The Stars Are Not For Man

September 8, 2014 8:28 AM

Kubrick wanted to film it, but couldn't get the option - so chose second-best for 2001. It is an epic novel of hope and wonder that ends with the destruction of humanity and the Earth. It could only have been written by a Brit living in the heady mix of progress and failing Empire that suffused the post-war UK. It has cardboard characters and meandering intermissions, mysticism and hard SF: in short, it's one of the best things Arthur Clarke ever wrote and a true classic of the genre. Now, sixty years after it first appeared, Childhood's End is finally set for our screens.

SyFy has pressed the go button for a six-parter starting next year. With Doctor Who's Nick Hurran directing and Life On Mars/Ashes To Ashes' creator Matthew Graham on screenplay, it's time to get ready... ready to welcome our new alien Overlords.

posted by Devonian (118 comments total)

Oh, awesome! I can't wait for...

SyFy

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
posted by SansPoint at 8:32 AM on September 8, 2014 [66 favorites]

Sweet. Hopefully if this is a success someone will finally get on the ball and do Rendezvous with Rama.
posted by bondcliff at 8:33 AM on September 8, 2014 [14 favorites]

Yeah.

I know.

I have been waiting forty years for this.

They better not mess it up. If they do, then they'd better watch the skies.
posted by Devonian at 8:34 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

6 parts seems to long. Childhood's End isn't a very long book. There are three obvious "ending" points -- the reveal of the Overlords, the start of the transfiguration, and, well, the ending.
posted by eriko at 8:34 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Someone take Tim Curry's costume from Legend out of deep storage.
posted by 2bucksplus at 8:37 AM on September 8, 2014 [14 favorites]

Starring Edward James Olmos as... THE OVERLORD!

Tara Reid as...
posted by Auden at 8:39 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Someone take Tim Curry's costume from Legend out of deep storage.

I'm thinking Dave Grohl reprising his roll from Tenacious D's "Tribute" video.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:41 AM on September 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

In 1978, I saw William Shatner do a live! dramatic! reading! of that final monologue from Childhood's End. All I'm sayin', is that I come to my high expectations legitimately.
posted by Mogur at 8:46 AM on September 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

Too bad that Independence Day stole the main iconic image of the giant space ships hovering over earth cities.
posted by octothorpe at 8:47 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oh, awesome! I can't wait for...
SyFy
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Keep in mind that SyFy's "Original Movies" (Sharknado, Mansquito) are a very different thing from their "real" productions, stuff like nuBSG, SG:U, etc.

Not that the latter stuff is necessarily great either, but at least potentially good.
posted by kmz at 8:48 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

6 parts seems to long. Childhood's End isn't a very long book. There are three obvious "ending" points -- the reveal of the Overlords,

Uh, spoiler

the start of the transfiguration,

SPOILER?!

and, well, the ending

Geeze man.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:48 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

Spoiler: "...ends with the destruction of humanity and the Earth."
posted by uraniumwilly at 8:50 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Mansquito

is this an unholy union between man and mosquito?
posted by poffin boffin at 8:53 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Alienado!
posted by sutt at 8:55 AM on September 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

octothorpe: "Too bad that Independence Day stole the main iconic image of the giant space ships hovering over earth cities."

By Independence Day, you mean V.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:56 AM on September 8, 2014 [25 favorites]

Yep! Mansquito, Frankenfish, Pteracuda, Sharktopus, Mermantula, and Piranhaconda are just a few of the fantastical beasts that come to you from the brilliant minds at SyFy...
posted by kmz at 8:57 AM on September 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

Also, Pohl's Gateway is apparently coming to tv.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:02 AM on September 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

WEREWOLVES IN SPACE
posted by infinitewindow at 9:03 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's been out there for sixty years. The statute of spoiler limitation applies! And even if you know the ending and the key plot points, it's still full of surprises and satisfaction.

