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Amazon Is Developing a TV Series Based On Iain M. Banks' Sci-Fi Novel 'Consider Phlebas' (hollywoodreporter.com)
leathered writes: Jeff Bezos today announced that Amazon Studios has picked up the rights to adapt the late Iain M. Bank's acclaimed Culture novels to the small screen, beginning with the first in the series, Consider Phlebas. This comes after nearly three decades of attempts to bring Banks' utopian, post-scarcity society to film or television. A huge fan of the Culture series is Elon Musk, whose SpaceX drone ships are named after Culture space vessels. Here's how Amazon describes Consider Phlebas: "a kinetic, action-packed adventure on a huge canvas. The book draws upon the extraordinary world and mythology Banks created in the Culture, in which a highly advanced and progressive society ends up at war with the Idirans, a deeply religious, warlike race intent on dominating the entire galaxy. The story centers on Horza, a rogue agent tasked by the Idirans with the impossible mission of recovering a missing Culture 'Mind,' an artificial intelligence many thousands of times smarter than any human -- something that could hold the key to wiping out the Culture altogether. What unfolds, with Banks' trademark irreverent humor, ultimately asks the poignant question of how we can use technology to preserve our humanity, not surrender it."
I've read and re-read all of Banks' "Culture" books. It's one of the few where you get to know extremely powerful AIs as characters. They play a real role in the books, sometimes even more so than the meatbags.
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That’s fine, many SF stories have political undertones and are often written as a comment on politics here on Earth. But what GP rightly worries about is whether the writers adapting this material for TV are going to stay true to the material. Or will they twist the political ideas in it into something that suits their own world view (Starship Troopers)? Or perhaps adding some rather unsubtle cues to map the story’s political factions and ideas to those of Earth? Making those connections is best left as an exercise for the viewer.
Politics belong in SF stories, and the best ones often hold up a mirror to our own world. But Hollywood often turns that mirror into a parody narrated by a preacher.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Social justice is pretty much baked into the entire sci-fi genre
That doesn't really compute. There's no reason for that.
Ezekiel 23:20
You are correct, but it is not for any lack of trying. That whole big "Sad Puppies" brouhaha that kicks up every year around the Hugo Awards is exactly about the attempt to turn science fiction into "message fiction" by refusing recognition to non-SJW writing in the genre. That said, it's nothing new. Marion Zimmer Bradley pioneered the field back in the 20th century with her "Oppressed Lesbian Telepaths of Darkover" books. But unlike her counterparts today, she was happy to coexist with others of a different world view.