What are you reading? - Page 10

BullpupDFWM · 08-26-2005, 02:03 AM

Yeah, The Stand mini-series was a shade under six hours long, and they've still left things out/changed things around.

I'd like to see a movie made from a book that was perfectly faithful. Every scene and piece of dialogue in it's correct place. It'd probably be boring as batshit to watch, but at least it'd be a different kind of boring, compared to most movies coming out nowadays.

Xenomrph · 08-26-2005, 02:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Renegade 2501
Finished reading I Am Legend, thought it was very good. I've read some of the short stories that follow it too, and some of them were pretty good. I liked Prey the best, even though it's a pretty cliche story by now. Person to Person is the last one, and I'm looking forward to it.

That's been on my to-read list for a long time.

I'm currently about 20 pages into the 'Aliens' novelization, but I'm taking a break from it to read 'The Dead' by Mark E. Rogers. It's a zombie novel, and while it starts out pretty slow and was quite poorly edited (i.e., typoes abound) and is kinda heavy-laden with Christian preachy stuff that I'm not really into, the book really gets rolling by the halfway point, and shit gets all kinds of fucked up.

SM · 08-26-2005, 02:26 AM

Quote:

I'd like to see a movie made from a book that was perfectly faithful.

Fight Club is the closest adaptation I've seen.

BullpupDFWM · 08-26-2005, 02:31 AM

I've been meaning to read that book for a long while now, but first I have to find a copy for less than $20.

SM · 08-26-2005, 02:40 AM

Don't they got libraries in the west?

BullpupDFWM · 08-26-2005, 02:49 AM

Yeah.... but I owe a few late fees.....

Xenomrph · 08-26-2005, 04:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SM
Fight Club is the closest adaptation I've seen.

The ending is pretty different. That, and the book gives away the plot twist in the first 30 pages, whereas the movie waits until the end. For that reason alone, I like the movie more than the book.

Another close adaptation I can think of is 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption'. Aside from Red's character changing from Irish to African American, and there being only one warden instead of many, the movie is very close to the book.

Edit - oh yeah, if you want to count it, 'Sin City' is incredibly faithful to the source material.

J A Eyers · 08-26-2005, 07:58 AM

I read Stephen King's It last summer and I don't want to spoil anything, but it did make me have nicer thoughts about the ending of the TV adaptation. The first half of that was truly great, saw it about a decade ago, very scary. The second half I thought was a letdown because of that anticlimactic battle with the giant spider.

Just wait until you get to the ending of the book and see how King originally envisaged it. Actually, if I was one to tell people to stop reading books, I'd recommend you stop reading It as soon as you reach the first mention of the giant turtle that rules the world. If you've got as far as the bit where the kids have sex with each other in the sewer to defeat It, you know you've gone too far.

MacCabbe · 08-26-2005, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Xenomrph
Edit - oh yeah, if you want to count it, 'Sin City' is incredibly faithful to the source material.

Even though it's not a novel in the sheer sense of the term, absolutely.

Renegade 2501 · 08-26-2005, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by J A Eyers
I read Stephen King's It last summer and I don't want to spoil anything, but it did make me have nicer thoughts about the ending of the TV adaptation. The first half of that was truly great, saw it about a decade ago, very scary. The second half I thought was a letdown because of that anticlimactic battle with the giant spider.

Just wait until you get to the ending of the book and see how King originally envisaged it. Actually, if I was one to tell people to stop reading books, I'd recommend you stop reading It as soon as you reach the first mention of the giant turtle that rules the world. If you've got as far as the bit where the kids have sex with each other in the sewer to defeat It, you know you've gone too far.

Yes, when I was a kid I would only watch the first half of the television film where it ended in the bathroom with one of the characters killing himself (don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read/seen it). I never liked the "true" form of the clown at the end of the second half either. And, now that you mention it, I have been wondering what the hell this turtle the kids keep talking about is. Still, I always finish a book once I begin reading it, except for one case.

I tried reading Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice...three times, and I never was able to go more than half way because I was getting bored. There would be a bunch of boring things, then some guy would have sex with a ghost, then more boring stuff, and you know, I just couldn't do it. I liked Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat (that one was good), but I will slam my hand in a car door before picking up Blackwood Farm again.

J A Eyers · 08-26-2005, 06:20 PM

The turtle business gets very, very silly. In comparison, the giant spider seems like a fine, fitting finale. Actually, it makes more sense in the book. Plus you can see where they had to make certain cuts to the book's ending because it would have cost $50 million just to film the ending. I did feel the TV mini-series lost the meaning that King was trying to get across, which is there in the book.