By coincidence, I recently re-read Childhood's End (I have the Pan edition with that giant green saucer cover used in the OP link - itself something of a favourite). It stands up really well; the various faults were as obvious to the very young Devonian as they are to the raddled old man who claims continuity to the same, and the sheer chutzpah with which Clarke lobs grenade after grenade at the reader is just as fun at this remove.

It is, of course, utterly wrong that SyFy is making it and Kubrick is not, and yes, some of the key images have been greedily plagiarised already. I would hope that the production team will rise to the occasion anyway: it's a cracking story and full of thoroughly solid clues on how it might bring the awesome to the screen.
posted by Devonian at 9:04 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

>>6 parts seems to long. Childhood's End isn't a very long book. There are
>>three obvious "ending" points -- the reveal of the Overlords,
>
>Uh, spoiler

I'm sorry but no. The fact that there is a reveal is not itself a spoiler.

Now, how you advertise this series without spoiling the reveal ... That will be interesting.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:04 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Keep in mind that SyFy's "Original Movies" (Sharknado, Mansquito) are a very different thing from their "real" productions

true, consider the masterpiece they produced with Dune
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:07 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

This book has one of my favourite lines in it (as a parent of two boys): "...he filled to perfection the classic recipe for a small boy: a noise surrounded by dirt."

They better not mess this up.

6 parts seems to long. Childhood's End isn't a very long book

Agreed; I think I ripped through it in an afternoon the first time I read it. I don't know why there is s sudden need to inflate books into bloated movie trilogies and mini-series (eyes Peter Jackson suspiciously).
posted by nubs at 9:07 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

WEREWOLVES IN SPACE

"Hold on a minute til I fly around to the right side of the moon...OK, now...RAWR!!!"
posted by sexyrobot at 9:07 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

...Dreamweaver!
posted by Chrysostom at 9:12 AM on September 8, 2014

I would love to see Rendevous With Rama done but I'm afraid of what would happen to it on the way to the screen. By Hollywood standards it is a desperately boring book: There's no violence, no interpersonal strife, and the one actual conflict is settled with a pair of wire clippers a million miles from nowhere.

If you want an example of how badly it could go, see how thoroughly Gentry Lee screwed up the sequels. Rama was a genteel exploration of the unknown, not a friggin' space opera.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:14 AM on September 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

By coincidence, I recently re-read Childhood's End

Me too! I've reread several books this year, and added a ton of "I'll get to them somedays" to my list. What makes me sad is for years I thought I did a senior projecton Childhood's End, and it turned out that it was "Songs of Distant Earth" I did. Felt pretty dumb.

Anyway, this is damn good news. If they do it well, it'd be a lovely floodgate to open, instead of Sharknado and/or Reality Nerd shows or Costume dramas.
posted by DigDoug at 9:17 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think there has been talk of a Rendezvous with Rama film for years if not decades. It would be brilliant because it's a great stand alone hard(ish) sci-fi Clarke book with no sequels. Yep, that's right, *no* sequels...

There's a few books by Clarke that would transition to screen pretty well. I've always had a soft spot for The Songs of Distant Earth.
posted by lawrencium at 9:18 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

6 parts seems to long. Childhood's End isn't a very long book.

Actually, short stories (or maybe novellas) are the perfect length for being turned into movies. Novels are often too long. So 6 parts will probably work here.
posted by Nevin at 9:21 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Lawrencium, Songs of Distant Earth started life as a film treatment, iirc.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:22 AM on September 8, 2014

true, consider the masterpiece they produced with Dune

TV Dune wasn't great but it wasn't horrible. Riverworld on the other hand.
posted by octothorpe at 9:23 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I read this book in grade six or seven and it fucked my shit up. That said, I'm not sure it's the best candidate for a movie adaptation, assuming they're even going to try to be faithful to the source material. The worst-case scenario is something like:

CHILDHOOD'S END...HUMANKIND GROWS UP AND FIGHTS BACK
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:24 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm not too worried about SyFy's involvement. I've been watching and enjoying both Defiance and Dominion. Both are quite well written and executed. Better than I would have expected for sure.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 9:25 AM on September 8, 2014

