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Fiction Friction: Pragmatic Adaptations, Part 2.
- Thread starter David Flin
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IIRC, the Hogfather show simplified the childhood fearscand I think we missed the wizard seeing his old bully, thinking "I'm a tall adult wizard now so I can beat him up", and realising too late he's a child again (realising in the last sentence he has his old haircut)
The Expanse books are written by James SA Corey, the joint pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Amusingly enough, Franck was George RR Martin’s personal assistant and the book covers contain glowing quotes from him – surely no conflict of interest there! Abraham, on the other hand, was once unable to finish a story (Hunter’s Run) through writer’s block and successfully got Martin to finish it for him, which must be the greatest irony since the Anti-Masonic Party nominated a Mason for President.
This is my favourite paragraph I've written in an article for a while, I laughed out loud when I learned George RR Martin had once finished a story for someone else with writer's block.
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One part of the adaptation of Soul Music that worked very well is the writing of the songs sung by the Band With Rocks In. Together they form a potted history of the evolution of Rock Music from the Fifties to the Eighties. The songs themselves contain some very Pratchettian references. For example the song “She Won’t Change Her Mind” contains a number of references to early Beatles songs, from the crashing guitar chord at the beginning to the final “Woooo-oooh” at the end. More subtly, it’s an answer song to “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”.
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This is my favourite paragraph I've written in an article for a while, I laughed out loud when I learned George RR Martin had once finished a story for someone else with writer's block.
I'm really sorry, but I'm pretty sure it's not true - Gardner Dozois started the book in the seventies but couldn't get past the first section. Martin built most of the structure in the eighties, but couldn't find an ending. Then in the 2000s he dug it out of a drawer and gave it to his assistant, probably as a bit of a test.
This is just based on what Abraham wrote about it, of course he might have been economical with the actualité to schmooze Martin given the context I think in which he was writing.I'm really sorry, but I'm pretty sure it's not true - Gardner Dozois started the book in the seventies but couldn't get past the first section. Martin built most of the structure in the eighties, but couldn't find an ending. Then in the 2000s he dug it out of a drawer and gave it to his assistant, probably as a bit of a test.
Having read it in high school English class, I once asked my old teacher what he thought of the movie adaptations of The Great Gatsby (I'd disliked the Redford version, and avoided the 2013 one; he believed no one had ever done a proper adaptation, and predicted "a disaster" with Luhrmann's attempt), and this led to him making what I thought to be a very cogent remark about adaptations in general: "Novels that are pure plot can transfer to film well (Robert Ludlum comes to mind), but anything literary will lose a lot."
I think that's been shown again in the case of The Expanse; reading the books, I found myself engrossed by (to me) rapid-fire plot developments and twists, mixed with highly descriptive settings, actions and backstory--all of which I encountered again in the TV/streaming version, with well-done casting and language added. Not every element or character can be included, as pointed out in these articles, or they get altered for time or plot arc reasons, and this series was no exception. Nonetheless, for once I found an adaptation that didn't butcher the source material, or go so far from it, even when just used for inspiration/loose adaptation, that it becomes unrecognizable (looking at you, all versions of V); only on blue-moon occasions (such as Jurassic Park, IMO), have there been ones which improve on it.
I think that's been shown again in the case of The Expanse; reading the books, I found myself engrossed by (to me) rapid-fire plot developments and twists, mixed with highly descriptive settings, actions and backstory--all of which I encountered again in the TV/streaming version, with well-done casting and language added. Not every element or character can be included, as pointed out in these articles, or they get altered for time or plot arc reasons, and this series was no exception. Nonetheless, for once I found an adaptation that didn't butcher the source material, or go so far from it, even when just used for inspiration/loose adaptation, that it becomes unrecognizable (looking at you, all versions of V); only on blue-moon occasions (such as Jurassic Park, IMO), have there been ones which improve on it.
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