From: sderby@crick.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu (Stuart P. Derby)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies,rec.arts.movies,alt.cult-movies
Subject: Re: SF Novels that would make Great Films
Date: 19 Dec 92 16:03:00 GMT
Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
NNTP-Posting-Host: crick.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu

In article <1992Dec16.005825.13861@netcom.com> mvp@netcom.com (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>In article <92Dec15.181859.30381@acs.ucalgary.ca> scollnik@acs.ucalgary.ca (David Peter Michael Scollnik) writes:
>>I beg to differ.  I just finished reading [Michael Chrighton's
>>"Sphere"], and although most of the book was interesting, the
>>ending was little more than a re-working of the classic "I woke
>>up and it was all a dream".
>
>Thank you.  There was some small risk I might have happened to have
>picked up a copy of "Sphere" and read it, and then I would have been
>obliged to hunt Mr. Crighton down and kill him.  I *HATE*  "Ha ha,
>fool of a reader, it was all a dream!" endings.  Bleah bleah bleah!
>
>(Fortunately, PKD was already dead when I read "UBIK".)
>
  Ummm, I remember UBIK as more of a "Ha ha, you can't tell
a dream from reality!" sort of thing, and I found the book
moderately interesting and disturbing at the time (I was
19 then, so I might have been fooled). ANd it was more
complicated than that...

  Getting back to SF books I'd like to see movie-ized:

Rogue Moon (Algis Budrys) - done in black and white, except
   when they're in the artifact (it'd take a genius to film
  the inside and have it be "right"). 
Silver Metal Lover(Tanith Lee) - just right for the
  adolescent alienated crowd
Heart of the Comet(Benford & Brin) - getting all that low G right would
  be expensive!!!! However, it'd be action-y enough to
  get a budget.
Sundiver (David Brin) - A serious, low-budget version! Pleeeaassseee!!
Star Guard (Andre Norton) - Movie would need to give more cultural
  context at the beggining, so that ending doesn't seem as 
  non-sequitor, fabricated (IMHO)
Between Planets (R.A. Heinlen) - Who cares that Venus ain't
  like this at all? It's a good story, though again the ending
  probably needs more fore-shadowing than the book gave it.
Gate to Women's Country (Sheri S. Tepper) - It'd get sooo
  much free publicity! And pickets! 
Scanners Live in Vain! (Cordwainer Smith!) - Again w/
  lots of black and white. Everything when viewed from
  a scanners perspective ('cept when "under the wire", of course)
  in B&W. Dunno how to do the "high speed" bits though.
Bug Jack Barron (Norman Spinrad) - Unfortunately, the general
  public won't see this as SF, since so many of it's predictions
  came true. (It really wouldn't take much for Larry King to
  do the things Barron did, but he doesn't have the balls, IMHO.
  Also, what other novel predicted a U.S. president so far in 
  advance?)
Moon Moth (Jack Vance) - maybe better at an hour long, though.
Orbital Decay (A. Steele) - a natural for some really black humor.
  De Niro as Virgin Bruce!! More tattoos!!


So much for my opinions...


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