Some guy wrote a really cool book called "Old Man's War".
That'd be kinda neat to see on a screen of some sort.

I've always thought that Gibson's Sprawl trilogy would be great if done right. I couldn't even begin to guess at a director for this sort of thing.

Chris Johnson:

Dude, I ask in the column not to suggest my own work, and what do you do in the very first comment? Jeez.

Seriously, people. It's not like AMC doesn't give me enough exposure. Focus on other writers in this comment thread. Thanks.

Pretty much any Scott Westerfeld series would be a goldmine for Hollywood, while providing some good storytelling and kickass visuals. Start with the Midnighters trilogy to prove his worth, then move up to the Pretties, Uglies, etc., which would be a little harder to film, given the physical alterations of the characters.

I don't know about good but I nominate Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" for the next Will Smith Memorial Day SF Action movie. (... to start production. Since movies take way longer than "until next Memorial Day" to make)

It's straight-forward enough to translate well. It's actiony enough to fill Will Smith's desires. It's SFly interesting enough to... be interesting... (huh? I know that I used to know English)

And hey, the movie execs will be happy to hear that the sequel books have already been written!

As a side note, many years ago, a friend of mine was reading slush piles at a movie studio, and he read a proposed script for Snow Crash. You'll note that it's not in production. Nor has it been since 1997 when the script got read... Oy. Anyway, I don't know how well Cyberpunk Parody works when the general audience isn't well versed in Cyberpunk Canon. I mean, I don't think most people would really get the amusement from the fact that everybody takes steroids that old Gibson/Sterling losers like myself did. I have absolutely no idea how that book is received by people who aren't pre-wired (har har) with genre tropes

This is a no brainer for me.

"Footfall," by Niven and Pournelle. I know that people think "Independence Day" was supposed to be Footfall-esque, but I've always thought that was wrong. I love that the aliens are developed characters with a culture of their own, rather than brain sucking blobs we never understand. And the technology now exists to bring the aliens to life in a realistic manner. It would be a great movie!

Children of Men was a bad book, but an excellent film.

I recently reread Larry Niven's Ringworld (after many years), and you could probably chop that down to 2 hours worth of exciting screen story time.

But my favourite choice for film adaptation would be AE van Vogt's Undercover Aliens (AKA The House That Stood Still). 1940s noir meets high-tech immortals. Would make a bloody excellent film.

Yes, I second Altered Carbon. An it has been optioned before by Joel Silver (producer on "The Matrix")

"Consider Phlebas" by Iain M. Banks would be a cool sweeping space adventure. They'd have to cut a ton out, but it still might work.

"Lucifer's Hammer" By Larry Niven would make a good end of the world movie. I like how it focuses on how the disaster affects different segments of the population.

"Freedom's Landing" by Anne McCaffrey would be awesome. Good characters (hot female lead) and great story. Knowing Hollywood though, they would compress all four books into one.

"Infected" By Scott Sigler would be the next best horror/ thriller/ sci-fi movie. Very bloody, but the story would pull audiences along. The sequel (Contagious) is even better.

There are so many more, but those are just the ones I'll mention today. I would love to see "Snow Crash" too. "Swords don't run out of bullets." classic.

I'm one of those who's been fruitlessly waiting on a Neuromancer movie, so that's my first suggestion.

Sterling's Islands on the Net has always been a favorite too. Not great "literature" precisely, but it could make for a fascinating flick in an age of economic troubles, globalism and terrorism. Fast paced action thriller with a female protagonist.

Robinson's Mars trilogy could make for great movies, in a kind of futuristic Merchant Ivory way. Grand epic with thoughtful discussions in parlors, except that the parlors are on Mars. A good filmmaker could make it more exciting than I'm describing it, I'm sure.

Lastly, Kress' Beggars series could make for some interesting "young adult" theater, with a cast of teen/twenty beautiful people. Cast it in kind of thriller vein, with the Sleepless against the world. Play up the "my parents just don't understand me" angle for the teen audience.

I'd like to see David Brin's Sundiver make it to the big screen. No clue who to have as director, but I think Hugh Laurie would be a perfect Jacob Demwa. Though given what happened with "The Postman" I'm not sure I want to have anything but my imagined vision of the Uplift universe.

