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Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" To Be Miniseries
fmackay writes "Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age is to be adapted for a Sci Fi Channel miniseries. George Clooney is producing and Stephenson will write the screenplay — the first time he has written for television."
I'll pass on the miniseries, thanks. I'm waiting for the ractive.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Excellent.
Never mind the book's prophetic predictions about the impact of nanotechnology. Far more important, I think, is its identification of the "subversive" worldview. If only all parents and children were exposed to a book like Diamond Age, or anything similar, which gives a real defense of the subversive mindset. Perhaps then, more children might be rescued from becoming another generation of social ballast.
Diamond Age won a coveted spot in my "Thou shalt read and discuss" box of books for my sons. :)
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Snow Crash would make for an awful movie. There's far too much expositionary material regarding namshubs and so forth that would be interminable on the screen and couldn't be cut without rendering much of the story incomprehensible. It (largely) works in book form, but its density would make it impossible to bring to the screen.
Zodiac, whilst perhaps not as good a novel, would make for a far better screen translation than Snow Crash.
Thank god somebody finally said it. Upon reflecting upon the criticism that Stephenson and several other writers with similar style have received (about endings, exposition, etc) I've realized something. A lot of geeks don't want a novel, they want a mythology. They want a complete, well-fleshed out, extensive universe for a setting. As a result, they want to know what happens to every character, start to finish. Think about it-- star wars, star trek, and LoTR all have extensive backstory. It is basically posible to know what happens to every character, and every legendary sword/ship from birth to death. Tolkien, for example, had notebooks and notebooks of unpublished stories to flesh out his universe and even invented languages.
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Crudely Drawn Games
For that matter, witness how much they fsck'd up battlestar gallactica. I haven't seen their version of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files yet, but from the promos it looks like they decided to fsck up that too (I should probably withold judgement since I haven't seen it, though). Sci-fi channel didn't do it, but look at how Eragon was absolutely destroyed.
I always wondered how the visual medium could be so obviously run by a group of illiterates with no respect for authorship. It's intensely bizarre. What puzzles me even more are the large number of people who just seem to accept it as a usual practice. Even when their favorite character/scene/plotline/etc is missing or replaced by something entirely different - for no reason the bears any resemblance to a valid purpose- they don't seem to mind. A vapid "oh, well you shouldn't get upset- it's a different medium after all" is the closest you'll get from them to an acknowledgement of the change. Where's the rage, people?
There have been notable exceptions. The Princess Bride was the best adaptation of a novel as I've ever seen. The screenplay was written by the author of the novel, who had previous screenplay writing experience. That probably explains why it was so well done. The Disney version of A Wrinkle In Time came close too- but proved that some books aren't suited for movies no matter HOW good they are. I'm sure others can name many more.
We want to be optimistic. We love the written works so much that we long to see them come to life. Sci-fi fans are like Charlie Brown, earnestly hoping for someone in Hollywood to hold that football down just long enough for us to get a kickoff. And the studio execs are like Sally- teasing us endlessly with the possibility of something that won't suck shiat and pulling the ball away at the last moment.
/Sorry- done now.
//Goes to the meds closet to get a dose of Myranta.