BullpupDFWM · 08-26-2005, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Xenomrph
Edit - oh yeah, if you want to count it, 'Sin City' is incredibly faithful to the source material.

I read about that just the other day, apparently it's accurate down to the frame.
It's part of the reason I want to see something like that done with an actual novel.

Renegade 2501 · 08-26-2005, 10:18 PM

Yeah, that's why I consider Sin City such a success: Not only did it make a killing, but it was nearly 100% faithful to the graphic novels. Most of the dialogue is exactly the same, and the graphic novels basically served as storyboards; most of the shots in the film are exactly the same as the drawings in the books.

As far as faithful adaptations of actual books (not comics) goes, I'd say LOTR does it pretty damn well. Although, there is no way in hell they could have included everything from the book in the films. It would have been impossible. Still, for adapting such a large story, I think the films did very well.

BullpupDFWM · 08-26-2005, 10:44 PM

I've been meaning to read War of the Worlds, just to see how far the movie departed from the story. From what I've been told, the only similarity is the tripods and the fact that they come from Mars.

J A Eyers · 08-27-2005, 04:57 AM

The book's set in late Victorian England and is a comment on the imperialism of the day. I think Spielberg captured the meaning (even if he updated it to the imperialism of sorts of OUR day) better than the last film adaptation, despite its other merits.

Xenomrph · 08-29-2005, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Renegade 2501
Yeah, that's why I consider Sin City such a success: Not only did it make a killing, but it was nearly 100% faithful to the graphic novels. Most of the dialogue is exactly the same, and the graphic novels basically served as storyboards; most of the shots in the film are exactly the same as the drawings in the books.

Yep, Rodriguez and Miller went through the comic and filmed every scene frame-for-frame from the comic book, to make it as accurate as possible. They had to edit it down for the theatrical release, but the 2-disc special edition DVD release later this year will have all the deleted scenes.

SM · 08-29-2005, 06:18 PM

AFAIK they didn't do storyboards for Sin City - they just used the comic.

Quote:

I tried reading Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice...three times, and I never was able to go more than half way because I was getting bored.

That's Anne Rice for you. I read Interview (good), Lestat, (schore), Queen of the Damned (best of the Vampire books), Tale of the Body Thief (schnore) and The Mummy (don't remember). And since then, the whole Vampire thing has gone beyond myth to people thinking they actually ARE vampires. That or they're the dopey looking things with Star Trekish furrowed foreheads from Buffy.

I was co-writing a script a year or two back with a couple of other guys that had vampires in it, and it could be quite a chore at times...

J A Eyers · 08-29-2005, 06:28 PM

I am currently reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, which is about lovely people who live in California that don't have much/any money.

Xenomrph · 08-30-2005, 02:35 AM

Quote:

AFAIK they didn't do storyboards for Sin City - they just used the comic.

Yep, that's correct.

The Drunkk Machine · 08-30-2005, 06:58 PM

I read IT a few years ago, perhaps when I was not much older than the kids in the book, and really enjoyed it. This is in spite of the wankery filler that King likes to endow all his books with. (Different Seasons excepted.) It was so immersive and epic, it helped me brush through some of the problems Jon had with it. I immediately set out to watch the adaptation. I knew it wouldn't translate well though, and it didn't. Aside from Tim Curry mincing about, a lot of King's villains were of the awkward shuffling type, in bright daylight no less. Bleugh.

I just finished The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, a novel detailing the devil and his little troupe turning up in Moscow and generally getting up to mischief. Very good, despite a few niggles. Banned during Stalin's purges and it isn't difficult to see why. Have just started: Slaughterhouse 5.

ThumperLM · 08-31-2005, 10:52 AM

Currently reading the Foundation series by Asimov. Just finished Second Foundation yesterday. So far, it seems to hold pretty true to his style, where the technology is secondary to the psychology of the participants.

IrishDizazter · 09-02-2005, 09:02 AM

I am reading the Traveler by John Twelve Hawks...Pretty cool, it's like scifi with a 1984 twist and a hot fighting chick. Definitely worth a look. Plus they set up this cool online game that you can play related to the book at http://www.randomhouse.com/features/traveler/. You track surveillance tapes and ip addresses and license plates. It's complex and takes a while to figure out, but it's worth playing if you have the time.

Xenomrph · 09-05-2005, 02:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ThumperLM
Currently reading the Foundation series by Asimov. Just finished Second Foundation yesterday. So far, it seems to hold pretty true to his style, where the technology is secondary to the psychology of the participants.