TV Dune wasn't great but it wasn't horrible

I was mostly pissed that Paul got turned into Anakin.
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:28 AM on September 8, 2014

WEREWOLVES IN SPACE

We mock the concept only because we can't imagine what Peter Watts could have done with it.
posted by roystgnr at 9:33 AM on September 8, 2014 [8 favorites]

I was mostly pissed that the Fremen didn't have any goddamn water discipline.
posted by kmz at 9:34 AM on September 8, 2014 [10 favorites]

Riverworld on the other hand.

Riverworld or Riverworld?
posted by The Tensor at 9:34 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

          WEREWOLVES IN SPACE
     IN SPACE, THE MOON IS ALWAYS FULL
             SUMMER 2015

posted by blue_beetle at 9:36 AM on September 8, 2014 [20 favorites]

Riverworld on the other hand.

"JC on the Dude Ranch" would be better.
posted by Nevin at 9:40 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

In the head offices of the SyFy Network:

"So we can't get the rights to a remake of "V" after all."
"Well, shit. So what do we do now?"
"Well, I had my intern do some net searching, and she found this book that's like, a rip-off of V. Only get this, the invaders turn out to be demons!"
"Oh. Oh yeah! Now that's a high concept! We can do this. Get me a writer and 10 kilos of cocaine, we've got a movie to make!
posted by happyroach at 9:53 AM on September 8, 2014

SyFy will mess this up in some way. It's not possible for it to be perfect.

And having never read the book, man, the Wikipedia plot summary is depressing. Ugh.
posted by GuyZero at 9:55 AM on September 8, 2014

"Oh. Oh yeah! Now that's a high concept! We can do this. Get me a writer and 10 kilos of cocaine, we've got a movie to make!

The attached writer is the guy who did Life on Mars, so you might need 20.
posted by Etrigan at 9:57 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

TV Dune wasn't great but it wasn't horrible.

The only good thing about TV Dune was the glorious, ridiculous hats.

Other than the hats it was a terrible thing made by terrible people.
posted by winna at 9:58 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Dr. Twist: "I was mostly pissed that Paul got turned into Anakin."

Aaaargh, why do both the Lynch movie and the mini-series make Paul a 20-something? Paul is 15, this is actually pretty important.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:59 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

SyFy doing it'd damn best to keep genera fiction marginalized and mocked.
posted by edgeways at 10:00 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

nubs: I don't know why there is s sudden need to inflate books into bloated movie trilogies and mini-series
posted by harrietthespy at 10:06 AM on September 8, 2014

I'm not sure we should trust a network to translate great science fiction to the screen when they can't even spell their own name right.
posted by el io at 10:07 AM on September 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

I would love to see Rendevous With Rama done but I'm afraid of what would happen to it on the way to the screen. By Hollywood standards it is a desperately boring book: There's no violence, no interpersonal strife, and the one actual conflict is settled with a pair of wire clippers a million miles from nowhere.

I suspect this is why it's been in the early stages of development for, like, ever. Morgan Freeman was attached to it and I think they could never get a script.

I think they could do it, though they might have to ramp up the excitement a bit. It could be done as sort of a suspense thriller where nothing much ever happens, you just think it's gonna happen.

I'd much rather they do nothing with it than do it badly.
posted by bondcliff at 10:09 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Riverworld or Riverworld?

Yes.
posted by octothorpe at 10:09 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Why did it have to be syfy?!! is there really so little recognition of childhood's end ... damn ...
posted by TheLittlePrince at 10:10 AM on September 8, 2014

SPOILER?

Childhood's End was published in 1953. 61 years ago.

SCREW THAT SPOILER BS. That's a 61 year old book, an absolute classic in the genre, and YOU CLICKED ON A THREAD ABOUT IT.

