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Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" To Be Miniseries 129

Posted by kdawson from the victorians-rejoice dept.
fmackay writes "Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age is to be adapted for a Sci Fi Channel miniseries. George Clooney is producing and Stephenson will write the screenplay — the first time he has written for television."
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Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" To Be Miniseries More

Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" To Be Miniseries

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  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @08:09PM (#17621574)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by p0ss ( 998301 )
      Now if only someone would make a movie/tv series based on Snow Crash

      Surely you mean an MMORPG of Snow Crash :P

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by nixkuroi ( 569546 )
      Just play Second Life. Except for teleportation and the two dimensionality of the "Street", you're 95% there.

    • Re:Awesome! (Score:5, Funny)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @08:33PM (#17621830) Homepage
      Yes, watch the screen closely. You'll like this next bit...

    • Re:Awesome! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Snad ( 719864 ) <mspaceNO@SPAMbigfoot.com> on Monday January 15, 2007 @08:35PM (#17621856)

      Now if only someone would make a movie/tv series based on Snow Crash, my life will be complete!

      Snow Crash would make for an awful movie. There's far too much expositionary material regarding namshubs and so forth that would be interminable on the screen and couldn't be cut without rendering much of the story incomprehensible. It (largely) works in book form, but its density would make it impossible to bring to the screen.

      Zodiac, whilst perhaps not as good a novel, would make for a far better screen translation than Snow Crash.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calroth ( 310516 )
        Zodiac, whilst perhaps not as good a novel, would make for a far better screen translation than Snow Crash.

        +1 to that.

        Zodiac is probably the best Neal Stephenson novel for translation into film. It's got everything Hollywood needs - helicopters, guns, explosions, sex, biological terrorism, an asshole protagonist, and sweeping views of Boston Harbor. Plus it's around the right scope (read: it's short and simple enough) for a 90-minute film.
      • Zodiac? Perhaps, although it's political enough that I worry they might mess it up to get it made.

        What I'd really like to see is The Big U on the big screen. It'd be like Real Genius, only with railguns, computer worms, neon signs, pipe organs, and radioactive rats instead of a mere laser for the mcguffin.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dpilot ( 134227 )
        Snow Crash was a wonderfully flawed book. There were problems with it all over place. Thing was, there were also such delightful concepts thrown so fast, that you forgave the flaws, and just enjoyed it.

        Lends a different meaning to, "to Reason with someone."
        • True! My favorite was the bit where "let's develop really really detailed faces for online avatars so we can conduct business online in virtual reality. That way my facial expressions can by read by the other party...which won't be a disadvantage in negotiations at all!"

          That and "okay, I'm swinging my real samurai sword around in a 20x30 at the UStorIt by the airport, but I'm wearing my VR goggles and somehow don't kill anyone or crash into anything."

          Super fun book though. Love the SmartWheels and anything

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pluther ( 647209 )
        Snow Crash would make for an awful movie. There's far too much expositionary material regarding namshubs and so forth that would be interminable on the screen and couldn't be cut without rendering much of the story incomprehensible. It (largely) works in book form, but its density would make it impossible to bring to the screen.

        Right. It's much like Lord of the Rings in that way.

        It could never work.

      • Cryptonomicon (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DieNadel ( 550271 )
        I think Cryptonomicon would result in a wonderful movie. Parts of it take place in breath-taking locations and it's full of history trivia and important facts.

        Also, the story is thrilling and more in touch with a regular audience, since it connects more cleanly with reality.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MikeFM ( 12491 )
        Snow Crash or The Diamond age could be great movies but only if allowed to be as long as needed and if they don't chop out the interesting hard to film bits like your namshubs. A mini series is probably the right format for such movies as I can easily see them needing to be several hours long.

        The Diamond Age is my favorite book so I can't wait to see it. I hope they don't wreck it. I think it'll be harder to translate to film than Snow Crash because you have to explain nanotech, computing, etc so much. If t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mdfst13 ( 664665 )
        They should make a movie about his career delivering pizzas (which basically ends in the opening of the book). I.e. the Snow Crash plot might have trouble in translation. However, the Snow Crash setting would be incredible.