Some others that I think could be done: Karl Schroeder's Sun of Suns, Jack Campbell's (John G. Hemry) Dauntless, though only if they don't mess up the space battles, Ben Bova's Moonrise, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Fifty Degrees Below.

Peter Watts' Blindsight could be a really good movie, if done right. It's one truly scary First Contact novel, with great atmospheric visual potential. It has vampires, which Hollywood always seems to love. Ending's kind of a downer, though.

I'd love to see Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan novels made into films. Lots of action, great characters, fun dialogue. Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) would be perfect for the role of Miles.

Lensman - I say this knowing J. Michael Straczynski is already attached to adapt it, but still: Can't wait for that trilogy.

Since he turned up on the blogosphere, I'm minded to suggest Fred Pohl's Gateway.

I wonder what the current status of Ender's Game is? HSX has it as "Concept" (and has had since 2002) which doesn't fill me with optimism. Come to think of it, I don't have much optimism they'd get it right if they made it.

I'd think the technology exists by now to make a decent fist of Anne McCaffrey's Pern stories. Especially the earlier ones before the storylines got thin. Let's face it, we all love a friendly dragon or fifty.

Ooooh, anything by Iain M. Banks, really, probably Use of Weapons, though its rather tricksy interlinked backstory might prove a challenge. Maybe Against A Dark Background. Either way, I'm sure it would be mind-bendingly expensive

I still think Dune could be done properly. But that's definitely a mini-series. They got the Lord of the Rings done didn't they? And that was live action! Yeah, it's not quite the same genre. But LOTR gives me great hope on a great Dune. But I'm not sure what director could do it. Peter Jackson perhaps, but that's probably not fair either.

There's stuff out there that is rumored, like Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood's End which I'm interested in. As far as authors go, Greg Bear, David Weber, Stephen Baxter and John Scalzi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H SM Stirling come to mind. And I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of earlier authors that I've read.

My mother was the consummate consumer of Sci-Fi. I wish I had her collection today, it took up four or six bookshelves (i.e., the entire shelving in the house) that ran the length the stair case to our house. All paperbacks, and quite a few Ace doubles.

I always thought Clarke's "Rendevous With Rama" was intriguing and grandiose in scope enough to warrant a movie... something IS out there?

I think I've heard that a script was being worked on for "Ender's Game"/"Ender's Shadow", which I would love to see, but I don't know if that project is still moving forward or not.

Alpinmack mentioned "Infected" by Scott Sigler. I've just started reading that one, but it seems to be a good one so far.

Not sure if it could really be considered science fiction (the science elements seemed contemporary to the time and outdated by today's standards), but Pat Frank's post-apocalyptic "Alas, Babylon" could make for a very interesting movie.

And I'd really love to see Alfred Bester's novels "The Demolished Man" and "The Stars My Destination", as well as some of his short stories like "Fondly Fahrenheit" could be fun in a short format.

There was a version filmed of "The Time Traveler's Wife" a couple of years ago, but judging by the fact that it hasn't hit theaters yet, I'm guessing it's a turd they're waiting to dump in a dead January weekend some year. I'd love to see a good version of it, preferably filmed by David Fincher.

James P. Hogan's "The Proteus Operation" would be a hell of a movie; it's got time travel and Nazis. Spielberg would be a natural for this one.

I've always thought Fredric Brown's "Come and Go Mad" could be expanded into a pretty disturbing movie. If M. Night Shyamalan could manage not to suck so much, it'd be a good one for him.

I'd love to see John Varley's Titan series made into an animated series of movies. Cirocco Jones is an awesome protagonist and you can't beat early Varley for weird.

Lord of Light is the one I would love to see done well, but have little hope for a proper treatment.Doorways in the Sand could survive a Hollywood treatment and would be a heck of a fun romp.

@Bryan Price: they did Dune as a miniseries on Sci-Fi a couple years ago, and it was ... well, compared to the '84 movie, differently bad. The SFX are not the problem anymore.

While I'd love to see Snow Crash, I have to disagree about the rest of Stephenson's oeuvre. I don't think any of his other books would really work on the big screen. Maybe Zodiac; certainly not Diamond Age. You might be able to distill the essence of Cryptonomicon into something movie-length, but you'd lose a lot in the translation. Maybe one of the rather less substantive books he wrote as Stephen Bury would work.

I've often wished they would do a good Dragonriders of Pern flick. Even just a Harper Hall adaptation aimed at younger viewers could potentially be great.

