Authors should write stories like...

[biodroid]

This is my opinion but I feel that script writers who write movies are writing better stories than most novelists today. Why don't novelists keep up with the trend and produce great stories? I have mentioned this before but take for example the current Batman movies or Inception or the movie Heat. I have never come across a novel that is remotely as good as those movies, plot wise and character wise. Is there anything out there in any genre that is as good those movies? This excludes ASOIAF series. I noticed that books forsake plot for character development or vice versa, only a select few have both good plot and good character development. I may be rocking the boat here but I just have the feeling that stories have moved on from the mundane but the mundane still is alive and well. What say you?

 

[iansales]

I say you need to read more books.

Also, comparing ASoIaF, a huge fat fantasy of over a million words (at least), with a two-hour film is hardly a fair comparison.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I say that I saw a recent film adaptation of a book that I really liked, both for its plot and, particularly, its character development, and almost wept at how bad it was. I think there are some books which are outstanding, that have made terrible films, mainly because a film can't give you the depth of character experience that a book can. (this is why I think King books rarely make good films - his character development doesn't translate. The only one that did - Shawshank - came from a novella, which means that perhaps a fifth of a King book makes a good film.)

A couple spring to mind where the book experience is just so much richer: Captain Corelli's Mandolin (partly to do with the casting of Nic Cage, partly that its characters are the rich core of the book, and that didn't, can't, translate in two hours) and One Day by David Nicholls, which is a good book (a bit soppy, I grant you) that captures the flavour of a decade, but was turned into a series of snap shots on screen. (the one I mentioned in my opening paragraph btw was Time Traveller's Wife, where all the pathos was abandoned for the romance part of it).

Which isn't to say I don't enjoy movies, and that I don't think there's some fantastic scripts out there. But they give something different for a good book experience, and I'm afraid, 9 times out of 10 I'd prefer to curl up with the book.

 

[biodroid]

I agree on reading more books, the problem is I don't want to read crappy books and I am a slow reader. I did say I excluded ASOIAF didn't I? I know it's a good series and the TV show is good, it's one of the exceptions hence the exclusion.

 

[biodroid]

springs - I also like to timeout and read for an hour a day (that's all I can really squeeze in). I just want to be blown away by a book and so far I have only been mildly breezed away. I am just looking for recommendations that aren't unfolding over 10 books and will take me 2 years to complete.

 

[io_anonimus]

I am not sure that scripts are giving the same depth like books. They are written for a different purpose. I am thinking at them mostly being a short variant of the same book, a variant easier to be expressed in a visual form. Usually the narration at the third person is gone, as it is whatever philosophy is in that book. I have in mind now two examples of good books having a bad movie: Dune and Clan of the Cave bear.
For some books indeed doesn't count.

 

[iansales]

I agree on reading more books, the problem is I don't want to read crappy books and I am a slow reader. I did say I excluded ASOIAF didn't I? I know it's a good series and the TV show is good, it's one of the exceptions hence the exclusion.

Ah, sorry. There are plenty of good books. You can check out reviews to see which ones might appeal - there are plenty of sites online that review genre books. Many magazines feature reviews too. Then there are the various shortlists - they might give an indication of what's worth reading (but not the Hugo one, half the books they pick are rubbish).

 

[biodroid]

iansales - I can say one thing, I really enjoyed Dune the book and the movie versions. Those are the kinds of stories I would like to read, the one that have the plot twists you can't see coming. But more on the stand alone side of novels and not series. Not that I have anything against a series, I just don't bother to read the rest of the books after reading 1 or 2 in the series. What I mean to say is it would be nice to have that quality/calibre of the story unfolding over multiple books but actually unfolding in 1 or 2 books only. By the way how are the rest of the Dune books? Are they worth getting into, I header Kevin J Anderson kinda destroyed the series for fans?

 

[iansales]

AVOID ANYTHING WRITTEN BY KEVIN J ANDERSON.

Ahem. But seriously, the McDune books he wrote are appalling. DO NOT READ THEM. If you like space opera, then I can recommend Gary Gibson and Michael Cobley. They're trilogies but worth reading. Ken MacLeod writes excellent near-future thrillers. Iain M Banks' Culture novels are all standalone and pretty much a highwater mark for space opera. Check out SF Mistressworks for reviews of sf novels by women writers. Daughters of Prometheus is the same but for 21st century sf by women writers.