        Ok, I admit it. I just want a chance to win the Deliverator's car.
      • Snow Crash would make for an awful movie. There's far too much expositionary material regarding namshubs and so forth that would be interminable on the screen and couldn't be cut without rendering much of the story incomprehensible.

        Just use the Library to fill in the gaps, which is pretty much what the book does. What is there to know besides the idea that there was a deeply ingrained base language at some point that got turned off, and that a virus can re-enable it? Movies necessarily have less depth, b
    • Toner wars > Clone wars

      Bring it on!
  • I can't help but wonder what the casting is going to be like.

    Chow-Yun Fat should play Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Protonk ( 599901 )
      As much as I hate to say it, the casting will probably be terrible. It's a SCI-FI channel miniseries, so they've almost completely threatened it with irrelavence. I'm not saying it needs to be a movie (it's a little too long and/or anti-climactic for that), but the record of the sci-fi channel is not that sterling. I appreciate when that accept orphaned shows from other networks, but thier original miniseries are normally plagued by production issues, terrible direction, and bad casting.

      The Diamond Age d
      • They got William Hurt for Dune.
      • Their record for miniseries is somewhat better than for "SciFi Original Movies". While I wasn't personally a huge fan of their Dune, it was very well-received. "Battlestar Galactica" 2.0 also started as a miniseries.
        • P.S. Reading the rest of the comments, I see a lot of criticism of SciFi's Dune, so maybe it wasn't so well-received by Slashdotters. But, it did get a Hugo nomination...

  • This isn't (Score:4, Funny)

    by Renstar ( 142001 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @08:15PM (#17621628) Homepage
    This isn't going to end well..
  • I can't wait! Also, I am curious how they will treat the "Drummers" part, for example the way Hackworth "acquired" certain information, he ended up carrying in his body ;-)

  • No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mollymoo ( 202721 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @08:20PM (#17621694) Journal
    I'll pass on the miniseries, thanks. I'm waiting for the ractive.
    • I'll pass on the miniseries, thanks. I'm waiting for the ractive.

      Score:4, Insightful? I think I must be missing something. I wrote the damn comment, and it was just a pithy in-joke to show I'd read the book and remind us of one of the groovy future technologies from it. I guess I happened upon some insight though. Can someone tell me what it was?

  • Fantastic! (Score:5, Funny)

    by toddt ( 731370 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @08:22PM (#17621720)
    This will give Stephenson a chance to write the ending he accidentally forgot to write for the novel!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Chris Burke ( 6130 )
      Hehe, probably not going to happen. I figure all of the television audience (that hasn't read the book) will be convinced that the last episode is actually a huge cliffhanger/teaser for the next season and be dissapointed when it never comes, and if the series was popular enough, SciFi will eventually decide to create a second season, probably without Stephenson involved other than to sign rights in exchange for a pile of money, which will be craptacular and make you hate the first season. Either way, it'
      • Na, Its going to end with gram crackers, and adds in Variety.

      • I figure all of the television audience (that hasn't read the book) will be convinced that the last episode is actually a huge cliffhanger/teaser for the next season and be dissapointed when it never comes, and if the series was popular enough, SciFi will eventually decide to create a second season, probably without Stephenson involved other than to sign rights in exchange for a pile of money, which will be craptacular and make you hate the first season. Either way, it's going to end with pitchforks and tor

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jafuser ( 112236 )
          I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like they've been pushing ECW a lot lately.

          Although I found it ridiculous that Sci-Fi added wrestling to it's line-up, I really didn't mind as long as I didn't have to see it (and it seemed to be scheduled for times when I wasn't watching anyway). Now it seems like most commercial breaks start with one of those loud obnoxious ads for ECW, and it encourages me all the more to get up and get a drink or hit the fast forward button on the DVR rather than let a few com

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by LoveGoblin ( 972821 )
      Nah, never happen. If The Diamond Age suddenly gets an ending, then all his other books are gonna want one, too.

    • 'The Diamond Age' is Stephenson's /best/ ending! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dupper ( 470576 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @09:32PM (#17622556) Journal
      Something I wrote way back when I'd first finished reading it:

      'The Diamond Age' is Neal Stephenson's best ending. Anyone who says he can't write endings should be immediately pointed in this direction. Of course, this ending is probably detractors' biggest criticism, but I don't think any further denoument was necessary, and would probably have even greatly detracted from the emotional and powerful ending there was.

      Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash could have used some [denoument], to the point where their endings even gave a bit of an impression of a "fuck it" or a deadline rush, so abruptly departing from the wonderful depth of the preceeding several hundred pages of those books. But the abrupt end here was utterly perfect and perfectly excecuted, and left me euphorically dazed for hours after reading it. I haven't been brought so close to tears by literature since Of Mice And Men, or maybe Charlotte's Web. This ending, in my opinion, truly solidified Neal Stephenson as a great Author of Literature, and not just brilliant, witty Geek.

      Sure it leaves open ends (Hackworth, especially), but even with, perhaps even partially because of, that, it works. People hate it because it breaks the traditional form -- doesn't tie up every little loose, nitpicky plot end -- but seem to overlook the fact that, in this case, it was far more literarily effective than structural orthodoxy. It has /character/. A lot of people, many Geeks especially, don't seem to understand that novels, as art and beauty, are not a perfect and coherent system. Sometimes it's more meaningful and important to make that master stroke than fill in all the details.

      I'll also go out on a limb and say The Diamond Age was not about Hackworth, at any point. It was about Neal's intricate thematic and philosophic exploration on Confucianism and Victorianism, and it was also a mother-daughter story about Nell and Miranda. Hackworth moved these things along, but to close his personal story neatly would have felt tacked on and barely emotionally or thematically relevant, and probably /ruined/ the ending.

      Of course, Neal Stephenson reads Slashdot, and will definately read a story about his own work, and he'd probably be insulted by my dumb interpretation, so please mod me into unread oblivion.

      /Neal Stephenson has been my absolute, uncontested favourite fiction (and among my favourite nonfiction) author in the world since the first chapter of Cryptonomicon. Which I picked up after hearing endless praise about it, mostly on Slashdot.

      I also have no fucking clue why he's disowned The Big U, which was a wonderful novel.

      • Re:'The Diamond Age' is Stephenson's /best/ ending (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Valar ( 167606 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @09:49PM (#17622742)
        Thank god somebody finally said it. Upon reflecting upon the criticism that Stephenson and several other writers with similar style have received (about endings, exposition, etc) I've realized something. A lot of geeks don't want a novel, they want a mythology. They want a complete, well-fleshed out, extensive universe for a setting. As a result, they want to know what happens to every character, start to finish. Think about it-- star wars, star trek, and LoTR all have extensive backstory. It is basically posible to know what happens to every character, and every legendary sword/ship from birth to death. Tolkien, for example, had notebooks and notebooks of unpublished stories to flesh out his universe and even invented languages.
        • Whatever happened to the Golden Age of scifi, where what happened "afterwards" was left to the imagination more often than not?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kabocox ( 199019 )
          Think about it-- star wars, star trek, and LoTR all have extensive backstory. It is basically posible to know what happens to every character, and every legendary sword/ship from birth to death. Tolkien, for example, had notebooks and notebooks of unpublished stories to flesh out his universe and even invented languages.

          I never really got the whole LoTR bit. I've read and like the four books, but I hate the poems/songs. I view all of the author's unpublished info as not really part of the known universe. Lo
        • Oh, bull! People just want a good ending, period. You know, I read books, I've read thousands of novels and seen all kinds of endings, from the crappy to the great (The Carpet Makers had a great ending. Go read it, magnificent book). NS is among my favorite authors (snowcrash, diamond age and cryptonomicon are all fantastic books) but his endings kinda suck. That's just the way it is, there is no genius to them we cannot comprehend. They're just not good.

      • . But the abrupt end here was utterly perfect and perfectly excecuted, and left me euphorically dazed for hours after reading it. I haven't been brought so close to tears by literature since Of Mice And Men, or maybe Charlotte's Web. This ending, in my opinion, truly solidified Neal Stephenson as a great Author of Literature, and not just brilliant, witty Geek.

        I was brought to tears after finding out that it was a one off single book by the author. Sorry, I'm used to reading David Weber, I actually liked mo

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )

      This will give Stephenson a chance to write the ending he accidentally forgot to write for the novel!

