back to article Cable guy, Games of Thrones chap team up to make Reg 'best sci-fi film never made' reject

It wasn't quite good enough for you lot, but it looks like Kim Stanley Robinson's award-winning Mars Trilogy is set for TV adaptation. Fans of Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars (insert RGB joke here...) can look forward to a forthcoming adaptation of the series, after the announcement by cable TV channel Spike TV that it's …

  1. Steve Crook
    Mushroom

    Cancelled...

    Half way through season 2 despite fan protests and a big seller on DVD rivalling Firefly, leaving everyone to wonder why on earth it was cancelled. Especially as NCIS had just been renewed. Again.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cancelled...

      Yes, I was just thinking the same. Meanwhile, Under The Dome (based on a perfectly good book, with a beginning, middle and end) becomes the next Lost.

    2. Nigel Whitfield.

      Re: Cancelled...

      Worse; some dim exec will probably decide that something from Green Mars would make a great season opener, and they'll proceed to show the whole thing in the wrong order

    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Cancelled...

      Hey! If it weren't for NCIS, we'd never have discovered that the silver bullet for computer security is Two Nerds, One Keyboard.

      (Personally, I find the original NCIS moderately watchable, in that I can generally sit through an episode without wanting to murder the writers - when they stay away from the magical-computer crap. [I know, Murray Gell-mann Amnesia Effect.] That's more than I can say for most procedurals. But I agree that the world isn't suffering from a lack of NCIS episodes.)

  2. Matthew Smith

    Putting the Mars into Marxist

    20 years ago these books rocked my world. I studied engineering at university just so I could go to Mars. Sadly I re-read them recently and they've not stood the test of time. Cardboard characters and so utopian that they make Star Trak:TOS look like Soylent Green.

    1. AdamT

      Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

      Utopian?!

      Guess you skipped all the bits with the <spoilers!> rioting, murdering, politically motivated attacks, assinations and, oh what was that bit again, ah yes - the violent revolution in which the planet is nearly destroyed by a falling space elevator, then?

      I'd hate to hear what you thought was a dystopian future! :-)

      1. Nigel Whitfield.

        Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

        I recall one distinctly un-utopian aspect, which made me grind my liberal euro-teeth (as in a lot of US crime drame, too), and that was just the acceptance in one part of the story of the death penalty as being obviously correct.

        1. beep54

          Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

          Hehe. How's about the bit where people are allowed only 3/4 of a child. Thus it takes two people to have at least one child. The half child left over can be put on the marketplace. KSR is pretty much grabbing you by your throat and going, "Think, dammit!"

      2. proud2bgrumpy

        Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

        I read most of one of these (can't remember which one) and found it pretty tedious & I love SciFi. 'Old Mans War' would make a much better movie

        1. AdamT

          Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

          Well, you're nearly in luck then. OMW The Movie didn't pan out but OMW The TV Series seems to be progressing:

          http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/08/05/in-which-i-interview-myself-about-the-old-mans-war-tv-series/

    2. brooxta
      Meh

      Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

      Hmm. I was wondering about re-reading them and this has put me off somewhat. Still at 99p maybe it's still worth a punt on the first tome to see if I concur.

      1. Rich 11

        Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

        At 99p I'll read anything. Well, except Dan Brown, and Jeffrey Archer, obviously.

        Reg, your link is borked:

        http://harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk/2014/09/kim-stanley-robinsons-mars-trilogy-coming-soon-to-tv/

        1. AbelSoul

          Re: Reg, your link is borked:

          Thanks. Just scored myself a copy to read on holiday.

        2. Tom Chiverton 1

          Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

          And the ebooks are DRM'd too.

          Come find out why this is an issue (Manchester) when Cory Doctorow speaks : http://www.meetup.com/ORG-Manchester/events/191668012/

          1. James 51

            Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

            Is it adobe or something else?

      2. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Putting the Mars into Marxist

        "Still at 99p maybe it's still worth a punt on the first "

        If I had 99p in my pocket on a trip to WH Smiths, I'd be most likely putting a brown mars into the front of my face. And still have change.

  3. Bert 1
    WTF?

    Boring

    .. In a word.

    I started reading these a few years ago, and gave up half way through the second one. (Blue Mars?)

