are not a lot of epic things going on -- there's lots of pragmatic, down-to-earth people.

Re:Very cool

[tillerman35]

I must be in a very small minority because I liked the second more than the first. Don't get me wrong- I loved the first book! I simply liked the direction that the character Ged had taken. Here he is this amazingly powerful wizard- the Archmage of Roke, in fact- yet his gentleness and human qualities are what really make him what he is. IMHO, the character development is very well done. Ditto for the third book.

I agree, however, with the majority view in that I can't see how they can possibly pull this off. Here's an example: LeGuin uses the concept of everything having a true name, that is, a name in the true speech, the language the dragons use, the language that Ea used when he spoke the world. This is not just some interesting concept found throughout the novels- it defines them and binds them together as a coherent whole. The first book is Ged's quest to find the true name of the Gebbeth and thus bring about its absumption. The second book's most inspiring moment is where he gives the girl her true name. In the third, the drama is made more intense when Ged discovers that the dragons lose their speech. How can these be communicated (meaningfully) in a visual medium? I think it would be quite shameful for this central theme to be made irrelevant or worse transformed into something entirely different from the author's intent. At best, you get dialogue that completely confuses anyone who hasn't read the book. At worst, you either leave it out (which makes the mini-series pointless) or you turn it into something completely different and piss off the very-vocal fans of the book (e.g. "Wierding Modules" in the original Dune movie). And this is only one of many important themes LeGuin weaves into these books. Leave them out and all you have left is a "Magik Island Adventure" story.

Anyone who trusts the sci-fi channel to remain true to the book should look at what they did to Battlestar Galactica (yes, I know it was a series, not a book). To quote Edward James Olmos, "I know the Sci Fi [network] wants to say that everyone's going to like it, but in the case of longtime fans, they're not." I think the same will apply to Earthsea.

My Predictions (serious and otherwise):

1. They'll turn this into another Harry Potter clone.
2. The tiny hedgehog creature (Hoag) will be replaced with an ewok.
3. Looksfar will have an outboard motor.
4. The gebbeth will be played by a wisecracking Eddy Murphy
5. Ged will NOT be black, nor will the majority of the cast. The Kargad people, however, will be black savages. (For those who haven't read the book or haven't read it in a while, it's the reverse).
6. Ged and Tenar/Arha will fall in love in the mini-series.
7. The ring of Erreth-Akbe will be referred to as the Ring of Earthsea or some other name to avoid explaining who Erreth-Akbe was. There will be no mention of it being in half, nor will it have any rune on it whatsoever.
8. Alternate prediction to #7 above: The ring will not be mentioned because test audiences thought it was "too much like Lord of the Rings." The screenwriters will come up with some other plausible explanation for Ged to be wandering about underground.
9. One of my most beloved books will be ruined for those people not fortunate to have read it before seeing the mini-series.

Great!

[bhima]

This is great! Although I've read and enjoyed ALL of her books, the first two books are far better suited for this than the others (not being depressing or anti-men). They're short enough to translate OK into the mini series format. So far I'd give the Sci-Fi network good marks on their attempts to bring the Dune series to film.

Earthsea world is a fun world to game in despite the difficulties thrown in by the latter stories.

I wonder will they remake the lathe of heaven, and I'd love to see "The word for world is forest" or even "Rocannon's World"!

Don't get too excited

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the uhmmm, "quality" of most SciFi Channel productions, I'm not exactly jumping up and down over this one. The Earthsea books aren't likely to translate well to TV even in the best of hands.

I'd love to see a big-screen version, though. I think there would be a better chance of getting it right in the larger format. Not because of "action" scenes or dramatic landscapes or any of the usual things people want to see in a movie, but because to do these books justice, you really would need to immerse the audience in the film in a way that isn't possible on a typical 29" screen.

Read the books whilst you can...

[mccalli]

For anyone planning on watching this, now would be a good time to read (or re-read) the books.

I'm not suggesting that the books are about to disappear. Nor am I implying that the TV series will be terrible. I have no idea how well the product will turn out, and the books will be as available after as they are before.

