The first realisation of The Culture in cinema will be an adaptation of the brilliant short story A Gift From the Culture.

Screendaily report that Dominic Murphy will direct, and co-script with Shane Smith, his collaborator on the ‘psychobilly thriller’ White Lightnin’. It’s just one of a few projects Murphy has on his slate including Jesus Christ Airlines, about daredevil pilots delivering aid to Biafra through hostile Nigerian airspace, and an as-yet untitled film about the Bronte children and their shared world of play and fantasy.

Wrobik, a citizen of The Culture, a society which abhors violence, has been living in exile for eight years, having renounced The Culture, her gender. Now a man, in return for cancelling his gambling debts, he agrees to destroy a starship using a gun which can only be fired by a member of the culture. But disgusted by the thought of murdering innocent people, he decides to flee the city. However, before he can leave, his boyfriend, Maust, is kidnapped and Wrobik is forced to choose between following his conscience and rescuing his lover.

Following its well-received comic book adaptations, Stephen King’s beloved The Dark Tower book series is expanding further to another new media form — video games. According to a video posted on the author’s site, a new project titled Discordia will debut on November 30th.

Those expecting an action title that has Roland firing away at Mutant lobsters or an RPG taking your Ka-tet across All-World will likely be disappointed, as the project looks like an online interactive game (my guess) centered around the Tet Corporation’s secret war with North Central Positronics and Sombra Corporation, both companies under control by Insomnia/The Dark Tower villain Crimson King.

The game also focuses on a new character, NCP’s CEO Arina Yokova, a Russian national with mob ties and the leader of the Crimson Crescent. While the posted trailer doesn’t indicate whether the books’ heroes — Roland, Susannah, Eddie, and Jake (and Oy!) — will act as playable characters in the game, their portraits appear briefly in the clip.

Whatever releases this November, it will probably be the first in a series, as suggested by the “Chapter One (For Callahan!)” note toward the end of the trailer.

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Robin Furth, King’s personal research assistant and the author of The Dark Tower: A Complete Concordance, is listed as director for the game, which is promising considering she also worked on the comic book adaptations with Peter David. Metro DMA is handling Discordia’s production.

“Introduction: Check Your Dark Lord at the Door” – Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan
“Goats of Glory” – Steven Erikson
“Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company” – Glen Cook
“Bloodsport” – Gene Wolfe
“The Singing Spear” – James Enge
“A Wizard of Wiscezan” – C.J. Cherryh
“A Rich Full Week” – K. J. Parker
“A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet” – Garth Nix
“Red Pearls: An Elric Story” – Michael Moorcock
“The Deification of Dal Bamore” – Tim Lebbon
“Dark Times at the Midnight Market” – Robert Silverberg
“The Undefiled” – Greg Keyes
“Hew the Tint Master” – Michael Shea
“In the Stacks” – Scott Lynch
“Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe” – Tanith Lee
“The Sea Troll’s Daughter” – Caitlin R Kiernan
“Thieves of Daring” – Bill Willingham
“The Fool Jobs” – Joe Abercrombie

While there’s always someone else who could be in a book like this, we’re delighted with the quality of the stories we received, grateful to the authors for being involved and to our publisher for supporting the book. It’ll be out next July and is fabulous! Oh, and there’ll be a limited edition done by Subterranean Press too, which should be awesome in its own right.

Seriously, if you’ve ever been curious about the Sword and Sorcery subgenre, this looks like the prefect place to dip your toe in. Oh yeah, and according to Ander’s (via Facebook), the tome clocks in at 155k words (which means ‘pretty bloody long’, for those of you who aren’t sure about word counts). So, June 22, 2010. Mark your calendars.