    I didn't care about the (cardboard) characters, or even the direction things were going. And that whole Coyote thing never really seemed to go anywhere.

    Maybe they can just take the one way mission to Mars concept, and turn it into something completely different. (Like Big Brother perhaps...)

    It seems to me like there is a current obsession with all thing "Mars", much as we were obsessed with the "Moonshot" in the late 60's.

  4. 0laf

    I've only read Red Mars and I found it a bit dull to be honest. A lot of the science was interesting but the characters themselves were uninteresting for the most part.

    The Martian by Andy Weir is out as a film next year. The science in it is pretty hard but it was a lot more entertaining than Red Mars.

    1. Eponymous Cowherd
      Thumb Up

      The Martian

      One of the best books I have read in a long time, Weir's Mark Watney is anything but one-dimensional.

      " In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl".

      “I guess you could call it a "failure", but I prefer the term "learning experience"

      “My asshole is doing as much to keep me alive as my brain.”

      “Problem is (follow me closely here, the science is pretty complicated), if I cut a hole in the Hab, the air won't stay inside anymore.”

      I just hope Ridley Scott doesn't turn it into another Prometheus.....

      1. BongoJoe

        Re: The Martian

        Thank you for the suggestion you two and Amazon Prime for delivering it tomorrow.

        1. 0laf

          Re: The Martian

          You'll enjoy it. The main character Watney is very funny and clever.

          Not sure if Matt Damon will do it justice or not.

      2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: The Martian

        I just hope Ridley Scott doesn't turn it into another Prometheus.....

        I watched Blade Runner a few weeks ago (must have been the Director's Cut), followed by a documentary on it. I wonder if all films have quite that level of infighting...?

        Ridley Scott said he'd optioned Dune at the time, but decided on Blade Running instead. I wonder what he'd have made of that? As many problems as I thought Prometheus had, it's still Citizen Kane in comparison with David Lynch's Dune. Dune has crap script, crap acting and crap special effects, all rolled into one package.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: The Martian

          >David Lynch's Dune. Dune has crap script, crap acting and crap special effects,

          Oh, but the set design and wardrobe are gorgeous!

        2. Duffy Moon

          Re: The Martian

          I'd watch Dune over Prometheus any day. You seriously think the acting and script of Prometheus are better?!! Which of the 'scientists' is the most convincing?

          1. 0laf

            Re: The Martian

            When you read the book you realise that the Dune film was a pretty decent stab at something that is just about unfilmable. I've not watched the later Sci-Fi channel miniseries yet.

    2. Nigel Whitfield.

      After the comments here about "The Martian" I grabbed it yesterday. Took it to bed, and started reading.

      Four and a half hours, 190 (out of 284) pages later, I decided I should really get some sleep; didn't surface until well after 10am this morning.

      So yes, fairly engaging I'd say.

    3. John Hughes

      A lot of the science was interesting

      The great thermodynamics fail?

  5. James 51

    The link doesn't work but it isn't hard to find the books on the site.

  6. BongoJoe

    I would love someone to have the guts to make Donaldson's THE GAP SERIES for the small screen.

    Assuming, that is, the DVD wouldn't be sold in a plain brown wrapper in the countries where it wouldn't be banned.

    1. JonP

      Heh, I'd forgotten about the gap series - cheery stuff as I recall. I'm not sure it'd work as a TV series - there's no-one/anything you can really root for or particularly care about, though Angus makes a good anti-hero (with most of the emphasis on the "anti")...

      Not sure about the Mars one's either Red & Blue where OK, but Green was heavy going.

      1. Gordon 10
        Happy

        Nazi Opera scifi where Rapist and Rapee team up to save the universe from Evil Omni-corp and Octo-beholder-triffids. I don't see that elevator pitch going down well even at HBO.

        Shame as its Donaldsons best work by a country mile.

        1. Swarthy
          Stop

          If The GAP series is Donaldson's best work by Far (and I don't doubt it, it was less traumatic than the Thomas Covenant) than that man should be forcefully restrained from ever touching a keyboard, pen, pencil, or any other writing utensil.