 

[biodroid]

Thx Ian - I am currently reading The Forge of God and it's quite a nice read. The build up is quite good and has some nice philosophical bits in it. Thx for the recommends though I will give those a look. I guess I am just bored with fantasy, haven't read much SF. How is Robin Hobbs books?

 

[iansales]

She writes fantasy, doesn't she? I tried one a couple of years ago and found it dull. But I'm not a big fan of fantasy.

 

[biodroid]

Ok, I think I will shift genre's and try a few SF books.

 

[iansales]

Have you tried Lauren Beukes? She's from your part of the world and she's very good.

 

[biodroid]

No, haven't heard of her. Going to google now...

 

[biodroid]

Eh, sounds wierd this Lauren Beukes stuff.

 

[iansales]

Zoo City is excellent. It won the Arthur C Clarke Award. Definitely worth reading.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Hi Bioroid,

I think we're in the process of comparing Oranges with Apples here.



But being a bit of an oldster, having read thousands of books of all genres and types, and watched thousands of films I'd state:

• The average book is better than the average film*
• The most brilliant book beats the most brilliant film hands down
• Generally a film adaption of a good book is bad. And a film adaption of a terrible book is generally better (or perhaps more, a relief). There are of course quite a few exceptions.

This is because, partly as I said above we are comparing two different art forms - so it is down to personal taste, but I find in general (I do like films as well, a brilliant film is brilliant in its own way):

Films are of course visual entertainment but if you are lucky (or unlucky if it's sh*te) enough dialogue to fill a thin novella. Generally they provide an instant hit but tend not to stick with me afterwards (I watched Percy Jackson and the Lightening thief last night - ok 'mental popcorn' for an hour or two, can't say it was terrible. But it will dissappear from my mind by tonight. [I can't help thinking though that if at least the girl - I mean, she was the daughter of the goddess of wisdom - had read up on their own mythologies then it would have saved them a whole lot of time and trouble...])

Books can last days/weeks and are demanding on your imagination. They are much bigger, in terms of what they can achieve and show, whether it's a character or a world and generally make me think hard about all sorts of things. Yes it's introspective, but its like a very intimate mind meld between you, the reader, and the author. Usually they inspire and help to unleash new creativity in me.

The thing that really got ball rolling for me was when I started to read everything, the classics, modern fiction, translations of Dante, Homer and other ancient works. Whatever - read everything! It really opens out the mind.


* Of course this is not the full set of all books and films by a long shot. If my reading was limited to Star trek novelisations and Star wars extended universe and my film experience was all the classics I may have a different view...

 

[Ian Whates]

Eh, sounds wierd this Lauren Beukes stuff.

Weird, original, intelligent and sassy; Lauren's great -- and I speak as someone who's published her (in short story form at least).

Re: Robin Hobb; she certainly has written SF in the past, under her real name of Megan Lindholm (the novel Alien Earth springs to mind)... She was also responsible for one of the best urban fantasy novels around (long before the term had anything to do with vampire detectives and werewolves) in Wizard of the Pigeons.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think it depends what you mean. Books are inherently harder work and take more time and effort to get through. That said, Harry Harrison and plenty of others often wrote fast-paced books with a lot of ideas in them. Someone will surely recommend Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (I personally think it's rubbish, but each to their own), and The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is good military SF with a brain. On a more pulpy level, Kim Newman and Dan Abnett have written some very fast-paced, action-centred novels which are perfectly good, Newman especially.

The trouble is that a two-minute montage in a film might be thirty pages long in a novel. As Broon says, they're very different things. Neuromancer by William Gibson, for instance, is about a heist. But the actual action is very brief, whereas the setting-up of the heist is really interesting. Actually, you could do worse than to read Gibson's Burning Chrome, a book of short stories with some great characters. I find Neuromancer a bit heavy, but its two sequels, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, are great.

For what it's worth I find the recent Batman films pretentious and overwrought. He dresses up as a little animal and fights crime. More explosions, less moping around please.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

She was also responsible for one of the best urban fantasy novels around (long before the term had anything to do with vampire detectives and werewolves) in Wizard of the Pigeons.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who knows that book and liked it.