[Closed] Consider Phlebas (Iain M Banks) as a TV series

Its not  going to be easy to translate the culture onto the screen - banks was great at describing enough of his ideas to let you construct your own reality, whereas the likes of Tolkien were much more precise. I don't think anyone was surprised at what a hobbit looked like, but who knows what an Idiran looks like?

Though if someone makes a good job of it then I'll certainly be watching.

Noooo! Not Snowcrash!

Yay... and Boo. I'm not an Amazon customer.

It is quite episodic, so should translate well to TV.

Who would you pick for the part of Horza? I think Luke Evans would be good for it.

No. He always said they shouldn’t be films because they ‘wouldn’t get the spaceships right.’
I doubt a TV series would either, especially as he’s not around to act as an advisor.
Some things are best left alone.

However I think some of his non-M fiction is ripe for telly. The Crow Road was brilliant.

We aren't getting anymore culture novels so why not let someone have a stab at a TV series. If it's good I'll watch it if not I won't.

Who knows it could start off something good.

I think it would be the easiest of the series to televise. Linear, action packed story with a good mix of characters. Who could play Fwi song (probably spelled incorrectly)?

As long as they don’t pull an Altered Carbon by having a fence post as the main character and altering the source material to make it worse.

Often people say "how do you represent Minds on the screen" and this is how really, Phlebas avoids most of the complications and it's very cinematic, almost screenplayish at times with how it describes the visuals.

And also, who knows what an Idiran looks like? Banksy did, and described them pretty well. 3 legs, 2 arms, flappy thing, hammerhead.

Snow Crash almost feels written for it. It's a shame it's not been picked up by Fox, because if they were to cancel it 2/3ds of the way through it'd really be no different from the actual ending.

Can't wait! Remember reading it after reading a good few of his more literary 'non-M' books. First sci-fi I'd read in years, after growing up on the stuff (actually there's another thread as I'm not sure I could tolerate any non-Ian M sci-fi but maybe I should try and if so where would I start?). Whatever, as the protagonist recovers, reorientates and has to fight for his life on a strange ship, having been picked up from space, I think I laughed out loud as I realised: these people are space pirates!

Yes, this could work, they have enough money to do a good job. The Expanse was good, at least season 1. I hope it does work and they do more. Player of Games could work IMO. Actually most probably could, apart from maybe the one realy focussed on the Minds (Excession?)

Just don’t completely change it like amazon did with American Gods

"And also, who knows what an Idiran looks like? "

I do, they look like Tripods...now who wants to remake/finish that eh? No one? Really? Ok....

lister, not sure from your comment if you know The Crow Road was actually serialised for TV away back in 1996!

I know little about this series other than having a mate who's been saying I should read them for years.  However, I did just trip over one detail:  It's being adapted by Dennis Kelly who also did Channel 4's Utopia, so it stands a fighting chance of not sucking.

"know little about this series other than having a mate who’s been saying I should read them for years."

You should

Sadly, I won’t be watching either, because I can’t afford to pay Amazon £90/year for the privilege.

Player of Games could work IMO.

"johnx2

(actually there’s another thread as I’m not sure I could tolerate any non-Ian M sci-fi but maybe I should try and if so where would I start?)"

His mate Ken Macleod's "Star Fraction" maybe. Near-future not space opera stuff though

At last!

@countzero: That’s a strong reaction to The Player of Games! It’s not my favourite and the player is a complex character but don’t you think he comes good in the end? Yes he cheats in a minor game but when he realised how bad things are he brings the whole twisted regime down on the fire planet by playing out of his skin unsupported.

Nstpaul: yep, that was what I meant. I loved the tv version and the book.

As much as I always hoped that someone would adapt the Culture stuff "properly" (and Expanse shows it can be done), I'm quite worried that without IMB to demand a veto they might change things dramatically.

Cue hundreds of nerds screaming SHIPS ARE FEATURELESS BLOCKS at the same time when the first ship appears...

So many years ago I was the web master for a I[M]B fan site and still have the archive of the site, so just dug this fan art out (by Chris Lynas, not myself).

Is snow crash going to be a documentary? Surely 20 years too late to capture the impact of that book in a TV drama.

"rossburton

So many years ago I was the web master for a I[M]B fan site "

Were you ever on culture@busstop.org?

Who would you pick for the part of Horza? I think Luke Evans would be good for it.

Surely there would be multiple actors or it be sort of slightly missing the point just a tiny bit?

Idrians - angry octoshark draped over a tripod.

Northwind, no, this was the Culture Shock web site and the alt.fan.iainbanks usenet channel.  Good old days when usenet wasn't all spam and pirated films...

I think my favourite book is possibly Excession

Im not sure that could work, I imagined it as just endless lines of green text on a black background as the minds chatted

Consider Phlebas could be great

True story: everytime I go in a bookshop I cant help checking in the sci fi section under B and that theres never gonna be a new Culture book appearing there makes me sad

I’m with you there Kimbers 🙁

endless lines of green text on a black background

Exactly this.

