Like Tears in Rain: Meditations on Science Fiction Cinema (8 page)

Ten SF Novels Deserving of Film Adaptations

More Recommended Reading that’s Bound to Hit the Big Screen (Eventually)

Science fiction and fantasy are taking over the realm of the Hollywood summer blockbuster, no question about it. Marvel Studios is gearing up to launch the
Avengers
 franchise into space with the forthcoming 
Guardians of the Galaxy
 film, Neill Blomkamp’s about to wow audiences with his sophomore full-length feature, 
Elysium
, and Christopher Nolan’s next movie is a high-concept SF epic called 
Interstellar
. Roboticist-
cum
-novelist Daniel H. Wilson’s works seem more or less destined for film. And let’s not forget about Ernest Cline’s nostalgia-heavy 
Ready Player One
.

We
certainly have plenty to look forward to. Between the 
Ender’s Game
 film adaptation, slated to be released this November, and that of Cherie Priest’s alternate-history, zombie steampunk novel 
Boneshaker
, I think it’s safe to say we’ll all have plenty to geek out about in the coming months—and years.

So: what other science-fiction and fantasy novels deserve the movie treatment?

Here are some of my own ideas about what stories might look great (and benefit the field by broadening its audience) on the silver screen.

1.
 
Leviathan Wakes
 (The Expanse) by James S. A. Corey

This one’s got a cast of characters you can’t help but love—the
 
Rocinante
 has just the sort of memorable crew that belongs in a space opera tale of this scale, and even the bit players along the way seem to live and breathe the processed air of this richly-drawn world coauthors Abraham and Franck have dubbed “The Expanse.” Not to mention the diabolical alien presence that reveals itself about halfway into the story. If some studio goon actually greenlit the 
Battleship
 movie, why can’t we have 
Leviathan Wakes
? Give it to 
Oblivion
 director Joseph Kosinski. Or Ridley Scott, James Cameron—really any of the usual suspects. SyFy reportedly has a television adaptation in the works, with Thomas Jane rumored for the leading role.

2.
 
Who Fears Death
 by Nnedi Okorafor

Okorafor manages to believably bridge the two most polarized elements of speculative film: a plausible future world, and
 
magic
. The author does so by drawing no clear distinction between spirituality and metaphysics, nor between primitive technology and sorcery. It’s all in how the reader chooses to explain the narrator’s harrowing story—and that’s half the fun. The mysticism feels authentic. But it’d be significantly darker than pretty much anything in its genre, given its subject matter. 
Harry Potter
 it ain’t. David Fincher could make it into the film of his career.

3.
 
Crystal Rain
 (The Xenowealth Saga) by Tobias S. Buckell

I don’t know who would be the ideal director for Buckell’s Xenowealth novels (
Crystal Rain
, 
Ragamuffin
, 
Sly Mongoose
, and 
The Apocalypse Ocean
). Anybody from Kathryn Bigelow (
Zero Dark Thirty
) to Anthony Hemingway (
Red Tails
) could potentially do artistic justice to this fun but harsh postcolonial universe, which is equal parts steampunk and galaxy-spanning space opera.

4.
 
Arctic Rising
 by Tobias S. Buckell

Another one by Buckell—this one far more timely and realistic. I could see this ecological technothriller becoming a kind of zeitgeist work, in which the line between industry and government becomes further blurred by the boom in new resources, and new ways to go about getting them.
Plus, it’d be big-screen really nice to see a story about climate change and technology that’s not entirely apocalyptic in nature.

5.
 
Mainspring
 (The Clockwork Earth) by Jay Lake

I enjoyed this idiosyncratic steampunk (clockpunk?) novel for its confidence and unique vision. The tale of a young apprentice going out on a quest to save the world isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff—but it’s a mythic story that includes clockwork angels, an Earth whose axis winds and ticks like the movement of a clock, and dirigibles. Somebody like David Fincher or Martin Scorsese could turn this already beautiful novel into a visual masterpiece.

6. 
Old Man’s War
 by John Scalzi

According to the author’s
 
Whatever
 blog, this one’s already in development—as a television series titled
The Ghost Brigades
, after the novel’s first sequel. Wolfgang Petersen’s name was attached as a likely director at one point, but the author reports that the script is being rewritten as we speak, so that leaves open the possibility of someone else taking the helm of this one, depending on what happens through the rest of pre-production. Anybody who’s read the book knows this one is tailored to fit the mold of big-screen cinema, and I think it’ll be loads of fun.

7.
 
Fuzzy Nation
 by John Scalzi

But this one could be
 
even better
. I like 
Redshirts
 a great deal, as well, but Scalzi’s touching homage to golden-age SF author H. Beam Piper reads like a far superior version of James Cameron’s 
Avatar
, on a more intimate, more believable scale. And there isn’t a single character in the novel who wouldn’t blow audiences away, given a few solid casting choices. The novel brings the pop-culture cousinhood of the Fuzzys and the Ewoks full circle with a little tongue-in-cheek reference to 
Return of the Jedi
, and in today’s very postmodern, somewhat jaded entertainment world . . . honestly, I think this courtroom drama in space would kill at the box office.

8.
 
The Windup Girl
 by Paolo Bacigalupi

Hard to think of a more memorable vision of the future than Bacigalupi’s debut novel. His young adult works may be more likely to receive the eventual big-screen treatment, but there’s something deeply profound about the story of Emiko the windup, a genetically engineered sex slave in a world ravaged by rampant “genehacking” and various resultant foodborne plagues. Either the Wachowskis or Danny Boyle could turn this haunting vision into a believable reality. Who knows—it just might happen someday.