If it's on TV, you have *one* week to watch it. If it's a movie, six months. If it's a book, one year. After that, there's no spoiler protection. You want to read it without spoilers? You had decades and you've missed the chance.
posted by eriko at 10:13 AM on September 8, 2014 [18 favorites]

I was introduced to the Overlords via Barlowe's Guide to Extraterestrials. The book was something of a disappoint to my young self. (The central premise is... problematic.) So, I'm more concerned that Syfy will screw up Barlowe's.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:13 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

But I've been travelling at speeds approaching c for only six months subjective / seventy of your Earth-years. Spoiler!
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:17 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Ha, I am literally laughing out loud about the need for a spoiler warning here. How goofy can you be?
posted by Nevin at 10:20 AM on September 8, 2014

I read this in middle school. Apart from the reveal of the Overlords' appearance (which my pre-pubescent self thought was SO CLEVER!), I remember being disappointed by the end of the book.

At the time I wondered whether any children were left out, or if they had all managed to synchronize themselves via psionic powers or whatnot. More recent readers - is this explained in the book?
posted by gox3r at 10:21 AM on September 8, 2014

So... I get to see my childhood, decades after it ends?

/wrt the mention of HeeChees in space
posted by infini at 10:22 AM on September 8, 2014

What I really want to see, otoh, is Puppetteer twist its head around.
posted by infini at 10:26 AM on September 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

Childhood's End made me mad at Clarke, and I've never quite gotten over it -- you all see that CE is a specific realization of Chardin's Noosphere, right? and that the form of the Overlords is virtually an homage to (Catholic theolgian) Chardin?

The City and the Stars, on the other hand, just gave me five minutes of delicious chills remembering what reading that thing at twelve did to me; though now that I think of it, it is kind of Left Behind on a galactic scale.
posted by jamjam at 10:41 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

My favourite AC book as a kid (maybe 11 or 12) was Lost Worlds of 2001, which had some really cool conceptual, pre-2001 short stories, like The Sentinel. I really like the idea of some sort of cyborg descending into the Jovian atmosphere by parachute.
posted by Nevin at 10:49 AM on September 8, 2014

SPOILER?

I hear you! Only last night, some asshole told me Rosebud was a fucking sled and the "girlfriend" was really a boyfriend. The nerve of some people...
posted by kjs3 at 10:52 AM on September 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

Didn't read the book?
That's a spoilerin'
Clicked on a thread about the book?
That's a spoilerin'
Complaining about spoilers in this thread?
Oh, you better believe that's a spolierin'.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:02 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

Now, how you advertise this series without spoiling the reveal ... That will be interesting.

Yes, it will be devilishly difficult.

When the Ender's Game movie started getting press, my girlfriend was surprisingly excited. And that put me in a weird place, because on the one hand though I love sci-fi it is not something she gets excited about as a rule, so I didn't want to quash that, but on the other hand, my feelings about that particular book are pretty complicated and I was not at all excited about the idea of any of my money supporting OSC.

Then she saw a preview and said something about how she didn't remember any battle scenes, and what did all that have to do with the [spoiler] and I realized that my conundrum had resolved itself without my having to take any action.

And that's the story of how I learned that in my girlfriend's world, there's only one sci-fi book in the world with the syllable "end" in it.
posted by solotoro at 11:03 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

SPOILER?

The statute of spoiler limitations gets reset when active production in another medium begins. Related: See every Game of Thrones thread ever.
posted by FreezBoy at 11:10 AM on September 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

The statute of spoiler limitations gets reset when active production in another medium begins.

No one who is younger than the original work gets to complain about spoilers. When you have had literally your entire life to catch up on something, it's not spoiling, it's catching up.
posted by Etrigan at 11:15 AM on September 8, 2014

Tell Me No Lies: If you want an example of how badly it could go, see how thoroughly Gentry Lee screwed up the sequels.