It might work because of its simplicity, but I’d hate to watch it for the same reason I can never read the book again; the main protagonist is such an utter shitbag, a thoroughly unpleasant douche with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever; many of Banks’ characters have dubious morals, and some pretty dodgy character traits, but are still likeable, that’s not true of anyone in <em class="bbcode-em">Player….

Are you sure you are not thinking of Use of Weapons.? The bloke in Player seems ok enough to me.

Excession is my favourite too. I always thought it could make a good radio play but struggled to work out how to do mind conversation without getting tedious.

I’ve read all of the Culture books, I’m reading Against A Dark Background at the moment, and I’m pretty sure it’s Player Of Games, but I’ll go back to it and have another go. Certainly it’s the only Culture book I’ve only read once, and I’m sure it’s to do with the main character.

There’s a Zelazney book, The Dream Master, which also has an unpleasant lead character and I just can’t read the book again, the only Zelazney book out of everything he’s written that I can’t go back to, all the others I’ve read numerous times, like Banks’ Culture series.

Excession is probably my favourite of the Culture books as well, although Surface Detail challenges as I did like the shop Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints. The Algebraist might be my favourite of his sci-fi novels though.

Against a Dark Background could make a decent movie.

Alistair Reynolds is pretty good, but still not as good as IMB 🙁

I was so depressed by his death (and by default never getting to read a new book by him again) that I stopped reading for about a year.

I've since reread all his SciFi stuff chronologically (by order written, not by Culture date!) and though they're all great, Feersum Endjinn is still my favourite.

* edit - or The Algebreist, or maybe Surface Detail.

As a result of the Consider Phlebas announcement, I was reading some other suggestions, among them Zelazney’s Lord Of Light, which could be interesting. I also thought his Damnation Alley, which was made into a film years ago, but it was bloody awful, Zelazney refused to be associated with it, because the hero was a clean-cut All-American Hero type, instead of the last of the Hells Angels, Hell Tanner.

With modern production values, and the popularity of the likes of Sons Of Anarchy, I reckon it could be a good series.

Would have thought Lord of Light would be a nightmare to film, what with it being batshit mental and all. But Chronicles of Amber is in production for a TV series, from the people who made Walking Dead. They say "We want this to be our Game of Thrones", George Martin says "Weird, I want Game of Thrones to be my Amber" I reckon it could be ideal tbh

Drop the M and I think Espedair Street would of made an excellent movie.

good news. i'm intrigued to see how it turns out. great books, such a shame he's gone.

try neal asher as an alternative if you haven't already. the cormac novels are a good place to start.

the expanse series 1 was terrible in many ways, some appalling acting, but still a pretty good start. series 2 settled down, it seemed like the cast and crew just got themselves together. i'm quite looking forward to s3.

Consider Phlebas = Firefly in large parts.

Player of Games was great, imo - one of my favourites.  So what if the character isn't a clean cut hero?  That's why I like it.  It's a step up from basic Hollywood slop.  But it isn't really about him anyway - he's being used, like mostly everyone else in the book (spoiler alert) hence the double* meaning of the book title...

*triple... quadruple..

I’m not sure I could tolerate any non-Ian M sci-fi

It's ruined a lot of other (non-comedic) Sci-fi for me, that's for sure. Classic stuff seems to stand up pretty well (Aasimov, Phillip K Dick etc.) but most other modern stuff just seems a bit shallow compared to the Culture Stuff (probably because I always felt like I only understood about half of what was going on in the Culture novels, not the best memory for detail...)

I've always wondered what Pratchett would look like if adapted really well. I don't mean the sort of cheery christmas Dickensian style adaptation with ****ing David Jason as Rincewind, I mean a sort of really good Jim Henson/Labyrinth style adaptation. Feels like there's three movies to be made out of the books, a Rincewind movie, a City Guard movie and maybe a Witches movie?

Would be fun trying to cast them, I always had Alan Rikman down as Patrician (alas no more) and wondered (controversially) if Bruce Willis could work as Sam Vines, or if you'd need someone with more darkness and simmering anger.

It’s ruined a lot of other (non-comedic) Sci-fi for me, that’s for sure. Classic stuff seems to stand up pretty well (Aasimov, Phillip K Dick etc.) but most other modern stuff just seems a bit shallow compared to the Culture Stuff

Same for me. I haven’t found a single author who comes close to the quality of Banks’ sf. He was a great writer anyway - even his ramblings in Raw Spirits were good! - with a great imagination and an understanding of how to construct a story. Most authors only get one or two of those points. He was also very clever - note how the ultra-intelligent Minds never seem to be written by a mere human.

For people like myself still in mourning, Alistair Reynolds's Revelation Space series is good, and the Expanse books are obviously great.

I’ve argued many times on here about Revelation Space - they may get better but I’ll never know because I threw the first one across the room for being so appallingly bad. I don’t think I’ve ever done that with any other book. There’s so much wrong with that first book, I don’t know where to start.

And while the Expanse series is entertaining, comparing it to Culture novels is like comparing The Gruffalo to Tolkien.