      Trying to tie a complicated story like Diamond Age into a neat, TV-friendly ending could be one of the worst things that could happen.

      Either way, I'm glad to hear that some filmmakers are turning to good sci-fi literature for source material again. I can stand a break from sci-fi movies all being based on comic books.

      Although I have to say the Russian Night Watch films were quite impressive.

      Now that I think

    • *** SPOILERS ****
      If you haven't read Cryptonomicon or The Diamond Age be aware that I discuss the endings here.
      *** SPOILERS ****

      I never understood the people who claimed that Stephenson's novels don't have endings. Sure, he doesn't take you by the hand and guide you ste-by-step through everything that will happen, but that just means he isn't writing endings for children. He takes you to the point where what will happen next becomes both inevitable and likely somewhat boring to read about. I mean, look a
      • The issue people have with Cryptonomicon is that there is no denouement following the climax, so the ending appears abrupt. It's almost certainly deliberately done by Stephenson - the effectiveness of this is up to the individual reader to decide. IMO, there is nothing wrong with the climax itself.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denouement [wikipedia.org]

        As the article states, lack of a denuouement is a stylistic device, used for instance in Lord of the Flies.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dpilot ( 134227 )
        It wasn't the ending, or lack that annoyed me about Cryptonomicon. It was the speed of the last hundred pages or so, after the detail of the first 800 or 900. After so much detail through the rest of the book, suddenly things started happening with little or no explanation, especially what the heck that attorney just happened to be in that jungle, and just happened to have his hobby weapons along, and felt moved to practice his hobby while pretty badly wounded, just so spite someone.

        After what preceded, it
        • I was rather of the impression he wasn't so much an attorney as a whack-job on the hunt who had some legal qualifications. And that he'd been ON the hunt for a while. He was originally an outdoorsman and wildman type who'd become briefly domesticated.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Jett ( 135113 )
          I agree. It was a great scene, it just lacked a real set up. The last 100 pages of that book did feel rushed, I imagine the book could easily have gone the Baroque Cycle route if his publisher/editor would have let him. Perhaps the set up for how the crazy bow-wielder got there was in the missing ~200 pages.
          I don't think Stephenson deserves to get so much shit about not being able to write an ending at all. Hell, each of the books in the Baroque Cycle has a nice little ending and he was under no obligation
        • I thought it was just a natural escalation of timing. Slow beginning leading to fast paced finish. Different tastes I suppose.
      • I agree, I'm an avid Pratchett fan, but there have been several novels where there has been a whole "chapter" (interesting considering he doesn't really use them in most of his works) of what I can only describe as bleh.
        Blind IO striking Dorfl with lightning at the end of Feet of Clay was perhaps humourous, but not really relevant to the story.
        All of the story that happened after the vampire was imprisoned could easily have been saved for the next watch story, if told at all.
        • But, then they wouldn't be Discworld novels. Everybody important gets screwed over some way in the end of a pratchett novel, whether or not the consequences of said screwing over will be beneficial to the person overall.

      • *** SPOILERS ****
        If you haven't read Cryptonomicon or The Diamond Age be aware that I discuss the endings here.
        *** SPOILERS ****
         
         
        Ah, so you're actually discussing nothing?

    • This will be fascinating. I've always wondered whether Stephenson's books would be filmable or not. How to handle the drummers (feral undersea tunnel dwellers who burn up when used as human information processors)? The army naked of teenage girls that lock their bodies to create a human amphibian landing craft to rebel against their creator? The sea of intelligent defensive and move with an auto-correct for the wind? I think a huge budget or great CGI is required to give merit to Stephenson's WFT elements,

  • Teh awesome!!1 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inviolet ( 797804 ) <slashdot@@@ideasmatter...org> on Monday January 15, 2007 @08:25PM (#17621748) Journal

    Excellent.

    Never mind the book's prophetic predictions about the impact of nanotechnology. Far more important, I think, is its identification of the "subversive" worldview. If only all parents and children were exposed to a book like Diamond Age, or anything similar, which gives a real defense of the subversive mindset. Perhaps then, more children might be rescued from becoming another generation of social ballast.