The Foundation series is perpetually on my to-read list.

ThumperLM · 09-06-2005, 05:25 PM

Well, as far as the series goes, I finished Foundation's Edge, but found that it seemed just a little "weaker" then the original trilogy. Seemed like he was stretching a bit to link the foundation to the prior robot series. Just seemed out of sync especially with what had happened in Prelude to the Foundation (I know, it was also written after the original trilogy).

Next on the list, Foundation and Earth.

The Drunkk Machine · 09-06-2005, 05:52 PM

Taking a break from fiction and have started "Auschwitz, The Nazis & The Final Solution" by Laurence Rees. Must have missed the companion BBC series but the book so far is excellent. It treats the camp as a microcosm of Nazi development and policy, and never shies away from the fact the perpetrators were neither wild-eyed demons nor innocents unable to disobey orders from above.

J A Eyers · 09-06-2005, 06:30 PM

Hehe, you should read Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen next. This sensational (or do I mean sensationalist?) self-styled definitive history of the Holocaust takes six hundred pages of describing atrocities to come to the conclusion that the only reason the Holocaust happened at all was because Germans are born in Germany. And that's it.

Desdinova · 09-07-2005, 03:00 AM

I just finished Job: a Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein, and I really liked it.

I like his take on heaven and hell, and religion in general.

IrishDizazter · 09-09-2005, 09:52 AM

Yeah, the Traveler is part of a trilogy too, like the Fountain series...def check it out.

ThumperLM · 09-09-2005, 04:11 PM

@ IrishDizazter: Who's the author of the Traveler?

For those interested in Nazi Germany/WWII era camps, and the atrocites, especially with regards to how they ran and relationships between the different groups of inmates, I would highly recommend "The Theory and Practice of Hell" by Eugen Kogon.

Gretel · 09-09-2005, 07:40 PM

I just started reading "T?ter - Wie aus ganz normalen Menschen Massenm?rder werden" by Harald Welzer. He is trying to analyse how and why ordinary people like you and me can turn into mass murderers.

08-26-2005, 02:03 AM	#271 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	Yeah, The Stand mini-series was a shade under six hours long, and they've still left things out/changed things around. I'd like to see a movie made from a book that was perfectly faithful. Every scene and piece of dialogue in it's correct place. It'd probably be boring as batshit to watch, but at least it'd be a different kind of boring, compared to most movies coming out nowadays.

08-26-2005, 02:31 AM	#274 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	I've been meaning to read that book for a long while now, but first I have to find a copy for less than $20.

08-26-2005, 02:40 AM	#275 (permalink)
SM Network Interface 2037 Epic Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Network Interface 2037, WY Melbourne Posts: 15,284	Don't they got libraries in the west?

08-26-2005, 02:49 AM	#276 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	Yeah.... but I owe a few late fees.....

08-26-2005, 07:58 AM	#278 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	I read Stephen King's It last summer and I don't want to spoil anything, but it did make me have nicer thoughts about the ending of the TV adaptation. The first half of that was truly great, saw it about a decade ago, very scary. The second half I thought was a letdown because of that anticlimactic battle with the giant spider. Just wait until you get to the ending of the book and see how King originally envisaged it. Actually, if I was one to tell people to stop reading books, I'd recommend you stop reading It as soon as you reach the first mention of the giant turtle that rules the world. If you've got as far as the bit where the kids have sex with each other in the sewer to defeat It, you know you've gone too far.

08-26-2005, 06:20 PM	#281 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	The turtle business gets very, very silly. In comparison, the giant spider seems like a fine, fitting finale. Actually, it makes more sense in the book. Plus you can see where they had to make certain cuts to the book's ending because it would have cost $50 million just to film the ending. I did feel the TV mini-series lost the meaning that King was trying to get across, which is there in the book.

08-26-2005, 10:18 PM	#283 (permalink)
Renegade 2501 Caveat Emptor Hardcore Veteran Join Date: May 2001 Location: "Kahlifoania" Posts: 9,332	Yeah, that's why I consider Sin City such a success: Not only did it make a killing, but it was nearly 100% faithful to the graphic novels. Most of the dialogue is exactly the same, and the graphic novels basically served as storyboards; most of the shots in the film are exactly the same as the drawings in the books. As far as faithful adaptations of actual books (not comics) goes, I'd say LOTR does it pretty damn well. Although, there is no way in hell they could have included everything from the book in the films. It would have been impossible. Still, for adapting such a large story, I think the films did very well.

08-26-2005, 10:44 PM	#284 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	I've been meaning to read War of the Worlds, just to see how far the movie departed from the story. From what I've been told, the only similarity is the tripods and the fact that they come from Mars.