          I have disliked many characters in many books, but to get me to hate everyone in a book to the point that the hatred starts to bleed over to the writer.. that takes a special talent - one that should never be used.

          1. BongoJoe

            Which is why the Gap books are so good. One really develops a feeling (mostly of distaste) for everyone.

            Moreover it's a sign of a good book when, years later, one can still remember the main characters' names.

            1. Graham Marsden

              I cannot remember just how many times I *almost* gave up on the Gap series, but then there would be a page (or even just a paragraph) of the incredible writing which Donaldson is occasionally capable of and it would hook me back in...

              1. Gordon 10

                Gap was a triumph simply because at the end of the last book your were cheering for an evil rapist, mentally wrecked woman, whiny manchild, and a weak emasculated pirate. And they were the good guys!

                Never have so many utterly flawed characters appeared together in a sci fi series.

                It Has never left my top 3 sci/fi fantasy novels/series since I read it.

  7. lorisarvendu

    Consultant

    "KSR is signed up as a consultant, too, giving hope to fans that the series will remain fairly faithful to the events and characters of the books."

    Yeah, cos that really worked for Earthsea.

  8. Alister

    Well in contrast to most of the commentards above, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the trilogy when it was first published, and have re-read it a number of times since.

    However, I'm honestly not sure that the stories will translate well into watchable TV, and I really doubt that any TV adaptation which was written to be entertaining would have much of the original books left in.

    I think it more likely that the basic premise will be kept, and new "exciting" plotlines will be written from scratch.

    It will probably end up like BBC's Outcasts...

  9. Ashton Black

    The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

    I grew up reading these, Heinlein, Niven, Asimov and the like. They all suffer from context deficiencies, that is to say, when they came out, they were superb, mind expanding tomes and we didn't care about cardboard characterizations, or dodgy political philosophies. But in recent decades, we've had much better writers take up the mantle, for example, Iain M. Banks, Neal Stephenson, Neal Asher and my personal favourite Peter F. Hamilton. Those writers are on a par, with the old guard, scientifically, but are ahead in writing style and characterization.

    The Culture or the Night's Dawn universes would make much better TV, IMHO.

    1. Bunbury

      Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

      I suspect the older writers thought the science was what the book was all about so the rest was just pencil sketches.

      The problem with science fiction "film of the book" projects is often a commercial one. The audience is usually under 35 years of age. So it's often the case that they haven't read the book. So do you make a film that's reasonably true to a book and accept it won't be as successful as a film based on themes that <35yo are familiar with, or do you plunder the book for eye catching ideas and make a block buster?

      Still, this has prompted me to by copies of the John Carter and Ender's Game films.

      1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

        Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

        "I suspect the older writers thought the science was what the book was all about so the rest was just pencil sketches."

        To me it seems they were deep into exploring an essence of humanity. Which happens to be the main topic for most good writers over the history. Futuristic science serves mainly as a plot background. There's a frequent notion that technology alone will not solve our main problems. Plus swaths of witty observations about the societies over the time, and some outright prophetic bits.

        Quoth Asimov:

        "The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity - a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop."

        "The civil wars of the last two centuries have smashed up more than half of the Grand Fleet and what's left is in pretty shaky condition. You know it isn't as if the ships we build these days are worth anything. I don't think there's a man in the Galaxy today who can build a first-rate hypernuclear motor."

        And then there was Hober Mallow, with a stunning discovery that almighty Empire doesn't have any people capable of repairing a planetary powerplant, nevermind building new ones. Classy.

    2. Justicesays

      Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

      Frederick Pohl still stands up pretty well imo.

      1. Killing Time

        Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

        @Justicesays Yes either the obvious Mars related Man Plus or the Heechee saga. all books essentially about the characters more than the background.

    3. DrAJS

      Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

      What, did, the, comma ever, do, to, you??

      1. dotdavid

        Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

        "What, did, the, comma ever, do, to, you??"

        Mr Shatner, is that you? :-P

    4. toxicdragon

      Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

      "Night's Dawn universes would make much better TV" This, or at least a 3 part film although even then it wouldn't do it justice

    5. Patrician

      Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

      I don't think character development is as important in a science fiction book as in other genres; I think science fiction should be about the plot, the setting and the science and the characters are there to give the reader a "view point" into the books world rather than be subjects in and of themselves.