He never should have quit his day job singing for Rush.
posted by dr_dank at 11:23 AM on September 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

Oh! Oh! Can we have about what we want to see on TV or movies for SF? 'Cause I've got a frikkin' LIST. Oh, all right, not a whole list but I do got one:

anything that Lois McMaster Bujold has ever written.
posted by Mogur at 11:30 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

It'll almost certainly be better than the reboot crossover of 2027:

Childhood's Ender's Game
posted by fairmettle at 11:31 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'd personally love to see Accelerando on the screen. Mostly for The Lobsters. Actually, I could do with just a series on The Lobsters.
posted by Slackermagee at 11:36 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Slackermagee:

"Actually, I could do with just a series on The Lobsters."

But what's in it for me?
posted by Hairy Lobster at 11:41 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

jamjam wrote:

you all see that CE is a specific realization of Chardin's Noosphere, right? and that the form of the Overlords is virtually an homage to (Catholic theolgian) Chardin?

If you're interested in a science fiction series that is even more indebted to Teilhard de Chardin (and that references his works and ideas explicitly) you might check out Julian May's Galactic Milieu trilogy.
posted by Nerd of the North at 11:54 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I never could get into Diamond Jack and his madness. I preferred the Many Coloured Land (Golden Torc? series was it called).

mostly because that was the first time I read about vagina dentata in one of the elder races

I err, Diamond Mask and Jack the Bodiless
posted by infini at 11:55 AM on September 8, 2014

"JC on the Dude Ranch" would be better.

That would have been the mindblowingest episode of Red Shoe Diaries ever.
Suitable for one of those anthology series, at least.
Definitely The Hunger.
Probably not The Hitcher.
posted by detachd at 12:14 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

WEREWOLVES IN SPACE
IN SPACE, THE MOON IS ALWAYS FULL

Okay, I'm calling dibs on writing novel where a coalition of werewolves is pushing hard for expanded space exploration and advances in terraforming so they can colonize a planet with no moon and spend their days in peace.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:14 PM on September 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

Okay, just to end the Werewolves In Space derail: Space Wolf. (1.5m)
posted by JHarris at 12:20 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

No one who is younger than the original work gets to complain about spoilers. When you have had literally your entire life to catch up on something, it's not spoiling, it's catching up.

///   ///  ///  ///  /// Stiff's Notes ///  ///  ///  ///  ///

• Hamlet: Everbody dies.
• Plato's Dialogues: Socrates is always right. Then he dies.
• Le Morte d'Arthur: Everybody dies, except for a few who become monks.
• Moby Dick: Everybody dies (except the whale. And the one guy telling you this.)
• On the Beach: Almost everybody dies. The few remaining get very depressed, take a long sea voyage, get even more depressed, and then die.
• The Great Gatsby: You only wish everybody'd die.
• Pebble In The Sky: At 60, everybody dies.
• Logan's Run: At 30, everybody dies.
• Star Trek: He's dead, Jim.
• Riverworld: Everbody dies. Everybody who died comes back to life. Everbody who died and came back to life and dies again comes back to life again. Well, maybe not every time . . .
• Red Dwarf: They're dead, Dave. Everybody's dead Dave. They're all dead, everybody's dead, Dave. Gorden Bennet, yes Chen, he's dead Dave, everybody's dead, everybody is dead, Dave.
• The Number of The Beast: Everybody talks; Everbody dies; Literally everybody comes back to life, talks and talks, has sex with himself or herself, talks some more and it is to be hoped, sometime after page 543, everybody -- mercifully -- dies.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy: Everbody dies, except the dolphins. Then, thanks to the dolphins (maybe) they didn't (maybe). Then the author got torqued off and killed everybody off again. Then he had second thoughts, but before he could act on them, he died. So probably everybody's dead now (except for all those diodes down the left side).
• Basketball Diaries: These are People Who Died.
• They Live: They die.

posted by Herodios at 12:34 PM on September 8, 2014 [20 favorites]

Okay, I'm calling dibs on writing novel where a coalition of werewolves is pushing hard for expanded space exploration and advances in terraforming so they can colonize a planet with no moon and spend their days in peace.

