42 thoughts on “Space Operas”

    3. Cryptonomicon is too verbose. While it has some interesting ideas the book could have like a quarter of the pages. It’s almost like Neal Stephenson is getting paid by the page or something.

  4. The time for it may already be passed, but I thought that the success of The Hunger Games created the perfect opportunity for Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky.

    1. Tunnel in the Sky is a great choice. It’s more Lord of the Flies (where civilization wins) than Hunger Games though.

      1. I had to look up the plot to remember this story (I’m not that good at remembering names.) Tunnel in the Sky would be a great series. There was another one I can’t remember the title of. The first mars landing happens and they’re met by a guy that had just invented a teleporter and later lives in a carved out asteroid.

        So often when I watch some sf tv show it turns out to be a short story I’d read years before.

        This ruined the Shawshank Redemption for me since Tim Robbins was not anything like the books character. I did think Morgan Freeman was an inspired choice for an Irishman though! “Why do they call you Red?” “Perhaps because I’m Irish.”

  5. I would love to see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress done right, but would never trust anyone in Hollywood to be able to do that. After Starship Troopers, I don’t think we’ll see Hollywood get the rights to any more Heinlein works.

  6. #1 Moon is a harsh mistress…
    #2 Protector….

    In following David Webers tweets I gather the honor Harrington stuff is already in work…

    This fall we should see Enders game….

  7. Definitely TMIAHM, Mote in Gods Eye (Niven/Pournelle), and March Upcountry-series (Ringo).

    NN

  8. Almost all novels are too long for film length treatments. Even the short cable-length TV seasons that you get with shows like Game of Thrones end up leaving material on the cutting room floor.

    I’d love a Vorkosigan series. LMB said that her books had gotten optioned for the movies back in the early Nineties, but that the options expired while scripts were in turnaround. Sounded like trainwreck treatments anyways. Given the amount of skin in a potential Vorkosigan series, I’d imagine Starz or HBO or Showtime.

  9. Hollywood can’t seem to do science fiction anymore. They can do Westerns in Space or Samurai in Space or humans-as-Aztecs-aliens-as-conquistadores, but wrapping heads around scifi in Hollywood seems like teaching a pig to sew. The last science fiction movie to come out of Hollywood was Serenity. Blade Runner would never be made today.

    1. Firefly/Serenity was science fiction, but it was also most certainly a ‘western’. Sadly, that’s where it lost the teeming masses.

      Concerning ‘The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress’, I’m not sure the images of Lunar rebels bombarding the Earth would really be good for opening up the space frontier. 🙂

  10. Almost anything by Poul Anderson, especially any of the Nicholas van Rijn stories.

    Next would be L. Sprague de Camp’s _Lest Darkness Fall_ (actually, that would be my first pick) then any of his Krishna stories. Good buckle-swashing in those:-).

  11. I too would love to see Starship Troopers done properly (i.e., by a director who understood the book and didn’t sneer at it). However, I’ve got a suggestion for a book who’s rights might be easier to acquire: James Hogan’s Voyage from Yesteryear. Fascinating study on what is “money” and what really motivates people.

  12. One more suggestion for the CGI croud: Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity. Barlennan is one of the greatest heroic figures in all of SF, and he’s a bug!

    1. And the sequel. In fact, most of Clement’s books would make great movies for today’s audiences– lots of CGI environments and creatures; while also having fascinating problems to solve, and likable characters, both human and other. Just as long as the production company didn’t try to “improve” the story with the usual Hollywood gratuitous sex and violence.

  13. I second the Niven love, but one I’ve always thought could be good on the big screen is The Caves of Steel.

  14. I wouldn’t mind seeing a Ringworld book turned into a film, but I fear even a big-budget Hollywood treatment would end up looking like a Syfy Original Movie — kind of like the Johnny Depp version of Alice in Wonderland.

  15. Iain M. Banks and his Culture series can be considered a classic now. ( R. I. P. )
    I dont believe there is a talent in the world that would be able to bring any of it to big screen though.

  16. Dune done properly. Perhaps Peter Jackson could do it. But The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Neill Blomkamp would be good too.

  18. At the intersection of the sets of A) SF I would like to see made into movies B) SF that’s actually remotely filmable and C) movies that would resonate with an audience in the 2010s the way “2001” resonated in the late ’60s and early ’70s … which would mean one that deals with a looming threat, I’d have to go with Protector.

    Discarding criterion C), there are lots of other possibilities. One not mentioned above is Canticle, but it would either have to be a trilogy or, just possibly, a single 3-hour-long movie, with the middle section being much the longest.

    1. Jay, Long time no hear/read, probably since you abandoned Voyage to Arcturis. Anyway, pretty much agree with your intersection of sets but, having read Canticle in the 50’s I’ll agree it’s a great book which would make a great movie, it’s not space opera by any definition.

  19. Ditto on all the Heinlein mentioned thus far. Add Have Spacesuit, Will Travel to the list. (Night skies in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud! Yowzah!)

    But for full tilt boogey space opera, ya gotta go with David Drake’s Daniel Leary/Royal Cinnabar Navy stories and Poul Anderson’s Dominic Flandry stuff.

  21. I don’t think the term “space opera” means what most of you think it does. No I didn’t steal that from “The Princess Bride”. SciFi pulps of the late 40’s early 50’s defined ‘space opera”, already made movies capturing the genre would be “This Island Earth” and “Forbidden Planet”. Re-makes of either would be knockdown box office smashes.
    Classic SciFi would have to start with anything by AE VanVogt or EE Smith’s Lensmans series and end with anything published after 1970.
    However, in the last few years the $5.99 or less Kindle SciFi I’ve been reading is re-discovering what SciFi started as. “Hegemony” and “Poor Man’s Fight” are excellent examples.

  22. H. Beam Piper. ‘Space Viking’ if you want grim, bloody and FX-intensive. ‘Lone Star Planet’ for fun.

    1. Ditto on Space Viking.

      But my top vote would be for Footfall, if done as a three-film back-to-back series like Lord of the Rings. Film 1 would be the invasion by the Snouts; Film 2, the ground war and construction of Michael. Film 3 would consist entirely of the space battle between Michael and Message Bearer, the military coup, and a brief look at the aftermath.

  23. I’m not sure folks really sat down and thought about the phrase “space opera.” Certainly The Moon is a Harsh Mistress does NOT qualify. Hell, one commenter on the original article recommended Zelazny’s Amber series, which is pretty much pure classic fantasy.

    If you want Heinlein, stick to the “juveniles” for space opera. Someone mentioned Citizen of the Galaxy; good choice.

    Anderson’s early Polesotechnic League, or early Flandry would be good. The later stories in both series trended darker.

    Almost anything by Piper.

    Pournelle’s Falkenberg stories would make good space opera.

    Myself, I’d love to see Laumer’s Retief on the big screen, in all his corrosive glory.

  25. The “Retief” short stories by Kieth Laumer would make excellent films (or hourlong TV episodes). On the other hand, since Laumer took a lot of the humor from his time in the Foreign Service, which sadly hasn’t changed much, I doubt Hollywood would touch it with a 10-mile pole.

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