      I too regard Peter F Hamilton as one of the best of the current crop of writers but, having read pretty much all he's written, I don't think his characterisation is that much better than, say, Niven or Heinlein for instance. Hamiltons characters are "fleshed out" by internal monologues more that normal development.

  10. BoldMan

    Peter F Hamilton has a particular cinematic panache when it comes to action scenes, and apart from the compulsory nymphomaniac but independent and strong female characters he likes so much, he's pretty good at doing character too.

    1. dotdavid

      Speaking of cinematic panache, I'm quite looking forward to the TV adaptation of James S.A. Corey's Expanse series. But yeah a Peter F Hamilton series would be cool - I just wonder whether as a British author he isn't known as well in the US?

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      I'd have thought some of Hamilton's stuff would film really nicely. I've gone off him, since his books started getting mind-bogglingly enormous, but then I've not been reading as much in the last few years either.

      I lost the ability to suspend disbelief in the Night's Dawn trilogy, though ploughed through to the end anyway. I can see any attempt to make telly out of that risking becoming utterly ridiculous. Although who wouldn't want to see Al Capone in spaaaaaaace. If you could find a way round that, it would be easy to translate to the screen. I gave up early on in the next lot (Void trilogy?). Obviously decent modern CGI makes space opera a lot easier.

      I was thinking that his first three books would work as well. The Greg Mandell stuff. But then maybe not. How to do mind-reading on screen?

      I guess this is why I've always preferred books to telly. Although at least the TV series can do a lot better job than a film. A TV series of 'Ender's Game' might have been great. The film just didn't work at all. There wasn't enough time to grow to understand and like the character, so you didn't care what happened to him. The space opera bits worked fine.

      1. Eponymous Cowherd

        Personally thought Ender's Game was atrocious. Bordering on "Battlefield Earth" bad. It came across as Harry Potter meets Starship Troopers and dawdled along through 95% of the film before rushing through the final battle which then flolloped into to a clichéd ending.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Eponymous Cowherd,

          Ouch. Comparing Ender's Game to Battlefield Earth seems rather harsh. Although the lead actor didn't seem to be able to make Ender likeable - which was either a failure of script or acting ability.

          However, I didn't think they dawdled through the plot. I think that only having 90 mnutes was its problem. Maybe Ender isn't likeable (you don't get named Ender The Xenocide for nothing), but he is supposed to be a born leader. The book can sidestep that problem by spending the whole time inside his head, so you can understand his motives. Film can't.

          As to your problem with the ending, the book isn't about the aliens. The book is about Ender and why he's not like his brother or sister. So I guess their choice was do it properly as two films (or a TV series), or just make another aliens vs. humans film and option a best-selling book so you can hopefully get some people guaranteed to come and see you. In which case they should have dumped most of the plot, and just kept the battle room and the space battles. After all, Total Recall and The Running Man are great fun films, but bear very little relation to the short stories they're nominally based on. Total Recall didn't even keep the name, although I suppose it would be hard to fit 'We Can Remember it for You Wholesale' on the poster...

    3. Justicesays

      Hmm

      Night's Dawn suffered from a terrible ending, literally a Deus Ex Machina that hammers a sudden stop leaving alot of the (multitude of) ongoing plot threads feeling cut short or irrelevant.

      Still, if they make anything into a series they would probably start with Mindstar Rising et.al, except re-flavoured as an open-ended psychic detective series with umpteen episodes...

      1. lawndart

        Re: Hmm

        I ploughed through the gore and nastiness of the first book without realising it was part of a trilogy in the first place. I picked up the second hoping that the g&n would abate in that one, but no such luck. I eventually reached a quarter of the way in before giving up - sf horror is not really my cup of tea and I felt I had given PFH a chance with this one.

        A considerable time later I was working away from home and needed a book to read so I picked it up again; it probably helped that I had forgotten most of the details of my previous attempt. I then went on to the third and saw it through to the end, more out of a fascination with how the mess was going to get resolved. The Deus Ex Machina ending makes me feel that PFH didn't know how he was going to resolve this either and panicked.

        I still have the books but they're not likely to get read again.

        I liked his Greg Mandel stuff.

