Darkover series?

[AnnieUK]

Used to love these around the time I discovered KK's books. Wonder if this will affect the Deryni movie, as they had a similar tone IIRC.

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/02/14/marion-zimmer-bradley%E2%80%99s-darkover-series-being-developed-for-tv/

[Elkhound]

Earthsea.

[Evie]

Is it just me, or am I the only Deryni fan who has never read Darkover and, quite honestly, is a bit reluctant to try that series despite having heard all sorts of good things about it from other KK fans and knowing that KK is a regular GoH at DarkoverCon?  I've never quite been able to bring myself to try any of the Darkover stories, despite having heard good things about them and being curious to see how they compare to the Deryni books, because I had such a violently allergic reaction to Marion Zimmer Bradley's book The Mists of Avalon that every time I even consider trying another of her stories, my flesh crawls and I have to fight the urge to run screaming from the room.  Almost literally.  As in, TMOA is one of the extremely few books I have ever literally flung across a room and into a wall.  The only other book I can think of at the moment that got such a violently negative reaction from me was Vonda McIntyre's attempt at a Star Wars novel, The Crystal Star, but at least I'd read a few other McIntyre stories before that and liked those, so that unfortunate experience didn't bias me against McIntyre's work overall.  I just prefer to pretend she never wrote that...travesty.    

(And come to think of it, I disliked both books for quite similar reasons.  If you're going to write strong female characters, fine, I'm all in support.  But don't make them come off as "stronger" by making every male in the story a weakling, or an idiot, or a misogynist, or hateful or ludicrous in some other way.  Because that's just as insulting as some macho male writer making every female character some bubble-brained screaming bimbo in need of rescue.  And while I'm thick-skinned enough to handle the "Christians are eeeeeevil" trope in small doses, if a story is otherwise good, finding myself bombarded with that message seemingly on every other page is unlikely to make me a huge fan....*coughTheMistsOfAvaloncough*  Just sayin'.   Just like I can be  on friendly terms with someone who doesn't particularly care for my husband but is otherwise a nice person and fun to be around, but if someone is trashing him regularly in my hearing and constantly telling me all the reasons why she thinks he's an idiot and I should leave him, then don't look for me to invite her to all of my dinner parties and become her BFF!  )

But in the interests of fairness to MZB, I have downloaded a couple of her Darkover stories for Kindle, since I am curious about how they compare to the Deryni books, and because they were free, and because even if I end up disliking them, my smartphone is too expensive for me to fling across the room.  And if I like her Darkover stories (assuming I can get past my aversion to TMOA long enough to read one), I might consider buying more. I've heard enough about the "humans with psi powers" part of the fantasy world to want to like them, after all, and if it turns out that she's able to write stories without constantly slamming me upside the head with some underlying agenda, I probably would like them.  If.

I haven't read Earthsea either, but Ursula LeGuin wrote one of my favorite short stories, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (which I loved despite not being much of a fan of dystopian fiction in general), and I think I've read one or two other short stories set in her Earthsea universe that I liked, or at least that I don't recall disliking, so I'm at least predisposed to try other stories she's written.

[Elkhound]

I wasn't so much referring to her "Wizard of Earthsea" trilogy as books, but to the horrible TV adaptation of it (which she herself renounced, I believe) as an example of what can go wrong when a good fantasy book series gets left to the tender mercies of film/television.

(I have my issues with LeGuin, although I acknowledge that she is a fine writer.  I think that in her later works she has become too much of an Author and not enough of a Storyteller.  And also some of her later works have similar problems to what you had [and me, for that matter] with Bradley.

I have never read or seen it, but I am told that someone wrote a very funny play called "The Free Amazons of Gor", about an attempted collaboration between John Norman and Marion Zimmer Bradley; I should think that it would end with one of them attempting to murder the other.)

[Evie]

I wasn't so much referring to her "Wizard of Earthsea" trilogy as books, but to the horrible TV adaptation of it (which she herself renounced, I believe) as an example of what can go wrong when a good fantasy book series gets left to the tender mercies of film/television.

(I have my issues with LeGuin, although I acknowledge that she is a fine writer.  I think that in her later works she has become too much of an Author and not enough of a Storyteller.  And also some of her later works have similar problems to what you had [and me, for that matter] with Bradley.

I have never read or seen it, but I am told that someone wrote a very funny play called "The Free Amazons of Gor", about an attempted collaboration between John Norman and Marion Zimmer Bradley; I should think that it would end with one of them attempting to murder the other.)

ROFL at the thought of an attempted collaboration between those two, from what I know about the Gor books and my brief taste of MZB.  Yeah, that sounds like it would have the potential to become quite...apocalyptic?  The fantasy equivalent of World War Three? 

And I can relate to the "bad TV/movie adaptations" fear.  Like Madeline L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light somehow morphing from a story of a teenaged girl learning to come to terms with her grandfather's mortality and death in general, in which dolphins were only peripherally involved, to something more of a "save the dolphins" movie in which the book's main themes were either non-existent or severely downplayed.

[Elkhound]

ROFL at the thought of an attempted collaboration between those two, from what I know about the Gor books and my brief taste of MZB.  Yeah, that sounds like it would have the potential to become quite...apocalyptic?  The fantasy equivalent of World War Three? 

Yes, it would.  I would like to read the play, if only out of morbid curiosity.  Agatha Christie said that fans were always writing to her suggesting that she write a novel in which Miss Marple & Hercule Poirot worked a case together, but she said that if she ever tried, one would end up murdering the other.

And I can relate to the "bad TV/movie adaptations" fear.  Like Madeline L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light somehow morphing from a story of a teenaged girl learning to come to terms with her grandfather's mortality and death in general, in which dolphins were only peripherally involved, to something more of a "save the dolphins" movie in which the book's main themes were either non-existent or severely downplayed.

Hadn't heard about that one; I'm glad.  I can't imagine what they'd do with "A Wrinkle in Time".

[Alkari]

My concern about a TV adaptation of the Darkover novels would be that TV producers are all too often people who are risk-averse, with a herd instinct and a reluctance to deviate from the norm and try something new.

Of course, adventures in the settlement of a new planet / world are not 'new' - we've been getting those since the original Star Trek and before that - but these days TV producers like a nice simple follow-the lead-sheep system.  So I would be frightened that we would get something that is a weird and hopeless cross between shows such as various Star Trek episodes, Stargate, Lost, and Terra Nova, just to name a few off the top of my head.  We'd get a "Oh yes - that part's a bit like what they did in XYZ series, so let's just follow that, because it rated well",  and not something that is a genuine adaptation of the Darkover novels.

But I still retain some vague shreds of optimism .... 

 

[AnnieUK]

Earthsea.

Game of Thrones.

[Elkhound]

Do you know why television is called a 'medium'?  Because it is neither rare nor well done!

[Alkari]

ROFL ELkhound.  Does that go for psychic 'mediums' too?!