24 Novels That Are Crying Out To Be Turned Into A TV Series

BuzzFeed ^ | August 14, 2017 | Jamie Jones

[EveningStar]

We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community which books need to be turned into TV Shows. Here are some of the best responses...

[YogicCowboy]

The Riddle-Master series by Patricia McKillip.

The Dream Dancer series by Janet Morris.

The Golden Torc series by Julian May.

[kalee]

Good suggestion.

[PLMerite]

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia

[YogicCowboy]

The Power that Preserves: It is certainly in my top three (outside the Bible).

Amazing prose. Martin is called the American Tolkien. I say it is Donaldson.

I suggest you read The Riddle-Master trilogy by Patricia McKillip. She was Donaldson’s protege.

I also recommend the “space trilogy” by C. S. Lewis, especially the last volume: That Hideous Strength. It is also in my top three.

[YogicCowboy]

Macroscope by Piers Anthony.

It is a stand-alone, his first novel, I think, and his best, I also think.

[Dead Corpse]

Wheel of Time is in pre-production. Can hardly wait for that one...

One not on the list is Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International series... Even my Wife likes them...

Hitchhiker's Guide was a BBC series and then a feature movie. Percy Jackson and Harry Potter both have the movies that might make getting them as TV series difficult. Same for Dark Tower now that the movie has pretty much flopped...

Looks like Good Omen's is going to be an Amazon series set for release next year.

[WVMnteer]

World War Z getting the 10 episode HBO treatment could be something.

Hitchhiker was done by BBC and then made into a movie. Douglas Adams didn’t write funny stuff so much as he wrote funny. Hanging in the air the way bricks don’t and such. It’s hard to translate that.

My daughter really liked Vampire Academy.

I don’t know enough of the rest of these.

[EveningStar]

I know. In fact I saw it. See post 55.

[Gideon7]

Lucifer’s Hammer - Niven/Pournelle.

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You could add a bunch of other Niven stories to that list. Ringworld, the Known Space series, or any stuff with Beowulf Shaeffer, Louis Wu, or even Gil “The Arm” Hamilton (well plotted SF based murder mystery stories are rare).

The Ringworkd ‘rishathra’ scenes on HBO could get really big ratings, heh.

[W.]

() These I have, and that’s all. Cheap-ass rca tablet...effing PITA!

[x]

Many of them already were movies, weren't they?

Even series of movies what with all the sequels.

Game of Thrones was a great success, but that's largely because it's so different from everything else on television.

If there were suddenly two dozen new fantasy series on TV we'd all be ... well, I can't say it, but it wouldn't be pretty ...

[Oztrich Boy]

She is a cute shortish petite brunette who grew up in a thousand year old castle. A noblewoman who objects to being called "My Lady", she is the favourite daughter of her father, who eventually accepted his daughter's desire to train as a warrior, without fully understanding it. She has a high regard for vengeance, and when necessary, will kill without hesitation or remorse. In her travels she acquires a very much larger military type as "protector", although they are better described as a battle couple.

Remind you of anyone?

[Zeneta]

The House of the Dead

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[Rebelbase]

#25, Guns for the South, Harry Turtledove.

[pepsi_junkie]

I forgot that. It's been 30 years since I read them, give or take. But as I recall Thomas Covenant starts the books as a leper who wakes up in a fantastic world where everyone thinks he's the second coming of their most important hero because he's missing half his hand and he had a white gold ring which is supposedly a super-metal with magic powers in this world. But since he's (a) a miserable SOB and (b) a misanthrope and (c) thinks these are all delusions and he thinks he's going insane, he refuses to accept any of it. He instead takes the position that any playing along he might do would be accepting the delusion, so he's intentionally a jerk. He wont help, treats them all badly, watches as the get murdered and yawns until, in a crisis some sort of random dumb luck kicks in to save the day at the end of each book when things like his magic ring, which he insists isn't magic and he won't try to use, spontaneously shoots power beams at the bad guy and ruins his plan, the end. Then in the next book, in spite of all that he's seen and the people he's met he's still that same miserable SOB who refuses to believe in where he is, refuses to treat anyone well, won't help, thinks his ring is not magic, etc.

The second trilogy was better because they flipped it, he believed fully in this world and his own power but because of some bad mojo or other he couldn't use his magic ring (or doomsday would happen or some such thing) and he had to deal with now knowing he had the power to save the day but instead he had to sit back in agony and watch it go to poo and people die because he was helpless to act. I thought that was a much more interesting dilemma than "am I crazy? I probably am, I'll just be an a-hole to everyone just in case I am". I slogged through it but when it takes 4 or 5 big thick books to give the main character an arc where he actually grows, well, I doubt it would make a good TV show without some massive re-imagining of the main character.

[pepsi_junkie]

Game of Thrones was a great success, but that's largely because it's so different from everything else on television. If there were suddenly two dozen new fantasy series on TV we'd all be ... well, I can't say it, but it wouldn't be pretty ...

They took Bernard Corwell's books on the wars between the Saxons and the Danes during the times of Alfred the Great and made a TV series of them which you can see on Netflix called "The Last Kingdom". I think they had hoped to capitalize on the popularity of Game of Thrones (because it's a dark ages war setting but not magical) and Vikings (because the danes were vikings). But I think it missed the mark for three reasons (and I wanted it to succeed badly, I loved those books):

1. It doesn't capture the Game of Thrones grandeur because it's not about a whole world at war, it's about one fictional warrior who does a series of great things that effect the course of history BUT the political intrigue is not there, and nor are the variety of characters and settings. It's far more linear. So it doesn't really evoke Game of Thrones in the end.
2. They wanted to capture the "Vikings" feel but the show isn't actually about the vikings in it, it's about the saxon armies and so the vikings in it are seen occasionally and as mustache twirling badguys. In the books they were cruel and harsh but also would welcome you to a feast and tell stories and then send you back to your own army to face them in combat where they would work very hard to kill you (no offense, just business, see you in valhalla!) They tended to be just a bit more interesting, actual characters. Not in the show. So they didn't really capture the feel of "Vikings" either, though they did get the look of it.
3. The main character in the books is a course pagan warrior but is also very shrewd and wins as much with his wits as with his sword and has a strong moral code of honor. however in the show he is a boastful hothead who doesn't look like a badass at all (poorly cast in my opinion) AND shows no real cleverness so he's very watered down. He's pretty one dimensional on screen. In the books he longed to join the Danes who he loved but instead was tied up in a web of oaths he was forced to give to various saxons for various reasons and his sense of honor would not let him break them. So he fought for the side he didn't like and (who see him as a barbarian) in order to defeat the people he loved, and how he struggles with that. On screen: hothead pretty boy who wants to go to war and get booty.

My point being, just picking some series of books and saying "this is just like Vikings meets Game of Thrones" won't work without really strong writing and interesting characters.

[RandallFlagg]

I’d nominate Hickok45’s son to play Henry Bowman.
Marky Mark just doesn’t seem right for such a role.

[WhirlwindAttack]

All Matt Bracken’s novels.

[MightyMama]

Lots of material. Very interesting protagonist. A funnier, less pretentious Dune-like saga. And the reason why "Shopping" has become code in my house for "Mommy is on the warpath".