How about Cordelia's Honor? Epic space battles meet chick lit - something for everyone. The box office could be through the roof! ;)

I'd go with Guillermo Del Toro for Perdido Street Station, though.

Hey, why not Childhood's End? A lot better to my thinking than 2001.

Honestly, I'd love to see Dan Simmon's Hyperion. It would probably be difficult to translate on the screen, and that worries me. I could see certain plot elements twisted to be less confusing to casual SF fans and its overall complexity would be lost. For shame, as that was the one thing about the book I truly loved.

I know this is a bit juvenile, but Red Planet by Heinlein. I recently gave this book to my 12 year old son who gobbled it up.

When I saw your column headline, the first book that came to mind was "Snow Crash".

I've always wanted to see the first 5 Amber books in a movie or mini-series.

I'd like to see some of Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space novels, or even some of the short stories, on the big screen. Chasm City would translate especially well, IMHO.

Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt books walk that dark fantasy/sci-fi edge (Pitt doesn't believe in the supernatural angle--most of the vampires believe they're infected with a virus).

George Alec Effinger's books would be great, too.

And I second Lord of Light. One fo the best books I ever bought from Science Fiction Book Club. I think it was 5 books for a penny at the time.

Since someone's already mentioned Lord Of Light, I'm going to go for A Fire Upon The Deep. That has the potential to be so fantastic.....

Since Kate Baker mentioned mentioned Heinlein YA, I'd love to see Tunnel in the Sky as a movie. It'd be a pretty easy adaptation too.

I'd also love to see The Postman done right, but since Costner already got his poisonous claws into it, that's probably wishful thinking.

I'd love to see The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis hit the big screen. I thought there was talk of a film version years ago, but nothing seems to have come of it.

Grass is one of my favorite scifi books, too. It could make a great movie.

I would love to see pretty much ANY Heinlein novel adapted to the screen. Admittedly, some of them would be very difficult, but I can dream, can't I ?

David Brin's Uplift Series: Sundiver would make a good movie without cutting too much from the story. On a side note: Brin's The Postman could have been a great movie before Kevin Costner got his hand on it.

Charles Stross: Halting State. Near future setting and the popularity of games like Second Life and World of Warcraft make this story relevant.

Vernor Vinge: Rainbow's End. Another near future story that could be easily translated into a movie.

Peter F Hamilton: Mindstar Rising and it's sequels.

I have a lot move, but I'm not near my book shelf right now.

I would love to see McCaffrey's Pern series make it to the big screen! I love those books!

While it would probably be impossible, I would also like to see L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and the novels that follow made into movies (I think there was a made-for-TV movie a while back, but no big-screen movie yet).

I know Michael Crichton has gotten a lot of Hollywood love as far as movie adaptations are concerned, but I would love to see some of his other novels make it to the big screen. State of Fear, Prey, and Next would all make interesting (if controversial) movies.

Another One: Greg Bear's The Forge of God. This might be hard to translate to the big screen.

I second MikeT's suggestion of something from Westerfeld for the youth audience. Personally, I like the idea of Uglies.

Also from the young adult area, I wouldn't mind seeing Sabriel by Garth Nix on the screen. That's fantasy, of course, rather than sci-fi, but still SF.

I think you could do a great comedy movie or series about Laumer's Retief, too.

"Sun of Suns" by Karl Schroeder would have to be beautiful. Steampunk balloon world, artificial suns, Singularity, and a fast-paced plot. What's not to love? You'd need an action director with a keen visual sense, someone committed to world-building. Cuaron, Zak Snyder, Karyn Kusama (I was one of the four people who really liked Aeon Flux) all spring to mind, but I think I'd be most interested to see what Joss Whedon would do with it.

I second "Perdido Street Station." Heartily.

In the right hands, "The Stars My Destination" would break brains.

Peter Watts' Blindsight: True hard SF. A director like Ridley Scott could give this the pace and aesthetic darkness this novel requires.

What about Michael Flynn's Firestar, Rogue Star, and the rest? They'd be decent little movies with heart and brains.

I also like the idea of Snow Crash, and, while maybe not strictly SF, Tim Powers' The Stress of Her Regard would be lots and lots of fun. You can already see Johnny Depp as Shelley.

