Le Guin Peeved About Earthsea Miniseries

Several readers have written in with unhappy opinions on the Legend of Earthsea miniseries just aired on the Sci-Fi channel. Ursula Le Guin has also chimed in, with a short but highly critical blurb on her website, and now this dissection on Slate.com.

Comments

Did you slashdot the nice lady's website?

[kalidasa]

I'm guessing her next blog posting will be a complaint about Slashdot.

The Dangers of Adaption

[StefanJ]

Years ago, I went to a panel discussion at an SF convention about how books are adapted to film. The authors on the panel had all had their works adapted.

First up was Barry Longyear, whose novel Enemy Mine was turned into a "B" movie. He rattled off a good-natured Hollywood horror story.

Next was Gary Wolf, whose book Who Censored Roger Rabbit was turned into what I recall was a rather popular movie a few years back. He was wearing the fancy jacket provided to the cast. He got to go to the Hollywood premiere and got very rich.

When he described getting to sit with Kathleen Turner at a celebratory banquet, Longyear got up and pretended to strangle him.

Re:Okay

[WillerZ]

Here in the USA, we have these things called "books".

For real? You guys have books now?

Phil

Authorship & Symbolism (OT)

[Embedded Geek]

When I was in high school, I wrote a humorous essay in a creative writing class. The assignment was something like 'tell a story about you doing a task in a step by step manner." I responded with a (thankfully fictional) tale of me trying to bake a cake and winding up setting the kitchen on fire.

The teacher liked it so much, she had me type it up and she put included it on the midterm as a sample work for the other students to pick apart. I was an incredibly sloppy student and typing the thing up seemed like a horrible burden, but the idea that I'd ace the test was enough to motivate me. After all, I wrote the dang thing, didn't I?

When test day rolled around, though, she asked things about "what technique is the author using to suspend disbelief?" and "which passages are used to build foreboding for the ending?" In the end I was lucky to pass the thing by the skin of my teeth.

I won't pretend to be their equals, but I have to admit I vaguely know how Tolkien and Le Guin felt.