Books You'd Love to See as a TV Series and Why

A few days ago, I was using the internet version of crack known as stumbleupon, and it took me to a site that was talking about some books and book series that they would love to see translated to television.

I wanted to get you guys' opinion on books or series that you wanted to see as a TV series. I say TV, because I don't want to hear about how awesome a movie of a book would be, but a full on television series. How would your book(s) differ for the better if they were put into a television format as opposed to the big screen?

Now, just so we're clear, the series doesn't have to follow the books 100%. You can talk about how the Universe of a book or series would make a great TV show. Here's some of mine.

• American Gods: I actually had the idea in my head that this could be a fantastic TV series WAY before I knew that HBO was picking it up as a mini-series. I was thinking that the general universe of the book would make a great show, with the new gods and old gods all having their own story arcs to follow. Because it's implied that all myths are real, a movie would be far to compact to introduce all the legends and myths, and you could really expand on everything with a TV series.

• The Book Of Lost Things: This book is somewhat well known enough to have movie negotiations in talks, but the problem here, again, is the fact that the world the book inhabits is very vast, and could lead to such outside story potential. Like Game Of Thrones, there is a ton of room to touch on other character's and their paths.

• Percy Jackson And The Olympians: This series is a little different because I wouldn't want a TV series based off the main characters of the book. I really want a TV series based off of the lives of campers in Camp Half-Blood, because the book really leaves a lot to be desired about actual camp life. Most of the time, the books follow the characters around while they're questing and fighting Titans. I would love a TV series about what everyone is doing at camp while Percy and Co are out traveling. What are other campers doing? What kind of problems do they face back at camp? These aren't normal kids at a normal camp under normal circumstances, and I think there's a lot of story potential here.

edited 1st Jul '12 12:17:48 PM by ithinkabouttrees

ADHD? Bitch please, those are battle instincts!

The Dresden Files as a Go T Level quality series would be awesome. Every Book as a ca 5 Episode Miniseason instead of just taking the premise and running with it.

"You can reply to this Message!"

Discworld, of course.

Bite my shiny metal ass.

Lo TR. To give room for all the stuff that had to be left out, like Bombadil.

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I wouldn't include Bombadil even in a TV series. He's way out-of-place. But as long as we're doing that, I hope that when they remake Harry Potter, it's as a TV series. Then they could explain the plot and maintain continuity, dagnabbit!

The Firestar series by Michael Flynn. It's got a lot of subplots and ensemble casting of unique characters while never losing its focus. (Though the zero-gravity scenes could pose a budget problem.)

Hail Martin Septim!

Artemis Fowl would be an awesomely fun Monster of the Week series. It could even go a couple ways! One way would be Artemis plotting a new heist or scheme each week, with Holly and co. having to foil him. Or it could be a more traditional crime-fighting series with Artemis, Holly, Butler, Foaly, and No. 1 as a more traditional magical-distress-fighting Five-Man Band. Either way, I imagine it would take the same route as the Men In Black TV show: While a lot of the details are the same, it doesn't even pretend to have continuity with the books.

For a series that actually follows the plots of the books, I think Brave Story would make a good anime series. Yes, there's already a movie, but the movie is far Lighter and Softer than the book, and leaves out a lot of the key subplots. An extended anime series could be truer to the book—and considering the book, manga, movie, and spinoff games are fairly popular in Japan, who knows?

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

I'm currently reading Jonathan Coe's novel The House OF Sleep, which I think could make an excellent HBO-type dramedy/suspense series. I could also imagine Italo Calvino's Imaginary Cities as an episodic, surrealistic animated series.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

The Book Of 1001 Nights. A different story, give or take, ever night.

No worries about having way too many stories for a show of non-insane lengths, you're not supposed to put all the stories together in one place anyway.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

All of Christopher Brookmyre's Jack Parlabane books. They are funny, biting, and they have absolutely no respect for the absurdities of organized religion, deference to authority and the Old Firm football clubs.

John Crowley's Little, Big. Multigenerational epic? Psychological complexity? Scary, postmodern twist on Faery and U.S. history? The occasional adult theme? We're talking the stuff of HBO miniseries.