    Diamond Age won a coveted spot in my "Thou shalt read and discuss" box of books for my sons. :)

    • Diamond Age won a coveted spot in my "Thou shalt read and discuss" box of books for my sons.

      Thus ensuring that they'll never read the book until well after they've moved out of the house. : p
    • I agree completely. I remember getting a book from the library when I was in 3rd grade about Mars colonists in some rocket-based was against their rightful earth government. Halfway through the book I realized the colonists were getting screwed by the government edicts and SHOULD rebel. And today, over 35 years later, I can still see when the powers-that-be are drowning us in bullshit other people seem oblivious to.
      • Robert A. Heinleins "Farmer in the Sky" has this plot. It's one of his juveniles. Consider reading also "The Moon is a harsh Mistress" or anything else by him.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by abb3w ( 696381 )

      Far more important, I think, is its identification of the "subversive" worldview. [...]Diamond Age won a coveted spot in my "Thou shalt read and discuss" box of books for my sons.

      I agree with the assessment, but disagree with the reason. More important still than the identification of the "subversive" worldview is the identification of that as a tool of the ambiguous worldview. EG:

      The difference between stupid and intelligent people — and this is true whether or not they are well-educated

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by inviolet ( 797804 )

        I agree with the assessment, but disagree with the reason. More important still than the identification of the "subversive" worldview is the identification of that as a tool of the ambiguous worldview.

        Interesting. I would've called 'subversive' the superset because it implies an understanding of the world's ambiguous nature -- that being a consequence of how small our total knowledge of the universe is. A subversive is then able to pierce social conventions because he or she sees them for what they are:

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by abb3w ( 696381 )

          Interesting. I would've called 'subversive' the superset because it implies an understanding of the world's ambiguous nature -- that being a consequence of how small our total knowledge of the universe is.

          I'd disagree; a subversive often merely percieves that the promulgated worldview is incorrect in some aspect, but does not necessarily percieve how the main worldview has some validity, or how their own worldview is imperfect.

          I say this because males tend to receive a much stronger "trust your mind,

          • A lot. The Meyers-Briggs sorts on four axes: Introvert/Extrovert, iNtuitve/Sensing, Thinking/Feeling, and Percieving/Judging. I'd consider it a good instance of where the ambiguous mindset is important; it's a useful "engineering approximation" for studying personalities, but there are too many fuzzy-classified people to assign too much importance to it.

            Kiersey's big insight was that the sixteen categories (created by the four 'bits' of the MBTI test) can be usefully combined into four supercategories:

            • xN

  • heresy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @08:26PM (#17621752)
    I realize I'll probably be labeled a heretic by some of you, but the Diamond Age is probably my favorite Stephenson book (Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash come in a close second and third, though). It'll be interesting to see how this whole thing pans out. Thankfully, even if it sucks, the book will still be amazing. However, with Neal handling the screenplay, there's a decent chance that he'll adapt it well. Then it'll all be up to Clooney to make it good...
    • While I agree that Neal doing the screenplay is really important, the director (and the special effects guys/budget) are going to be much more so. It's going to take some really good visuals for the operation of the Source/Feed, the Book, toner wars, and, to a lesser extent (but really important for exposition), the bespoke engineering lab. Actually (visually) explaining the nano-tech is going to be really difficult. Then there's the problem of the Drummers exchanging information and nano-tech via *ahem* b

  • When a prominent member of society concludes that the futuristic civilization in which he lives is stifling creativity, he commissions an interactive book for his daughter that serves as a guide through a surreal alternate world.

    The book has the Primer being commissioned for a granddaughter and the engineer pirates a copy for his own daughter. And then there's the quarter million of them for the other girls. I wonder what else is going to be left out? The Fists? Harv and Tequila? This is why I so dread them 'adapting' the books I like.

    • Gack! Without the 250,000 (later 300,000) mice, the book doesn't lead up to anything.

      But deconstructing things, the Fists are only really necessary to fight the army of mice. And the drummers are probably too confusing to survive television... as are the Castle Turing (and all the other puzzles after that).