Spoilers Below

IIRC, in the world of the anime/novels of Vampire Hunter D, vampires have moved into space which apparently counts as perpetual night instead of perpetual exposure to the sun, so they thrive there with a stock of humans to feed on.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:42 PM on September 8, 2014

This is somehow not where I thought this thread would end up.

Spoiler warning.
posted by infini at 12:44 PM on September 8, 2014

I suspect this is why [Rendezvous With Rama] been in the early stages of development for, like, ever. Morgan Freeman was attached to it and I think they could never get a script.

Samuel Jackson's production company has got the ball at the moment, which gives me a bit of hope. He's got respect for genre.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:44 PM on September 8, 2014

Sorry, I don't have anything to contribute other than to say that "...they'd better watch the skies" is the best ominous threat of retribution I've ever read.
posted by Reyturner at 12:52 PM on September 8, 2014

Mogur: "In 1978, I saw William Shatner do a live! dramatic! reading! of that final monologue from Childhood's End. All I'm sayin', is that I come to my high expectations legitimately."

I saw this show in Dallas. Shatner blew my 15 year old brain away.
posted by arkham_inmate_0801 at 12:55 PM on September 8, 2014

I'll just use this as the place to voice that Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist universe needs to be a series.
posted by sourwookie at 1:10 PM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

ChyldhoodsYnd
posted by turbid dahlia at 1:19 PM on September 8, 2014

Looking forward to both Childhood's End and Gateway!

*refuses to be pessimistic*
posted by Kevin Street at 1:43 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I know it would be expensive, but it would be neat if HBO would launch a Sci-Fi anthology series like it's doing with True Detective. Every season they could do a book or story, like Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama, etc.

They have the money and can give the freedom to pull it off.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:50 PM on September 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

It would be better to avoid the profoundly silly Main Plot Elements of the books, but a tv series set in Hamilton's Confederation / Night's Dawn universe would be lots of fun.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:29 PM on September 8, 2014

I'm weird in that I seek out spoilers before I read or view a work. I still manage to enjoy the book or movie.

That said, I can't imagine why I never heard of this book-I used to read a lot of sci fi back in the day, and my dad was and maybe still is a fan of the genre (not sure what he's reading these days.)
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 2:38 PM on September 8, 2014

In general, the best plots do not rely heavily on surprise. If they did, there would be little point re-reading them.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:43 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's usually better to avoid spoilers, because many stories do depend to a certain extent upon plot. Surprise isn't that important if you're reading something that's exclusively picaresque or a character study, but most stories don't fall neatly within those definitions.

I read Childhood's End once, but it was so long ago I can't remember anything about it except that 1982 cover. Genrally speaking I almost never reread books (there's just too much new stuff to see) but three decades might be enough time to make an exception.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:29 PM on September 8, 2014

anything that Lois McMaster Bujold has ever written.

Somewhere out in the internet, probably on her LiveJournal, Bujold describes the time Hollywood did try to option the Vokoskigan saga. She even got a proposed treatment. It involved changing Miles Vorkoskigan, the character built around surmounting his disability, into a 6' tall athlete. If it had been filmed, it probably would have starred Keanu Reeves.

And just imagine what Curse of Challon would look like in the post-Game of Thrones era: "It's a great story, really. It just needs some more sex scenes, and it'll be perfect. Hey, do you think you can put in a rape scene or two?"
posted by happyroach at 3:39 PM on September 8, 2014

[Rendezvous With Rama]

Samuel Jackson's production company has got the ball at the moment, which gives me a bit of hope. He's got respect for genre.


Oh yeah, "Snakes on an AlienFrack'n SpaceShip!!".


~
posted by sammyo at 4:22 PM on September 8, 2014

that 1982 cover

It was a serving suggestion. "Read this on LSD".
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:22 PM on September 8, 2014

I haven't read this but it reminds me of a short story I read in the middling past where some sort of sky overlords took over the earth and basically made humanity their vassals a la feudal England. Said aliens were ultra formal with rigid hierarchy amongst themselves and the story was told from the viewpoint of one of their [human] head translators, if not the head translator for the head honcho Duke-on-the-Ground alien, who was also beginning to get involved in the revolutionary front against said aliens.