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

Just now learned that The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency became an HBO series. Good choice - it was always more suited to a chapter-by-chapter serial than it was to novel format.

Hail Martin Septim!

Harry Potter? To me, TV series seems like the go to way to adapt a book, not a movie. Economically maybe not(businesses are crap shoots), but the formats go together much better, especially when its a series.

Hatchet. The Book Of Tobit.

edited 3rd Jul '12 8:18:40 AM by Cider

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

Maybe Warner Brothers will show some sense and allow a Japanese anime adaptation of Harry Potter. If they did the size of adaptation that Cardcaptor Sakura got, 70 episodes plus, they could pretty much cover all the stuff from the books that the films missed and stand back and count the money.

English and Japanese dialogue and subtitles, natch.

I'd like to see a Malazan Book Of The Fallen animated series (live-action is probably impossible to do due to the massive effects budget required). If they did, say, 12+ episodes for each book, and put it all in chronological order, they could explain the story more obviously (but not too much exposition, of course!) and maybe make it a good jumping-in point for newbies turned off by Erikson's habit of not divulging much information.

• Season 1: Chapter 1 of Gardens of the Moon, Midnight Tides, original material focusing on the siege of Pale
• Season 2: Prologue and Book I of House of Chains, Gardens of the Moon
• Season 3: Deadhouse Gates/Memories of Ice
• Season 4: Books II-IV of House of Chains, Prologue II of Reaper's Gale
• Season 5: The Bonehunters/Return of the Crimson Guard
• Season 6: Return of the Crimson Guard/Reaper's Gale
• Season 7: Toll the Hounds (FIXING THE CONTINUITY ERRORS!!!)/Orb, Sceptre, Throne
• Season 8: Dust of Dreams/The Crippled God/Stonewielder/Orb, Sceptre, Throne
• Season 9: Dust of Dreams/The Crippled God/Stonewielder/Orb, Sceptre, Throne

Fill out with original material looking in on Out of Focus characters as required, and we have a winner.

Insert vaguely inspirational quote here.

Then you would get whackjobs saying that it was a Legend of the Seeker/Song of Ice and Fire rip off.

I think Anna Karenina would work really well as a TV series of one season. The way the book is split into parts lends itself immediately to an episodic structure, and the longer time would allow it to delve into the societal and philosophical issues in the book rather than just covering the two main relationships.

Scepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom. - Clarence Darrow

Either a Vampire Academy series or one based off its sequel/spinoff Bloodlines. I would love to see what other students are up to while Rose is off doing her thing or what the rest of Sydney's group is up to while she is busy living her own life.

That would be cool, although it's probably unlikely until a couple of years after the Hobbit movies come out. Still, it would be cool to see someone else's version of Middle Earth.

Hmm, on that note, adapting one of the stories from the Silmarillion could make for a neat miniseries, especially Children of Hurin or Beren and Luthien.

Not a TV Series, but Full Tilt is begging to be made into a movie.

edited 17th Jul '12 10:36:43 AM by lalalei2001

The Protomen enhanced my life.

X Wing Series or the any military oriented space opera, I'm starting to go into withdrawl of space ships exploding.

Fight smart, not fair.

I think Crime and Punishment would make an excellent 12~24 episodes series.

edited 16th Jul '12 6:30:36 AM by dRoy

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Harry Potter would never work as a series. The "previously on" segments would take up half of each episode. ;)

edited 16th Jul '12 7:04:35 AM by NateTheGreat

mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really.

A Canticle For Leibowitz would be phenomenal as a tv series. It's so well thought out and engaging. Each chapter could be an episode and each "book" could be a season.

Although my personal opinion is that Anna Karenina does not work well as anything because the source material is pretty damn awful, but I absolutely agree that a movie cannot fit the book in the alloted time, while a TV series could potentially be a perfect, faithful adaptation. Or maybe it could even fix the book while we're at it.

As for a more deserving book, Crime And Punishment, as dRoy said. That truly deserves a faithful TV series.

edited 22nd Jul '12 2:01:07 AM by Muzozavr

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The Lord of the Rings. Give it 13-20 episode per season, which would be just long enough to keep all the juicy material, but keep going, and it'd be great. It would also probably have to animated.