      I know I'll be branded a heretic, but I think you could make a pretty good screenplay that stopped right around half-way through Nell's stay with the Vickys. The whole Alchemist thing never appea

    • Supposedly Stephenson is writing the screenplay, but you have to admit there's no way a 600 page book is going to survive the conversion wholly intact. At the very least, the idea of a distributed sexual computer's going to have to be presented differently!
      • Not necessarily. It's going to be a six hour miniseries, so a lot of it can be done. I just hope they do a very brief, silent scene where Nell's last 'stepdad' gets his just desserts. It would take less than 30 seconds, but could be such a beautiful visual poem.
    • Since it is being adapted by Stephenson, there's a good chance that whatever changes are made they will be true to the spirit of the book.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Andy_R ( 114137 )
      Apart from possibly changing the generation from grandfather to father, that IS exactly what happens in the book. Of course, a lot of other stuff happens *because of that* (the unauthorised copies, 256k mice etc.) but you are going to end up with a pretty convoluted press release if you want to cram the other stuff into the one sentence plot teaser that each of the new series announced gets.

      You can't reasonably expect extrapolate from that one sentence to accurately predict anything after the 1st ten minute

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Rastl ( 955935 )
        I haven't had a discussion on this book in a very long while!

        The element of having the engineer make a pirate copy for his daughter is in keeping with the entire concept of sedition being attemped by the Finkle-McGraw. The Mouse Army is the unintended result of that sedition.

        The true, desired recipient of the Primer turns out to be a wanderer who turns her back on her people.

        The first pirate copy ends up in the hands of Nell, pure accident and the best soil for the seed as it were.

        The second pirate

        • Well, I was going to mention that Herbert wasn't involved in the Sci-Fi channel screenplay, but then I remembered that I really didn't like anything Herbert wrote after the original Dune, so maybe it would have actually been worse if he'd been involved...

          Though, I'll admit I'm not sure how anything could be worse than a) the stupid "look, the Guild spokesmen make stupid poses when they talk" and b) the whole "look, the Imperial Princess wanders around on her own without a couple thousand sardukar bodyguards

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by maxume ( 22995 )
          Nell works out best because of the mother relationship with the book; part of the setup is that she is born to idiot fool parents and can't read. The book teaches her to think for herself.

          Also, that's Finkle-McGraw's goal(the thinking), not sedition. The subversive thought is that thinking for yourself is a good idea; march to the beat of your own drummer and all that.

          The order of the books being given out doesn't really change the plot; the presentation as written is excellent, and it would change if the b
  • means it's got a chance of actually making it through a season before being canceled (after viewers invest their time into the storyline)
  • Well, at least he can't possibly fsck it up as much as he fscked up Solaris... I hope.
  • Am I the only one afraid this thing will come off being too trippy? I have some hope since he is writing the screenplay himself, but there were some moments I was pretty sure he was typing under the influence just reading it, so I have trouble envisioning anything coherent coming out of those portions in a visual sense. Primarily the performance on the boat and the drummer sessions.

    Anyway kudos to sci-fi channel, and my fingers are crossed that "Accelerando" or "Fire upon the deep" is next.
    • One of my favorite parts of the book was the story about Castle Turing. I can't wait to see how they pull that off..
      (And I really hope they don't brush quickly over just a few parts of it.)

      Trippy, _and_ educational.
  • I love Neal Stephenson, but for crying out loud, can't he hire someone to keep his website current? For a self-proclaimed hacker, he has absolutely horrid net presence. I would like to at least know that he is alive. Knowing what kind of thing he is working on might be nice, too.
  • Since this is the SciFi Channel it will contain one badly CGd monster and an aging cast member of a much better science fiction franchise, and ultimately put me to sleep. Or it will be brilliant. Seriously, I just hope Stephenson is able to tighten up his writing and just tell the damn story. The 'Captain Crunch' scene 'The Cryptonomicon' just about put me off the rest of the novel, and did keep me away from his books written since then. Are there no editors left inthe publishing industry?
    • "Since this is the SciFi Channel it will contain one badly CGd monster and an aging cast member of a much better science fiction franchise, and ultimately put me to sleep."

      Oh, so you saw A Wizard of Earthsea too? or was it Dune, or or even Grendel ?

