Posts Tagged: Television

News

In Discussion: James S.A. Corey on the Television Adaptation of The Expanse

By Aidan Moher September 11th, 2013
The Expanse by James S.A. Corey

We got very lucky. That has a lot to do with it. [We] managed not to turn into squeeing fanboys.

James S.A. Corey has a lot of fans. ‘His’ books, The Expanse series, have been nominated for the Hugo and appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers list. It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, when Variety revealed that The Expanse series was optioned for television by some of the people behind the Iron Man films and Breaking Bad. I reached out to ‘Corey’ to find out more about the project.

“We got very lucky. That has a lot to do with it,” said Daniel Abraham (who, along with Ty Franck, forms James S.A. Corey) when I asked him about how the project came together. As often happens in Hollywood (or an industry as small as science fiction/fantasy publishing), it all began with a daisy-chain of acquaintances and friendly introductions. “We actually had a fair number of inquiries from one place and another about the film rights, and we have a manager out there — Brian Lipson — who knows his way around. He put us together with Sean Daniel and Jason Brown, who’d been handed Leviathan Wakes by Ben Cook. Sean, in addition to producing some obscene percentage of all the good films ever made, knew Mark and Hawk.” Read More »

Art

What if Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards sequence was a television cartoon?

By Aidan Moher June 5th, 2013

With the upcoming release of Scott Lynch’s The Republic of Thieves, the long-anticipated third volume in his Gentlemen Bastards sequence, excitement among fans (especially creative ones) is higher than ever, to the point that Lynch recently released a statement regarding fan fiction in his universe. One of those fan projects is the video above, by filmmaker Milena Aijala. Aijala created title sequence for a hypothetical television series based on the series, and discusses the process on her blog. It’s a gorgeous piece of animation. Even cooler is Lynch’s excitement and endorsement of the project. There’s no television series in the works, but, dammit if this doesn’t set my mouth watering for one.

News

What it’s like to watch Game of Thrones with people who haven’t read the books.

By Aidan Moher June 3rd, 2013
got-survivor

So. Much. Sadistic. Pleasure.

By now, you’ve either seen last night’s episode, or seen the immense fallout from the events that happen at the end. A Song of Ice and Fire fans who read A Storm of Swords on release, have been waiting for last night’s episode for years. And, my oh my, it was delicious.

I should admit, I can’t take credit for the application of the animated gif as a reaction to Game of Thrones, I saw it on twitter. But, it’s perfect.

Feature Article

“Broader Fantasy Foundations — Part Two: Romance of the Three Kingdoms” by Max Gladstone

By Max Gladstone March 11th, 2013
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, article by Max Gladstone

Art by Evan Lee

The great old stories break and bend rules modern audiences take for granted. For example: Journey to the West, which I talked about last month, is a story of high-flying magic, transformation, kung fu, divine war, and so on—that, for all its epic scope, reads more like Sword and Sorcery.

That is, to borrow Liz Bourke’s definition of S&S: Journey to the West is a story of encounter, in which central characters going about their daily business keep running into strange, fascinating, terrifying things—and befriending them, or beating them about the head and shoulders, or both.

By contrast, let’s talk about one of the best war-and-intrigue novels of all time, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. At first glance, Three Kingdoms seems an epic fantasy, in that it describes the fall of a massive empire through the lens of central characters with dynastic ambition. But, though set in a time of miracles, Three Kingdoms relies on the traditional Sword & Sorcery mix of cleverness, combat, and betrayal rather than prophecy or magic. Read More »

News

GRRM confirms talks about Game of Thrones prequel for HBO

By Aidan Moher February 14th, 2013

Last week, news spread that George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire, signed a new two-year contract with HBO, including his continued participation in their ASOIAF adaptation, Game of Thrones and the development of new projects. On February 10th, in response to a question from a fan on his personal blog, Martin confirmed details about those ‘projects,’ including a potential prequel series to Game of Thrones.

Tuf would be fun. Dunk and Egg are being discussed. Robert’s Rebellion is part of Ice & Fire, won’t be a separate series. Sandkings was done by the OUTER LIMITS; I retain feature film rights, but television rights are gone.

While he speculates about his other properties, he admits specifically that discussion has taken place regarding Dunk and Egg, the heroes of his A Song of Ice and Fire off-shoot novella series. They would be a fun concept for a show, but I wonder if there is proper mass appeal for two characters that most fans of the series likely don’t even know exist. As he says, Robert’s Rebellion would be perfect, but nearly as big a production as Game of Thrones itself, and it’s integrally tied to the events in the series and might be redundant by the time the series/show ends. Non-A Song of Ice and Fire properties is an interesting idea, but, again, I wonder about the mass appeal. Me? I’m curious where the rights to the Wild Cards series rest.