Someone up-thread stated they didn't think the Sci-Fi take on "Dune" was any better than Lynch's, and I have to disagree. I thought Sci-Fi's was excellent, and while Lynch's version is also fascinating -- from a cult fan perspective -- I thought the Sci-Fi version set a new bar for that series of books.

Given the success of the Lord of the Rings movies, I've often thought that the Thomas Covenant books were fodder for a good trio of films. Heck, both First and Second Chronicles would be amazing on the big screen, assuming they were done with similar sweep and flare, compared to LOTR.

In terms of gritty military SF, nobody ever much talks about the STEN books by the late Chris Bunch and his buddy Alan Cole. Those are some terrific books and while the science is not always hard, there is more than enough character and action to make a substantially fun and worthwhile hollywood blockbuster. Or three.

As for "Little Brother", am I the only one who is avoiding this one on purpose? Because of all the advanced hype and the subject matter? Geeky computer rebels fighting The Man. Wow, that's original. I think TRON already got there in 1982, and WARGAMES again in 1983. Maybe this is one of those themes that never gets mined out totally? Each new generation thinks it is the center of the geeky rebel universe I guess.

Gibson's Sprawl novels are already dated -- they're last century's future, and a lot of its Cyberspace is now hokey. They'd still could be fun, but after Matrix and Johnny Mnemonic (gotta pronounce that like they did on Third Rock from the Sun "muhnem-o-nick"), they're less likely.

Will McCarthy's Collapsium novels, or Bloom would be wonderful, as would Linda Nagata's cyber-bio futures. Put Aranofsky on either of those, they need the kind of strangeness of The Fountain's auteur.

Stross' Halting State could be a good movie, although its WoW-ness could get dated very fast if they don't make it in the next year or so (and then the production company would want to move it to L.A)

I'm a huge fan of Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, but I doubt they could be made into big screen movies without destroying them.

As for Dune, it's been done enough. I actually liked the SciFi Channel mini-series. It wasn't perfect, but it was masterpiece compared to the David Lynch's butchered movie version. Now, Children of Dune left a lot to be desired. If they were going to bring a Dune movie to the screen, I'd like to see the Butlerian Jihad prequels Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson wrote. For that matter Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns would be great mini-series if a network was willing to make a committment to them.

I'd like to see Bruce Sterling's Heavy Weather done. Think Twister meets Blade Runner, set in Tornado Alley. I'd pick Ridley Scott for this as well.

Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy - "Xenos" in particular. "Only in Death" would make an great gothic horror/war movie, but there's so much backstory it might be hard to adapt.

Clifford Simak - "Mastadonia". Time travel, aliens, and dinosaurs. How much more block-bustery can you get? Though I'd rather see "A Heritage of Stars".

I don't believe that nobody's mentioned Niven's "Ringworld" yet. Though his Gil Hamilton ARM stories would probably adapt well, too - especially "The Jigsaw Man".

Harry Harrison, "The Stainless Steel Rat". While you're at it, throw in some movies based on Walter Jon William's Drake Maijstral books. Actually, no, put those on the back burner - if you're going to make a SF movie about a thief, then I want Trent from Daniel Keys Moran's "The Long Run", pretty please (with left-handed sugar on top).

While it's not SF, I'd love to see Terry Pratchett's "Feet of Clay" done right. Make it the third in a trilogy of "Guards! Guards!" and "Men at Arms" FTW. Oh, and if I'm going to be completely offtopic anyways, can I beg for some some Glenn Cook "Black Company" adaptations to the big screen?

Maybe Tor needs to start a movie production company. That way maybe we could see Tobial Buckell's Crystal Rain on the big screen.
@ Kate Baker There is a Hyperion movie in the works according to Dan Simmons site - http://www.dansimmons.com/news/movies.htm

+3 on Halting State.

I love both Snow Crash and Perdido Street Station but I'm not sure I want to see either of them made into movies. It might be technically possible to turn Snow Crash into a good movie, but I'm pretty doubtful it could happen in the current Hollywood system. And Perdido is, IMO, unfilmable - I don't think you can do it without severely breaking it.

Please forgive the horrible grammar mistakes in the previous post. That's what I get (well, what I produce, and what *you* get, unfortunately) when I try to squeeze in a quick comment over lunch :-/

Someone upstream mentioned Bester's short fiction. For years I've been wanting to write an adaptation of 5,271,009, but I've never been able to figure out how to do it right.