Any help as to what that story was maybe, PM me if you want? Sorry to hijack a bit.

Otherwise this series (not the made for TV thing, I'll be skipping that and going straight to the source) looks decent. Basically the old TV show V but without the bad laser shootouts and by a classic SF author? I'm game.
posted by RolandOfEld at 4:37 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Google Image Search reveals a healthy selection of period-specific (and mostly spacecraft-over-city heavy) covers. But you have to admire whatever publishing process and budget resulted in this unsparingly weird effort. Would that mass-market paperbacks today had such plumage.
posted by Devonian at 4:44 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

the story was told from the viewpoint of one of their [human] head translators . . .

Was the human head in, like, a vat or a jar or a pan or . . . ?
 
posted by Herodios at 5:02 PM on September 8, 2014

But you have to admire whatever publishing process and budget resulted in this unsparingly weird effort.

Holy crap, I want a poster of that cover so bad.
posted by emptythought at 5:03 PM on September 8, 2014

syfy also picked up james s. a. corey's expanse :P wake me for jack vance's dying earth (or lyonesse!)
posted by kliuless at 5:43 PM on September 8, 2014

Rolandofeld, it was a series of short stories. The Pilgrim, or something like that.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:23 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ah, the first story was "Enter the Pilgrim" back in '74. It was either collected or expanded to Way of the Pilgrim.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:30 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

RolandOfEld: "Otherwise this series (not the made for TV thing, I'll be skipping that and going straight to the source) looks decent. Basically the old TV show V but without the bad laser shootouts and by a classic SF author? I'm game."

Er, no. That's not really what it's about at all.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:05 PM on September 8, 2014

anything that Lois McMaster Bujold has ever written.

I think they should display some real ambition: Snow Crash.
posted by jokeefe at 8:26 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Otherwise this series (not the made for TV thing, I'll be skipping that and going straight to the source) looks decent. Basically the old TV show V but without the bad laser shootouts and by a classic SF author? I'm game.

Er, no. That's not really what it's about at all.

Well if you squint really really really hard....

1. Massively powerful aliens show up claiming to be friends but hide their real appearance.
2. Aliens establish dominion over the planet.
3. After many years, aliens are forced off the planet by the descendants of the people they first met.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:31 PM on September 8, 2014

Thanks for that, it's about the level of spoiler I was looking for. Just enough to tell me if it's my bag without names and places. I'll still check it out.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:33 PM on September 8, 2014

I had to really stretch for that one, but it's a short book and a good read so I heartily agree you should check it out.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:13 PM on September 8, 2014

I think they should display some real ambition: Snow Crash.

Isn't that just "Silicon Valley"?

'Scuse me, I've got to go deliver some pizza. And I only have 17 minutes left.
posted by happyroach at 11:51 PM on September 8, 2014

I always feel a disconnect when people talk about Childhood's End. People seem to really like its view of the future but all I see is humanity turning into a giant space slurpee which then promptly gets slurped up. It's hard to imagine a worse future.
posted by Justinian at 1:19 AM on September 9, 2014

But we will evolve into something different, Justinian - and then the old us will be either history or a living fossil. SF isn't about better, any more than reality is.

I won't be too precise - spoilers, eh? - but the part of the book where the Pillars of Dawn appear is the one that's stuck with me the strongest. I still haven't finished thinking about that, either thematically or in the way that Clarke uses prose for effect. I think Aldiss said that there was something almost psalmic about ACC's phrasing - which makes sense; the KJV and BCP were still huge in quotidian culture in his childhood - and despite the artisinal nature of much of his writing, he can capture the transcendent in ways that I think any author, however exalted, would be delighted to equal.