No, what I'm saying is that pretty soon this series will influence your view of things, whether you want it to or not. I'm seeing this with my nephews, who are reading Lord of the Rings directly after seeing the films. They're seeing the book as much more action-packed than I did, and I'm sure that this is due to expectation after watching the films.

So read them now, and then watch with interest. You're going to be influenced - can't help but be, but at least you'll have your own ideas in place beforehand.

Cheers,
Ian

Please use mini-series

[SmackCrackandPot]

Everytime I speed-read miniseries, it looks like miseries.

Re:Fantasy, SciFi

[Nimrangul]

The bounds of probability, allusion to reallity and illusion of believability. One has them, the other does not.

Fantasy doesn't try to really have things make sense they just tell you that a thing works, they do not explain it.

Science Fiction often bases it's marvels on actual theory of the modern day, expanding upon it's fantastical possibilities.

Nanotechnological devices repairing a person's wounds are a little more believable than a man chanting a bunch of words than putting his hands on a would and it being healed.

Also, most Fantasy makes sides Black and White and Science Fiction uses more Grays.

This is not of course completely true with all books called Fantasy or Science Fiction, some think anything set in a almost medieval psudoeuropean setting is Fantasy and anything in the future Science Fiction.

The original was better

[PIPBoy3000]

I think I preferred the low-budget version on PBS they aired in the 70's. It seemed to have more heart, plus I missed the aliens at the end.

not really suited for SciFi

[laura20]

They are wonderful novels, and I'd love to see them adapted but... so completely not suited for the SciFi style of miniseries making. They need almost nothing in the way of special effects, and a proper adaption would depend on really strong actors who can bring out the inner development. This is especially true of Tombs of Atuan, where a large part of the story involves the main characters wandering around underground.

It's truly a pity that the BBC never picked up an option -- that have been a perfect combination.

Cautious optimism is called for

[Anonymous Coward]

The three thin books of the Earthsea Trilogy are IMO the second best fantasy series ever written (LoTR being #1), and probably the most *original* fantasy series ever. How LeGuin was able to create an entrie world with such economy is totally beyond me.

If you haven't read it yet, I envy you.

The SciFi Channel did an amazing job with Dune, another very cerebral book, so there's hope that they'll take the same intelligent approach with Earthsea. That clown Peter Jackson could learn a lot from these people: respect the books, have a great script, and don't spend so much time wanking around with special effects.

Re:Cautious optimism is called for

[funwithBSD]

Ever read George MacDonalds the "The Princess and the Goblin"?

This seminal work was read by both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and its impact on their work is clear. Especially the "I am not gonna explain Magic to you, dumbshit, it's Magic!" attitude they all share.

Written in the 19th century, it runs in the same vein as Alice and Kipling's works. The english is chewy at times, and can get down right sloggy.

Re:Cautious optimism is called for

[tcopeland]

Yup, MacDonald has even been referred to by Jeff Gardiner as the grandfather of modern fantasy.

Almost...

[manonthemoon]

The setting is indeed stock, but at least the twins are not. Their interplay of dark/light was incredibly well done, giving the whole series texure and depth.

When did miniseries become a cable thing?

[ianscot]

In general it seems like the major networks can't make miniseries float, ratings wise. The last network ones that made my radar were the Jesus one on CBS (long enough ago that Debra Messing played Mary Magdalene and it wasn't a weird casting) and the Dinotopia one that flopped badly.

Back in the day, Shogun and Roots and that kind of thing were big money makers for the three broadcast networks. Now it's the SciFi Channel and that kind of venue putting out new series, or first-time-in-the-US ones anyway. (A&E ran the [fantastic, literate, well-acted] BBC Pride and Prejudice, for example.)

How long ago did this happen? Personally I'm not so sure it's a bad thing. The production values are lower, okay, but CGI can fill in rough edges for this science fiction or fantasty stuff. A miniseries is much better, much much better, for most books, and for characters in general, than any film release. The Aubrey Maturin movie this spring was pretty good, really, but there's just no way to do that in two-plus hours.

Maybe in 25 years we'll get Harry Potter miniseries done by some sort of children's network, and the plots and characters won't feel like they're being crammed inside of three hours to cash in at the box office. That first HP movie in particular was way, way frenetic.

Re:When did miniseries become a cable thing?