I'd also love to see Varley's Golden Globe, and I second the nomination for Doorways in the Sand.

As much as I love Frank Herbert, Dune is done, it's time to move on.

Neal Asher's 'The Skinner' would make an interesting film. To paraphrase a friend of mine it has everything you could want, zombies, explody, weird tech, androids, pirates, romance, gore, etc etc etc.

I think "The Mote in God's Eye" would make a way better movie than "Footfall," which just plain didn't work for me.

I would be on board for all of Richard K Morgan's Kovacs books. I love Lord of Light but I just don't trust anyone to handle the flashbacks and body-switching that are necessary to the plot. And Bujold's Vorkosigan series would make a solid SF franchise. But don't take Peter Dinklage - I want him to play Tyrion in HBO's A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Neal Asher's Gridlinked would be great, so would Peter Hamilton's Fallen Dragon.

I've always wanted to see "Nightfall", the version by Asimov and Silverberg.

Also, John Varley's Red Thunder. Kids making a spaceship! How could that be bad?

Charles Stross - The Atrocity Archives - science/magic crossover is fun and funny. Justin Bartha might make a good Bob Howard. Ron Howard might make a good director.

John Varley - Red Thunder - especially now that the Space Shuttle is retiring and there's a big economic crisis so NASA probably won't get big $$ for a while - this could pump up a near-future SF box office - Tommy Lee Jones is probably too old to play Travis - maybe Will Smith could play the semi-middle aged alky ex-astronaut - might be a fun change of pace for him, (Bruce Willis as a second choice - lot less of a stretch for him) plus a set of hot youngsters - "We were first". Obviously a Disney film.

Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog - Victorian vs. 21st-century sensibilities fish-out-of-water humor, intermixed with time travel to Nazi air raids during WWII, plus boating/camping along the Thames with a dog - great visuals there. Roger Michell (Notting Hill) as director.

Matthew Stover - Heroes Die - another science/magic crossover - I'm pretty sure that Jason Statham IS Caine. So we get big scary machines, alienation, social stratification and faceless cyborg-cops in the Earth world, and magic and obsession and freedom fighters in the alternate world. Keira Knightly as Shanna/Pallas Rill, The Rock as Ma'elKoth, not sure who might play Berne. This could be huge - Cameron and/or Spielberg might pull it off. Rodriguez (maybe with Tarantino directing the fight scenes) as an alternate.

David Drake - the Lt. Leary series - With the Lightnings might be too slow to start with, but Lt. Leary Commanding could go pretty well, I think - space opera-y and fun - space battles, land battles, drinking and hot girls. Lucy Lawless as Woetjans, Lucy Liu (maybe) as Adele Mundy, Shia Laboeuf as Daniel Leary, and a grizzled Michael Douglas (a la King of California) as Hogg.

Timothy Zahn - Night Train to Rigel - along the line of Scalzi's The Android's Dream, but with fewer (read none) fart jokes. Science-fiction / mystery on an interstellar train.

Matt Ruff - Bad Monkeys - Dark humor mixed with Men-in-Black- and Wanted-levels secrecy and assassination. Strong female lead, too - maybe Natalie Portman as the lead or Elizabeth Banks.

They don't have to made in that order, because I would go see all of them repeatedly, but that's the order of how desperately I want to see them.

Happy to see a little RA Heinlein love in a few comments above, surprised that no one has yet mentioned "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." This is one of just a few of his novels that I think could make the jump to the screen without being too badly mangled.

Agree with the earlier posters who said that Niven's "Footfall" and "Ringworld" would make great movies, and would add "The Mote in God's Eye" to that recommendation.

I'd love to see Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - it's three part book layout is custom-made for screenplay adaptation, and the revolution/political maneuvering theme I think would have great resonance with today's audiences.

I agree with all the choices you've listed - Snowcrash in particular would be really great for the pizza delivery and katana scenes alone.

A mid-grade novel that would be great and have kid appeal is The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.

Elizabeth Moon's Trading in Danger series I think would adapt well, and features a female protagonist.

What about some raucous R-rated fun with Callahan's Crosstime Saloon?

I do think any books featuring aliens would be hard to adapt well, it's so easy to go cheesy with aliens. That's my only hesitation with The Forever War...but there's plenty more to the story, the aliens could remain largely off-stage.