08-27-2005, 04:57 AM	#285 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	The book's set in late Victorian England and is a comment on the imperialism of the day. I think Spielberg captured the meaning (even if he updated it to the imperialism of sorts of OUR day) better than the last film adaptation, despite its other merits.

08-29-2005, 06:28 PM	#288 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	I am currently reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, which is about lovely people who live in California that don't have much/any money.

08-30-2005, 06:58 PM	#290 (permalink)
The Drunkk Machine see you - GET ME A ♥♥♥♥ING CURLY WURLY Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Apr 2000 Posts: 3,346	I read IT a few years ago, perhaps when I was not much older than the kids in the book, and really enjoyed it. This is in spite of the wankery filler that King likes to endow all his books with. (Different Seasons excepted.) It was so immersive and epic, it helped me brush through some of the problems Jon had with it. I immediately set out to watch the adaptation. I knew it wouldn't translate well though, and it didn't. Aside from Tim Curry mincing about, a lot of King's villains were of the awkward shuffling type, in bright daylight no less. Bleugh. I just finished The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, a novel detailing the devil and his little troupe turning up in Moscow and generally getting up to mischief. Very good, despite a few niggles. Banned during Stalin's purges and it isn't difficult to see why. Have just started: Slaughterhouse 5.

08-31-2005, 10:52 AM	#291 (permalink)
ThumperLM Registered User Forum Fledgling Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 128	Currently reading the Foundation series by Asimov. Just finished Second Foundation yesterday. So far, it seems to hold pretty true to his style, where the technology is secondary to the psychology of the participants.

09-02-2005, 09:02 AM	#292 (permalink)
IrishDizazter Registered User Forum Fanatic Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 269	I am reading the Traveler by John Twelve Hawks...Pretty cool, it's like scifi with a 1984 twist and a hot fighting chick. Definitely worth a look. Plus they set up this cool online game that you can play related to the book at http://www.randomhouse.com/features/traveler/. You track surveillance tapes and ip addresses and license plates. It's complex and takes a while to figure out, but it's worth playing if you have the time.

09-06-2005, 05:25 PM	#294 (permalink)
ThumperLM Registered User Forum Fledgling Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 128	Well, as far as the series goes, I finished Foundation's Edge, but found that it seemed just a little "weaker" then the original trilogy. Seemed like he was stretching a bit to link the foundation to the prior robot series. Just seemed out of sync especially with what had happened in Prelude to the Foundation (I know, it was also written after the original trilogy). Next on the list, Foundation and Earth.

09-06-2005, 05:52 PM	#295 (permalink)
The Drunkk Machine see you - GET ME A ♥♥♥♥ING CURLY WURLY Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Apr 2000 Posts: 3,346	Taking a break from fiction and have started "Auschwitz, The Nazis & The Final Solution" by Laurence Rees. Must have missed the companion BBC series but the book so far is excellent. It treats the camp as a microcosm of Nazi development and policy, and never shies away from the fact the perpetrators were neither wild-eyed demons nor innocents unable to disobey orders from above.

09-06-2005, 06:30 PM	#296 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	Hehe, you should read Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen next. This sensational (or do I mean sensationalist?) self-styled definitive history of the Holocaust takes six hundred pages of describing atrocities to come to the conclusion that the only reason the Holocaust happened at all was because Germans are born in Germany. And that's it.

09-07-2005, 03:00 AM	#297 (permalink)
Desdinova Wait for the cream Grizzled Veteran Join Date: May 2002 Location: Monterey, CA Posts: 4,919	I just finished Job: a Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein, and I really liked it. I like his take on heaven and hell, and religion in general.

09-09-2005, 09:52 AM	#298 (permalink)
IrishDizazter Registered User Forum Fanatic Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 269	Yeah, the Traveler is part of a trilogy too, like the Fountain series...def check it out.

09-09-2005, 04:11 PM	#299 (permalink)
ThumperLM Registered User Forum Fledgling Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 128	@ IrishDizazter: Who's the author of the Traveler? For those interested in Nazi Germany/WWII era camps, and the atrocites, especially with regards to how they ran and relationships between the different groups of inmates, I would highly recommend "The Theory and Practice of Hell" by Eugen Kogon.

09-09-2005, 07:40 PM	#300 (permalink)
Gretel icon. Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,958	I just started reading "T?ter - Wie aus ganz normalen Menschen Massenm?rder werden" by Harald Welzer. He is trying to analyse how and why ordinary people like you and me can turn into mass murderers.