[NSash]

Maybe in 25 years we'll get Harry Potter miniseries done by some sort of children's network, and the plots and characters won't feel like they're being crammed inside of three hours to cash in at the box office.

In 25 years, no one below the age of 30 will know what Harry Potter is. (Kid living with mean family discovers he has magic powers, secret history. It's been done better before, and it will be done better again. Don't get me wrong -- I liked [most of] the books -- but don't confuse them for something they aren't.)

Re:Five?

[Feathers McGraw]

I've read four, unless something came after Tehanu.

Yes, The Other Wind, which IIRC ties in to both Tehanu and The Farthest Shore.

There was also a collection of short stories called Tales from Earthsea, which is sitting on my shelf, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Not a trilogy.

[flogger]

OK, Maybe it was originally a trilogy:
Wizard of Earthsea
Tombs of Autan
The Farthest Shore

But in 2001 Leguin published Tehanu. The earthsea trilogy is now called the Earthsea Cycle. Of all of The Earthsea cycle books, Tehanu really showcases LeGuin's political and feminist slants. (This is a good thing I believe). Tombs of Autan had some and the other two books required a little more digging to get into her philosophy.

If you want to read some great LeGuin I would reccomend: Always coming home and The Dispossessed. Both of these books are very thought provoking and well worth the time to read. There was an edition of Always coming home publihsed with a cassette tape of the music and poetry that was created by the societies described in the book. Wonderul stuff.

"Grain grows best in shit" Ursula K LeGuin

(Tinyurl links got to amazon Please use fewer 'junk' characters.
)

Re:Not a trilogy.

[DudeTheMath]

Tehanu was published in 1990/1991; The Other Wind was published in 2001. LeGuin calls them "The Books of Earthsea."

But why only the first two books, anyway? Are they planning on following up with the rest? After reading Wizard, I kept wondering, "Why am I here?" while reading Tombs. Farthest Shore helped make sense of that.

Re:Not a trilogy.

[ElaborateCalculator]

Actually, there's even more...

The Other Wind, a full novel, came out in 2001, as did Tales From Earthsea, a collection of short stories.

IIRC, the short story Dragonfly was originally published in Robert Silverburg's Legends compilation.

--darren

Re:Not a trilogy.

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

You missed 'Tales from Earthsea' and 'The Other Wind'. One of those (guess which) is a collection of short stories.

Re:Not a trilogy.

[kirkjobsluder]

On the other hand:

The A Wizard of Earthsea, Tombs and Furthest Shore cluster together as a story about the career of a single character (Ged). The later books, developed 20 years later, focus on different characters, different themes and are done in a different style. Probably the best way to think of them is as a trilogy with two sequels.

Old news...

[Caduceus1]

The press release is from January, and they've talked about it back as far as August 2001...

devastation

[LordMyren]

they are going to blaspheme against one of my greater childhood memories.

i reread Wizard this summer. beautiful little Man v. Self. but there's no way they can lace the movie with all the subtle surrealism of the book.

Myren

Re:My Lord... (um...)

[Markvs]

You do realize, of course, that Card got most of his ideas *from* Ursula Le Guin? I encountered this little phenomena upon one of my friends being blown away by Card's "originality"... :-)

That's not a flame, just pointing out the obvious...

Re:Five?

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

That is a pity, The Other Wind follows on directly from the last of those short stories - Dragonfly. All of the other stories there tie in directly with the main line except 'Darkrose and Diamond'.

I always thought...

[tassii]

I always thought the Miles Vorkorsigan books would make a fantastic miniseries. So much material to work from and a lot of blanks to fill in for new stories.

Space combat, political intrigue, charismatic lead character.. how can you go wrong?

Unless Disney got a hold of it, of course.

The Name

[sutekh137]

If only we could discover the true NAME of the series, we could control how it turns out. Anyone?

Myst

[kundor]

The Sci-Fi Channel announced quite a while ago that they were making a Myst miniseries. I haven't heard a peep about it since.

Does anyone know if that's still going forward? How many planned miniseries actually come to completion -- if Myst was silently cancelled, are the chances of this one being finished questionable?

with all of SciFi's funding...