Great post. Now you've got me wishing there were more, better sci-fi movies (instead of the souped-up horror that usually passes for sci-fi.)

I always thought Ben Bova's "Exiles" trilogy could be adapted well.

I've always thought that Gibson's Sprawl trilogy would be great if done right. I couldn't even begin to guess at a director for this sort of thing.

Did you guess Joseph Kahn, music video director? Cause that's who they lined up.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037220/

I for one am not pleased.

However, I will be extremely pleased if they make a movie of The Forever War, a fantastic book that I think can easily be adapted to the big screen.

What about Walter Jon Williams' Maijstral series?

Ten Points for Style: space opera, a different take on the action with a heist-like story, and very funny.

That would be a blockbuster in the right hands. I nominate Clooney as Maijstral.

Out of curiousity, why Snow Crash and not Nueromancer? Why do you think Snow Crash might be a better movie?

I would love love love to see Perdido Street Station done right as a movie. (kudos to theophlycat for suggesting GDT -- he'd be the perfect match.)

Altered Carbon would be very cool, but difficult with the whole sleeve technology. Although I think that could be one of it's strenghts as a theatrical thriller.

Consider Phlebas could also be very cool -- a very dark Star Wars.

Little Brother was great, but I'd love to see Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom more, I think. That could be very fun.

Finally, I'd love to see Matt Wallace's podiobook The Failed Cities Monologues make it to the screen one day.

I vote for a movie based on Dust by Charles R. Pellegrino. Great Sci-fi idea. Great drama. Great action. Plus, I think the world needs a enviro-Apocalyptic slippery slope movie to heighten paranoia in the tree hugging electorate.

I have a few suggestions.

I'd love to see Charles Stross's Saturn's Children adapted to the big screen, but have no idea who could play the lead. (I love the novel generally, love how the plot unfolds, but I'm not quite sure I trust Hollywood to capture that mix of sexiness and self-sufficiency that Stross manages so well in the main character.)

I'd also like to see Michael Chabon's novels make it to the screen. I guess only The Yiddish Policemen's Union counts as sci-fi (even the closest other contender, Gentlemen of the Road, is more fantasy than alternate-universe stuff), but I would love to see that one made. If this movie could get, say, Spielberg behind it....

"Lunar Descent" by Allen Steele reads like a screenplay to me. It has a fair amount of action - the US sends in the Marines to take back the Lunar base from the folks who would declare independence. It's a lot like "Clarke County, Space," but more visual. And hey, you get the Church of Elvis. What more do you need?

Eric Frank Russell: "Three To Conquer". I could see this being done as an indie film - yes, it's science fiction, but it's set in "modern day" with only a couple of SF elements. Thus, easy to shoot, almost no special effects required.

Premise: The lead is a telepath (the only one he knows of), who comes across a "Puppet Masters"-style alien invasion, and is more-or-less the only person who can stop it. Only problem I foresee is how to get some of the "feel" of the novel across, especially the telepathic abilities. But there's a couple of firefights, the dialog is crisp, there's the requisite chase/action scenes, and it's a really good story.

THE movie that I've always wanted to see made into a movie is The Mote in God's Eye. It has everything: adventure, interesting aliens, romance, tragedy...

Very good column, John.

I've seen Altered Carbon mentioned a few times and I agree that it's a tremendous book - - but the problem is giving billing to a major hollywood actor while moving Takeshi Kovacs from sleeve to sleeve - - he's enhanced sometimes, asian sometimes, a woman sometimes. How do you cast that one?

My two top choices of sci-fi books to be made into movies weren't originally sold in the genre.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy tops the list. Spooky, dark, post-apocalyptic. It's the perfect character drama.

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk. Another time travel story, but this one challenges the paradoxes.

I do second (or third as the case may be) the call for Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. That one could be monumental if done right.

And, in direct violation of the rules, your own Old Man's War is written in such clear scenes that the screenplay ought to be a snap.

@ CV Rick

You know The Road has been made with Viggo Mortensen as the father? It was supposed to come out over the holidays but has been delayed even though production is supposedly finished. (I'm hoping the reality of this is not as bad as it sounds.)

I'll second Mike's suggestion of Gateway. I suspect The Merchants of Venus might make a better translation to film, due to its shorter structure and more apparent (effective?) satire on capitalism.