SyFy's track record in capturing the transcendent, however... must have faith, must have faith...
posted by Devonian at 1:35 AM on September 9, 2014

But we will evolve into something different, Justinian - and then the old us will be either history or a living fossil. SF isn't about better, any more than reality is.

That's one reading, Devonian. I'm still gonna stick with "Giant Space Slurpee" though.
posted by Justinian at 1:46 AM on September 9, 2014

all I see is humanity turning into a giant space slurpee which then promptly gets slurped up. It's hard to imagine a worse future.

You're really not a joiner, are you.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:11 AM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

I basically see the last third of Childhood's End as a cautionary tale about the Internet.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:53 AM on September 9, 2014

1. Massively powerful aliens show up claiming to be friends but hide their real appearance.
2. Aliens establish dominion over the planet.
3. After many years, aliens are forced off the planet by the descendants of the people they first met.

The problem with this is it and if this spoils the book for you, WIN is that the Overlords are explicitly caretakers for #3. They're sent to make sure that the species in question doesn't destroy itself before they can evolve into the one-mind super species. They're not meant to rule. They exist to make sure the species in question doesn't die before they become something else. That's it -- and their curse is that they will never evolve to that state. They are the bridesmaid forever.

The entire point of Childhood's End is that -- just like a child -- you don't get a vote. You *are* going to grow up, and in this case, it's a dramatic leap, but nobody gets a vote here. The event is going to happen.

The whole purpose of the Overlords is simply to make sure that the species -- in this case, humanity -- lives long enough to grow up.

And the title means two things. It it literally Childhood's End. It's the end of Humanity's childhood, and it is, quite literally, the end of childhood. This is a book that the ending is explicitly stated as the extinction of Homo Sapiens. That includes children.
posted by eriko at 7:36 PM on September 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Riverworld on the other hand.

Nearly made me claw my own eyes out in the thirty seconds it took to find the remote and change the channel to something with better writing and deeper characterization. I think I ended up on the Kardashians.

I mean, those books were one of the biggest Mary Sues in sci-fi ever (IMHO), but at least they were well crafted. What I saw of the show (or, TV movie I guess?) was wretched. And that's insulting to wretched things.

It'll almost certainly be better than the reboot crossover of 2027:

Childhood's Ender's Game

Childhood's Ender's Hunger Games, duh.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:32 AM on September 10, 2014

Childhood's Ender's Hunger Games, duh.

Childhood's Ender's Hunger Games, Doo Dah, Doo Dah!
posted by eriko at 8:07 AM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Childhood's Rainbows Ender's Hunger Games, no apostrophe :P
posted by kliuless at 9:19 AM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think Heart of the Comet would make a better movie than Rendezvous With Rama. Heart of the Comet has got everything (landing on an alien artifact, exploring the mysteries, and then... boom! strife).

Rendezvous With Rama really points out why we need books. The story is better suited for the printed page.
posted by Nevin at 9:25 AM on September 10, 2014

I'm not so sure, Nevin. Maybe it wouldn't be a Hollywood blockbuster movie (from my lips to God's ears), but I think movies that tell a story rather than relying on conflict...

Actually, wait. I haven't rerererereread Rama in a few years, but there is a conflict, or a couple: explorers vs. keep things as they are, clock running out, that sort of thing. It just requires more intellectual engagement than the latest Jason Statham Blow Shit Up movie. (speaking of Blow Shit Up movies, November Man is surprisingly good.)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:23 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I really really want to see a HeeChee prayer wheel
posted by infini at 10:25 AM on September 10, 2014

I think they were HeeChee prayer fans, actually. Hundreds of 'em on Earth. Those HeeChee sure did like to pray...
posted by Kevin Street at 12:13 PM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeh, I knew wheel wasn't the right word but sometimes words just escape me. Must be the old age creeping up on the short ter
posted by infini at 1:08 PM on September 10, 2014

Logan's Childhood's Rainbows Ender's Hunger Games Run
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:33 PM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]