Yeah, that’s a great point. I’d love to see a series or anthology of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories, but (outside of a few exceptions) they’d have to genderswap some characters for a lot of those old Grand Master stories.
Other modern authors that would be fun to see adapted: Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch.
I would love to see a slightly modernized Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay made into a series. In some ways it would be similar to The Magicians, or Outlander. Young, attractive protagonists, both male and female, with their epic stories. They get taken to Fionavar from Toronto in 2020. Then the fun begins.
And if they want to extend it past the three books of the trilogy, they could tie in the other “related worlds” in more obvious ways than GGK ever did. Tigana, a Song for Arbonne, Lions of Al Rassan…
OOOMMMGGGG
A series based on Jack Vance’s The Dragon Masters - I would watch.
I’d like to see someone take on Harry Harrison’s Eden trilogy.
I enjoyed reading Sanderson’s Mistborn well enough. That could make an interesting series, as could his Stormlight Archives. Good female characters there as well.
Amber would be great, as would Elric. Speaking of those two I wish they would make a video game.
Obviously, the surefire hit would be Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth books. No, not the Xena knockoff they loosely cribbed from them back in the day, but an full-bore HBO adaptation. You’d get weird magic torture dominatrixes, rape camps, little girls getting their jaws heroically kicked off by the protagonist, the true monstrousness of pacifism and the need to brutally subjugate anyone who thinks peace is a good idea, severed nipple magic, and extended speeches about how great objectivism is. How could it possibly fail?
Oh, darn, I forgot it’s not fantasy.
More seriously, I’d personally skip anything that isn’t completed. I haven’t watched much of GoT so far, but my understanding is that the showrunners having to fill in where the story might have gone is likely a big part of where it went wrong. (Assuming I will feel it did go wrong, which I can’t say for sure as of yet.)
In general I feel like alternate-world fantasy is going to be a tough sell. GoT was a big success, sure, but it’s set in a relatively grounded, medieval analogue world with, at least initially, relatively few fantastic elements. And it was still very expensive, as far as I know. Meanwhile things like Malazan and Wheel of Time involve massive battles and epic exchanges of magic all the time.
But there’s tons of urban fantasy I think could potentially go over quite well, like Daniel Abraham’s pseudonymous Black Sun’s Daughter series, or for something darker, Chuck Wendig’s Blackbird series. Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London. Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson books. Kelley Armstrong has already had her werewolf protagonist debut on TV in a series named after the first book (Bitten), but some of her other Women of the Otherworld or her Cainsville books would work nicely. Etc.
Yes, that would be tremendous. Master and Commander meets Game of Thrones is perfect. I’ve been disappointed that Peter Jackson hasn’t done anything since optioning the film rights. For a while I hoped he was using the Hobbit films to get the dragon tech where it needed to be.
Both of those would be very cool.
I have to try that Temeraire stuff. Don’t know how I’ve failed to do so till now, though my my aversion to picking up incomplete series is probably part of it (thank you, GRRM).
This is a good point. I still recall critics wondering whether the Dragon-birthing episode of GoT would turn off viewers from the series. To an extent, I think GoT was a success in spite of the dragons/magic elements, not because of it, and it’s not accidental that almost all of that stuff was shoved far into the background for most of the series (along with most of prophecies, 3ER, LS, and other more fantastics stuff).
Much as I’d like to see an Amber or Elric series, I suspect it would be very hard to do justice to any fantasy series with complicated magic systems or where any of the viewpoint characters are powerful magic users. The former is hard to get across in a believable manner, and the latter just result in the Captain Marvel problem, you end up having to constantly remove that character from the equation (or have wildly flunctuating power levels) since they’d otherwise trivialize the story. Gandalf in LOTR/Hobbit and the Dragons in GoT have exactly this problem - and the solutions works much less well in a TV series than in a movie.
On top of that (and probably most importantly), doing FX for magic that is worth looking at costs a lot of money. I wonder how they’ll handle that in the Witcher, but I suspect the answer is that they’ll be taking their cues from the books, rather than the games; i.e., actual monsters are reserved for a few big fight scenes to bookend the season, with the “humans are the real monsters” theme and intrigue in the foreground. I suspect any works that require heavy upfront investments in the magic of the setting will struggle to get made.
Catching up on this thread. Everything I might mention had already been discussed:
Amber: Gods yes. Even has a solid mix of genders. I think it could be done pretty well.
Mieville is impossible. You’re talking a series where every character needs special effects (CGI/practical). Move along.
Elric/Fafhrd/Swords&Sorcery stuff- as mentioned, just too outdated.
Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastard series? Same problem as GoT, more’s the pity. He just can’t get the books out.
The Black Company world be do-able, and I know it’s at least vaguely being worked on. Crossing my fingers.
How about R Scott Bakker’s The Prince of Nothing trilogy? It’s got the sex and violence that TV stations will want, and it’s light on the huge wars/sieges and CGI creatures that would chew through the budget very quickly.
I think an adapted TV series would probably be better than the books.
Exactly. I was so excited when I found out he got the rights, but alas…
BERSERK. It would probably have to be stupid expensive to do well, but I’d love to watch reactions to stuff like the eclipse.
In that case, why not Vlad Taltos. Especially if there’s a way to work in the the Khaavren Romances. Because I love me some Three Muskateers.
I actually was only thinking of it being a tough sell to executives because of how enormous the budget would have to be for a higher level of fantastic elements. But you may be right that they would also be a tough sell for audiences.
You would really need more background on those events. Also Beren and Luthien. It would be considered a women empowerment fable. The feminists should love it.
Man, people have mentioned some great books. Myth Adventure, Disc World, Khaavren Romance, Jhereg (really, fantasy PI might be cool), Black Company but I was surprised to see Daughter of the Empire. That really, that would be an awesome series, but so tough to do. You need so much back story but I think my wife would love it. She loves period pieces with strong female leads!
Oh, how about a reboot of the Dresden Files!
This is all we need.
That’s not fantasy, that’s a gritty documentary!
OMG KUNG FURY 2 YES.