[The Lynxpro]

Why can't they [SciFi] put the funds to good use, like co-financing the Beeb's revival of "Doctor Who" slated for 2005? SciFi would be a better outlet in the States for it than BBC America...and reach a larger potential audience since SciFi is a basic cable channel and BBC America is usually treated as something reserved for digital cable packages. Yep, load up 10 Spanish-speaking stations in basic cable, but make the Beeb a premium cultural channel. Nope, that's not discrimination at all! Damn you to hell, Comcast! :)

Re:Fantasy, SciFi

[Samrobb]

Fantasy Guy and SF Guy drinking at a bar...

Fantasy Guy: "Look - Trolls!"
SF Guy : "Mutants!"
FG : "Trolls!"
SG : "Mutants!"
FG : "Trolls!"
SG : "Maybe they're... mutant trolls?"
Bartender : "You idiots are looking in the mirror again!"

Heh. Phil and Dixie... good stuff.

Re:STOP AT THE 3rd BOOK!!!

[funwithBSD]

Ex Dues Dragon.

Le Guin makes a sudden shuddering stop with Ged in a bad spot and a Dragon drops from sky to end the story.

Considering that the stories are based on AmerIndian folktales, dropping a Greek ending on you makes a bad ending.

Re:better, by far, than harry potter

[Ruds]

then came harry potter. a wizard going to wizard school, making friends and enemies while learning his special abilities and discovering his hidden power. huh. that sounds familiar. i awaited word of a lawsuit, but alas...

i have yet to trudge my way through any of the potter books, or for that matter see the movies, but i recommend to any of my adult friends who do that they read a wizard of earthsea before inflicting potter on their children.

hey, what a good idea! let's trash a book we've never read!

i heard that wizard of earthsea has a wizard in it that fights dragons! that sounds a lot like the hobbit! tolkien's estate should sue!

it's great that you recommend that parents have their children read earthsea; it's a great book that's perfect for readers from curious pre-teens to fantasy-minded adults. but rowling writes some fine fiction for children, and for you to discount it without reading it is pretty lame.

here's a tip--try not to be so pretentious.

Re: Discworld Mini-series

[Kaimelar]

With all this deathly serious fantasy coming out, someone really needs to produce some good fantasy parody, and Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is just the thing if you ask me.

Actually, someone has already done that. The Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music have both been done as animated mini-series. I've seen the latter, and it's quite fun. I didn't care much for the style of animation, but the voice acting is wonderful.

You can get them at Amazon.com (and no, it's not a referral link).

Race...

[qtp]

I hope they get the race issue correct, as most attempts to make film or TV from LeGuinn's books make the central characters white, despite her descriptions.

She never does specify a definate race, but all of her main characters are described as brown, red, or dark skinned. There may be a question as to what race Ged actually is, but he is definately not white.

Re:STOP AT THE 3rd BOOK!!!

[ddama]

Tehanu is a fine book. It just happens to be utterly and completely different from the three before it.

Deliberately. LeGuin wrote it as an adult looking back on her juvenile work and finding it less than satisfactory, with the intent of allowing all of her readers to see as she did. Difficult, yes. I found it very powerful. Few people, especially creatives, have the self-discipline to critique themselves in that way.

It is neither utter crap, nor anti-men. That said, the Deus Ex Machina style ending, while foreshadowed adequately, is predicatble and a little tedious -- it is how the third ended, after all.

Dont count on it...

[Cyno01]

Its been a mixed bag with sci-fi pictures doing books, I thought Dune was great and have both the DVDs, and Riverworld was good, but i felt they didn't do justice to the books with that Deathlands movie. I'd rather see them do a crappy Outlanders movie than Deathlands, but a good movie of either would be great. Also, who know how many of those saturday night "Attack of the Giant *BLANK*" movies are based on books...

reviews, and a query about creative control

[danny]

Check out my review of the Earthsea trilogy and other le Guin reviews.

I would be surprised if Le Guin sold the film rights without retaining tight creative control... Or did she sell them a long time ago, before she became famous enough to be able to set her own terms?

Danny.

Re:Wheel of time

[Warlok]

Yikes! Does this mean movies 5-10 will be the same movie, just digitally changing scenery and dress, and adding more and more black circles under the Dragon's eyes?