9. 
Deathless
 by Catherynne M. Valente

Here’s a beautiful mythpunk fairy tale that begs for the animated treatment. Try and imagine the folks behind stop-motion masterpieces like
 
Coraline
 or 
Frankenweenie
bringing this book to life. Or Hayao Miyazaki, who did the sublime animated adaptation of 
Howl’s Moving Castle
. Not that this book couldn’t be filmed; I just think that its marvelous witches and spirits, and all the shapeshifting that goes on in the novel, would look stunning in mostly grayscale, old-school animation.

10.
 
Good Omens
 by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

This is the book I’m reading right now, and I can’t believe it’s been out for so long without being adapted into some form of visual medium. It’s an inevitability, I think—but let’s hope like Hell it gets the witty, literate treatment it truly deserves. Before the End Times come and wipe our slate clean, we should all be so lucky to see so many angels and demons working in harmony to bring about Armageddon. Maybe Gaiman could collaborate with Kevin Smith on the script, and then get Todd Phillips to direct? Or Edgar Wright? I don’t know. Who could truly do a masterwork like this one justice?

One thing’s for sure: it’ll be a thrill to watch what lands in theaters over the coming decade, as the field of fantasy and science fiction continues its global invasion of the multiplex.

The Cabin in the Woods

Yanking Down the Zipper on the Monster’s Back

I’ll try and keep this spoiler-free, because I think it goes without saying that spoilers can be the film buff’s bane, but I will need to at least hint at a few key aspects of the story in order to properly criticize it in the manner I intend to. Which is to say, I didn’t really enjoy the film all that much on an artistic or intellectual level. Critical reception and popular opinion across social media had both set my expectations high, and in the beginning of the film I felt that the script was poised to deliver . . . but things fell apart pretty quickly.

I believe that a good horror film ought to bring the monsters of our innermost darkness to life both on the screen and in our hearts; but all
 
The Cabin in the Woods
 seems to do is yank down the zipper on the monster’s back, exposing the pale, hairy ass underneath.

It doesn’t show much love for the genre. And that’s a big strike against it, in my book.

Maybe I’m too jaded, or even a liar masking his own jealousy or insecurities as a creative individual, but I feel like a lot of these high-concept, chain-o’-nonsense-surprises films feel a little soulless. They lack the grit and believability that are the requisite of true, visceral terror—something that the horror genre, particularly in film, is especially lacking these days.

It’s not that
 
Cabin
 doesn’t have its smart or entertaining moments. There is a certain moderate tension that persists throughout the film, more or less holding the audience’s attention, but it can’t ever make up its mind whether it is a high-brow comedy or a horror film. It succeeds only, I’m afraid, as a comedy. That’s what I find most disappointing.

And so much of the plot relies on, well, me not revealing the big spoilers that would utterly ruin the entire thing for you. It’s all one massive curtain—which, by the way, you can see straight through the minute the film starts.

Hell, the first time you see the trailer, if you’ve a keen eye and a rudimentary understanding of the genre and the metafictional obsession that has grown to dominate the imaginations of horror cinema’s once-great masters. Like that bloody but disgraceful mess 
Scream 4
, 
The Cabin in the Woods
 suffers from the reality that the well-meaning audience member is constantly thumped over the head with reminders that she is in fact seated in a movie theater, sipping a six-dollar Coke and comfortably distanced from even the slightest whiff of danger or alarm. Munchin’ on that Buncha Crunch.

I dunno. Maybe this is a phase, in which I’m not allowed to enjoy contemporary horror films with quite the same kind of . . .

Wait, no. Scratch that. I watched Ridley Scott’s 1979 film 
Alien
 last Thursday night, and damn, that’s a movie, folks. Thirty-three years later, and the H. R. Giger creature is scarier than anything Hollywood has managed to dream up since. Honest.

Like I said to my little brother on the way outta the theater, what audiences know—have known for decades—hasn’t quite reached filmmakers’ ears: It ain’t what you
 
show
 that’s scary; it’s what you 
don’t show
. It’s what the audience 
thinks
 it saw, what it 
imagined
.

Hence the phenomenal effectiveness, and deserved success, of a film like
 
Alien
.

So please, enough with the gimmicks. To hell with the
 
no-holds-barred-anything-goes
 expansion of scope, realism, and so-called “artistic freedom.” Set some boundaries. As the film’s 
stoner-cum-hero
 says, you gotta draw a line in the sand somewhere. Keep a touch of harsh reality, just a dash of subtlety. Rules and mystery, silence and things left unsaid, leaving that curtain down . . . these things will keep the illusion alive.

Richard Jenkins’s character? Well, he just won’t. Nor will the colossal meta-narrative technique of “The Director” and holograms and wagers with the boogeymen of other nations. And don’t even get me started on the imagery in the opening credits and constant bludgeoning of the audience with obvious one-liners and allusions that give away the big “surprise ending” as early on as the opening scene, for chrissakes.

Sorry to rant, but I’m so tired of being disappointed by a genre that is so dear to my heart, that is so chock full of potential. I wish we could put the cliches and failed attempts at cleverness to rest in favor of originality, atmosphere, and believable, 
human
 characters. Trust me: Romero and Lovecraft won’t mind if we leave the zombies and elder gods behind in favor of artistic invention. They’ll thank us for not killing the genre.