      I hope theat this show will be great, but given what TV does to complex material to make things "accessible", I know I will be left disappointed.

    • The 'Captain Crunch' scene 'The Cryptonomicon' just about put me off the rest of the novel, and did keep me away from his books written since then.

      I actually loved that part. I also loved the totally random digressions about whales and whaling in Moby Dick. But I also thought Diamond Age had a decent ending, and Snowcrash is the book by Stephenson I like the least, so I guess everyone seems to have a different opinion about him. My biggest beef with Stephenson, besides all the completely bullshit pseu

  • Scifi has a baaad history of hacking up books, cf. Dune and Earthsea. The only thing that could be worse is if they were given the rights to film the Hobbit.

  • Sci Fi channel can take a perfectly classical story and turn it into total shit. Witness Dune. Witness Earthsea. They can have great stuff made for them. farscape and BSG come to mind. Whether the adaptation sucks or is great it'll be laden with CGI.

    • Re:I'm leary of the Sci Fi Channel. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tillerman35 ( 763054 ) on Monday January 15, 2007 @11:28PM (#17623774)

      For that matter, witness how much they fsck'd up battlestar gallactica. I haven't seen their version of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files yet, but from the promos it looks like they decided to fsck up that too (I should probably withold judgement since I haven't seen it, though). Sci-fi channel didn't do it, but look at how Eragon was absolutely destroyed.

      I always wondered how the visual medium could be so obviously run by a group of illiterates with no respect for authorship. It's intensely bizarre. What puzzles me even more are the large number of people who just seem to accept it as a usual practice. Even when their favorite character/scene/plotline/etc is missing or replaced by something entirely different - for no reason the bears any resemblance to a valid purpose- they don't seem to mind. A vapid "oh, well you shouldn't get upset- it's a different medium after all" is the closest you'll get from them to an acknowledgement of the change. Where's the rage, people?

      There have been notable exceptions. The Princess Bride was the best adaptation of a novel as I've ever seen. The screenplay was written by the author of the novel, who had previous screenplay writing experience. That probably explains why it was so well done. The Disney version of A Wrinkle In Time came close too- but proved that some books aren't suited for movies no matter HOW good they are. I'm sure others can name many more.

      We want to be optimistic. We love the written works so much that we long to see them come to life. Sci-fi fans are like Charlie Brown, earnestly hoping for someone in Hollywood to hold that football down just long enough for us to get a kickoff. And the studio execs are like Sally- teasing us endlessly with the possibility of something that won't suck shiat and pulling the ball away at the last moment.

      /Sorry- done now.
      //Goes to the meds closet to get a dose of Myranta.

      • That was cool. I never heard a post in an English accent in my head before.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by The One and Only ( 691315 )

        For that matter, witness how much they fsck'd up battlestar gallactica.

        The new series may have flaws, but anyone who thinks the original was better immediately proves they have no taste. Any series whose pilot episode follows the genocide of the human race (which happens for no reason) with a journey to the casino planet, and follows that up with a dozen episodes about disco Egyptians fighting robots in space, is a dumb series. It might be cheesy fun, but it doesn't hold a candle to the new series.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ranger ( 1783 )
        I did say the new BSG was good, so I remain hopeful they'll do justice to The Diamond Age (though I'd rather see them do Snow Crash, but they do have a track record of making total shit. Did anyone see their Secret Adventures of Jules Verne? If JV's corpse was hooked to a generator it would have spun fast enough to light modern day Paris. They didn't do the remake of The Lathe of Heaven but easily could have. It was so amazingly bad that if Ursula K. LeGuin were dead and hooked to a generator she'd've been
  • ...will screw this up, count on it. They don't make sci fi so much as soap operas with laser guns.
  • Does the Primer (The "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer") remind anyone else of the OLPC XO machine?

    That was the first thing I thought of when I read about the OLPC project anyway.

    Certainly both the XO and The Primer meet are a interactive "books" to educate children!

    The XO is destined to have an entire schoolings worth of textbooks on it in PDF format.

    The XO is more of a Primer prototype I suppose, but the similarity in purpose is striking.
  • I hope this one gets better treatment than the Earthsea series did.

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