moorcock – Garden of Entropy

It seems everyone is getting in on the sci-fi/fantasy kick these days, what with Netflix and their Altered Carbon and Bright, Amazon with some weird pre-Hobbit show and Conan the Barbarian thing going on. HBO, of course, with Game of Thrones and Westworld. And probably Hulu with something.

A lot of them are based on books that I never heard of (not Tolkien and Howard, though). There’s such a huge catalog of older books, though, that are probably still ripe for the picking and I find it disappointing that they’ve never been picked up. Or, if they were, they were never finished. Or started.

I’ll list some of them even though nobody cares about what I think.

Elric of Melniboné – Michael Moorcock

Dark anti-heroes are a thing right now, and Elric has a slew of books to take material from, yet, despite some starts and stops, he’s never been on the big or small screen. There’s violence aplenty, so that should draw people.

Various – Robert Sheckley

Some of Sheckley’s work has been turned into movies, with The 10th Victim probably being the most known. Condorman was also his, for good or ill. Oh, and Freejack was based on his Immortality, Inc. Nobody remembers Freejack. Not even me. And I saw it in the theater.

The thing is, Sheckley was way ahead of his time and most of his stories are funny, in a dystopian kind of way. Some are rather scathing commentaries on the human condition.

He has a plethora of short stories and novels that can be used for a series like Black Mirror or Electric Dreams. It’s a shame, really, that Sheckley has been largely forgotten because, really, the man was a genius.

Even though he was writing back in the 1950s (and earlier) and 1960s, a lot of his stuff is still timely today. Stories like a kid not wanting to grow up to follow in his parents footsteps of being wizards, but dreaming to be an accountant. Or stories where people buy a lot of useless crap and pass the debt down to their children. Of drones (timely!) programmed with an AI to hunt down criminals who haven’t done anything criminal yet, just to decide to wipe out humanity and people have to design a new drone to hunt the old drones. Of two guys getting in the business of hauling wildlife on their spaceship hauler and finding out that none of them have compatible biomes.

Seriously, it’s criminal that his stories have not been used. Recently. And well. For a change.

Xanth – Piers Anthony

I’m going to mention this mostly because I would love to see someone try and tackle this. In a world comprised of puns (shoe trees that grow shoes and things of that nature), I think people would lose their minds trying to bring this to a visual medium.

Blue Adept — Piers Anthony

One world, two dimensions; one is all technology while the other is all fantasy. One man bops back and forth between the two working his way up the social and economic ladder on the tech side, while being a magical adept on the fantasy side. Also, there would be tons of nudity, so that should draw some viewers.

Silverlock — John Myers Myers

A rather unlikable man is cast adrift after a shipwreck and ends up in a strange land. I don’t think a movie could do this justice, but a mini-series might. It’s full of references to different legends and myths, full of songs, and is just a great read. I think it would make for a great watch if the cast were right.

Various — Alan Dean Foster

Honest to God, the man writes just about every movie novelization that exists. Hasn’t anyone tried to make a movielization (that’s a word, I’m sure) of one his books? Pip and Flinx? A boy and his mini-dragon?

The Spellsinger series where a college student/wannabe musician ends up in a fantasy land full of intelligent animals?

He’s written about a million books by now, surely somebody could find one they found interesting enough to work with.

Garrett, PI — Glen Cook

A hardboiled detective in a world with elves, humans, centaurs, faeries, trolls, and the occasional god. In a fantasy setting. Surely this is enticing to someone out there?

Of course, some folks might not want their writing turned into TV or movies, and that’s all right. I guess. I suppose it’s possible at least one of these has been made into a movie, but it obviously wasn’t good (Sheckley) or was a long time ago (Sheckley, again). I say give it another try.

Diary dear,

Last night as I was lying in bed trying to sleep I had thought of something really funny to write. When I woke up I had forgotten what it was. That’s the way it goes, sometimes.

I think for breakfast I will make an omelet. Then I can eat while watching the rest of Kull The Conqueror, which is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in my lifetime. It’s a shame that no one can really make a good Robert E. Howard movie. I suppose Conan was not too bad. Solomon Kane, surprisingly, was pretty good even though it didn’t follow the story line very well. One of the big problems with Kull is Kevin Sorbo. He was a bad choice to begin with and the rest of the cast just got worse from there. Frankly, the movie is just a piss poor, SyFy channel level, made for TV movie that somehow made it to the big screen. When someone can tell me what the point is of adapting a violent sword & sorcery film to a non-violent comedy I’ll be happy to listen. While I’m thinking about it, if you’re going to have gratuitous nudity in your movie then you may as well show it.

I’ve been a fan of Robert E. Howard’s stories since I was a kid. This doesn’t explain why I’ve never been to the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains, TX, though, since I’m only three hours away from the place. My favorite Robert E. Howard character is not Conan, though; it’s Solomon Kane. An anti-hero who gets relatively no love, but more than Bran Mak Morn.

The sword & sorcery never got a lot of attention from Hollywood, though. The Lord of the Rings and Conan are probably the best examples with the others, mostly from the 1980s, being low budget flicks. Of course, there’s also Dragonslayer from Disney. I’d mention Krull but it was pretty bad and I’m not sure it really fits into the sword & sorcery category. I liked it as a kid, though, which doesn’t say much for the movie tastes of a fifteen year old. Clash of the Titans was also pretty bad but it still managed to be better than the 2010 remake.

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I’m guessing the world will never see an Elric movie. Part of me thinks this is sad, since Elric is one of the best tragic anti-heroes ever written. The rational part of me, however, thinks it’s for the best since Hollywood will turn it into a PG-13 laugh-a-thon.

I’m happy to report that my apartment is now burglar proof. At least the front door is. It sticks so badly that it’s nearly impossible for me to open the door from the inside without tearing the doorknob out of the door. To get in from the outside I have to use my shoulder and hefty weight as a battering ram. Despite this, there’s a large gap on top of the door where I can see how bright the day is. Once again I’ll have to call maintenance and then they’ll probably just “adjust” it.

Junior is funny about his water. He, like other cats, prefers either water that is stagnant and green when he’s outside but clear and running when he’s inside. So I bought a water fountain for him a while back. It’s been working pretty well. I ordered additional filters for the thing. I was expecting three filters, what I got was three packs of three, or nine for the math impaired. So I unplugged the fountain, cleaned the whole bowl assembly thoroughly, changed the filter, put it all back together, plugged it back in (like I had done numerous times before, except for the filter part) and watched as the fountain part did nothing.

So I checked the plug, then took the whole thing apart again, made sure water could flow through the motor freely and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. I risked my life to plug the motor back in to see if it would work with the wire in different positions. Even though I could hear the motor running and feel it vibrate it refused to push water. This totally pisses me off, especially since it was working when I unplugged it.

You see, my friends (and I hope I can call you a friend), it’s the little things that bug the bejeezus out of me. Big things? I can handle those. I stay calm, collected, rational and cool. If something small happens, like a knob falls off a drawer? Then I go off the hook. Not at first. At first it’s no big deal. But things don’t work that way. It’ll be one small thing, then another small thing, and then a bunch of small things. Then that drives me insane.

Well, it’s nearly 9pm and I can’t think of anything else to put down. It’s been a long, slow Sunday and now it’s just about over. It’s time to find out who I write like this time and then post it up.