    4. breakfast Silver badge

      A TV Adaptation of Hamilton could keep his beginnings and middles and then maybe have in-house writers to provide an end. That would redeem the Night's Dawn a whole lot...

  11. Colin Brett
    Boffin

    "The books touch on issues like terraforming ... "

    Including, IIRC, the deliberate use of greenhouse gases to bring about global warming. I think the "Russell Cocktail" (named after Saxifrage Russell, the character who developed the idea) was accepted, in universe at least, to be the ideal mixture of gases to warm the Martian atmosphere.

    Note: I'm not trying to start an AGW/climate change flame war here, so please don't take this comment as such.

    Colin

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Meh

      Well, if you're terraforming a planet, the temperature is one of the big variables to alter, so why wouldn't you fiddle with the atmosphere?

      You'd pretty much have to add greenhouse gasses to Mars if you wanted it to be liveable, and you'd have to find a way of removing them from Venus's atmosphere to make that place habitable as well.

  12. OvAl

    It's all good....

    ...I'm happy and willing to see any new Sci-fi movies or mini-series being produced, they can't all be winners but the genre (in my eyes at least) has got to be better than the normal mindless fodder we are served.

    They might have bitten off more then they can chew with this one, the 'strengths' of this book, to me anyhow, were the political and social changes that the move to Mars engendered, and the monumental task of terraforming. Not sure if that amount of twists and detail can be transfered to screen with much success.

    What I'm really waiting for is a movie of Joe Haldeman's 'The forever war', which is simply an outstanding book, and has the plot and pace that I think could fit well to a visual medium.

    1. Eponymous Cowherd

      Re: It's all good....

      I'd like to see Toby Frost's "Chronicles of Space Captain Smith"

      Steampunk comedy. A sort of eclectic mix of "Hitch-hiker's Guide", "Red Dwarf" and "Carry on up the Khyber".

    2. Tom 13

      Re: It's all good....

      I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud.[1]

      Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. is crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

      If even one of SF's staunchest defenders admits 90% of it is crap, we should too. Because it is. And the reason most of us think of it as great is that even for the grey beards amongst us, half of it was written before we were born. So the crap for that half has been excised and only the good stuff was left. I observed the same thing as anime was cresting on US shores.

      1. Dan Paul

        Re: It's all good....(Funny you mention Sturgeon)

        Theodore Sturgeon short stories and novellas were already soundly plagarized by comics, television and movies.

        He had so many thought provoking story ideas. There was hardly any late 50's and 60's science fiction that did not draw something from his writings. Not to mention his Star Trek episodes

        The wiki on him is extensive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Sturgeon

        Find the North Atlantic books and read them, you'll find much in common with so many plots by various producers.

  13. thomas k.

    Start simpler

    While I enjoyed the Mars trilogy back in the day and always thought it would make good viewing as movies or TV series, why not do a practice run on something simpler like Antarctica?

  14. breakfast Silver badge

    Cementing their reputation

    To stay in keeping with the books, there should be an entire episode about concrete.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    Mars Trilogy in GoT style !!!

    The thought of having to watch the secondary characters having graphic sex scenes well past their 150th birthday fills me with horror!!!!

    THE HORROR!! THE HORROR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  16. Yugguy
    Devil

    Just film Moorcock's Elric books.

    JFDI.

    NOW!!!

  17. This post has been deleted by its author

  18. 0laf

    I like Neal Asher's Polity series myself. Not sure how well they'd translate but I'd really like to see the Spatterjay series as films. The Hoopers are my favourite characters.

  19. Petrea Mitchell
    IT Angle

    Expect the best, prepare for the worst

    I really liked this trilogy, even though I haven't been able to enjoy any of Robinson's subsequent books that I've tried. Done properly, it would be a genuine epic. Done badly... eugh.

  20. Dave 126 Silver badge

    On TV Series Structure

    The two best TV shows of the year have been True Detective and Fargo. Both are a stand-alone series of 8 or 10 episodes, both have no possibility of a sequel. As a viewer, you can commit to them safe in the knowledge that they will not be cancelled later on, or stagnate into boringness.

    Beginning, Middle, END. With some genuine surprises along he way.

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