A book (or rather, books) I have daydreamed about making the leap to the big screen is Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. I never expect that to happen, though, as it would require a Lord of the Rings sort of treatment over several films, while lacking the sort of following LOTR has enjoyed.

I didn't know that, DKT. Thanks.

Viggo would be a good, grizzled, harsh father-figure in that movie.

I second the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. The first two with Cordelia would be fairly easy, though getting an actor who looks like Miles will be a challenge.

I'd also be interested in seeing a version of War of the Worlds that portrays the time period when H.G. Wells wrote the book, rather than yet another updated version. It seems so obvious that an alien invasion would be more threatening for people who don't have tanks, aircraft, or automatic weapons. I wonder why no one's done that yet.

I don't believe anyone has brought-up Greg Bear. I think his Darwin's Radio might transfer to the big screen as a good story. Actually there are several of his novels that would make good films with the right director/screen writer/etc.

Most of the ones that leap to mind would be better suited as TV miniseries or the basis of a TV series (and tend more toward the fantasy than the SF):

--Swan Song by Robert McCammon--a big apocalyptic, nuclear end-of-the-world novel that reminds me a lot of Stephen King's The Stand, and would be an awesome miniseries.

--Please someone dig into all these cool urban fantasy novels! Either of Laurell K. Hamilton's two series or Kim Harrison's series would make great TV series fodder. But with all the sex, the Hamilton books would have to be on HBO or Showtime.

--I've been long eagerly awaiting/fearing the messing up of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.

Gerrold's Chtorr.
Then maybe he'd finish the darn series.

I'm interested to see what they do with Foundation, although I'm not so sure it will translate well to the silver screen. It looks more and more like Ender's Game is never going to be made, which is a shame. Meanwhile, it looks more and more like Spin will get made, and become the next Dune.

I agree with those that are saying Dune has been done, but I would love to see what someone like Darren Aronofsky could do with Destination Void.

Just about any of John Dalmas' books would serve as a pretty awesome summer/blockbuster action movie, as long as it could avoid the Bruckheimers and Bays of Hollywood(which is also true of someone who shall remain nameless). And, unfortunately, these are the kinds of movies that are far more likely to be made than the more philosophy oriented ones that most people are suggesting.( at least without massive changes that would end up pissing everyone off)

On somewhat of a tangent, I do wish there were more "good" SiFi movies that aren't direct or nearly direct lifts from another medium. Alien is one of the few that comes to mind. Most of the rest fall somewhere between bad and entertaining

I know that it would probably not really work, but I still have a desire to see Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix as a film, or better still an HBO mini-series.

Unlike others, I don't think that Dune is finished, and would like to see mini-series of God Emperor…, Heretics…, and Chapterhouse…, but fear that would mean that they'd have to make Hunters… and Sandworms…, though maybe those could work. Speaking of Dune, my opinion of Lynch's film vs. the mini-series is that the former is a better movie, but the latter is a better adaptation of the story. I still wish we could have seen Jodorowski's version.

Louis L'Amour's Haunted Mesa could be really good, and might make for a fine crossover-audience adventure film.

I'm still waiting, eagerly, for a film of Starship Troopers, which would make a nice companion for a The Forever War film.

I think that Kathryn Bigelow could pull off a really good version of Neuromancer. Despite the fact that it is, as someone said, "last century's future", it is still full of great visual concepts that would translate very well to screen.

How about John Steakley's Armor? Not sure who would direct or play the lead but what a great book.

I like Drake's Belisarius series and could easily see them as an update on the Terminator theme. As for Belisarius himself, I could see George Clooney in the role.
Since I'm on the subject of Drake, the Hammer's Slammer's series would also make good film IMHO.

Ian Douglas's Semper Mars, Luna Marines and Europa Strike have a great background, interesting visual potential and the USMC in space. How cool is that? There are plenty of books for sequels and lots of room to develop this one.

On a non-combat vein, how about Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land? Time Enough for Love as an HBO mini-series? Or I will Fear No Evil for cable as well.

How about John Steakley's Armor? Not sure who would direct or play the lead but what a great book.

I like Drake's Belisarius series and could easily see them as an update on the Terminator theme. As for Belisarius himself, I could see George Clooney in the role.
Since I'm on the subject of Drake, the Hammer's Slammer's series would also make good film IMHO.

Ian Douglas's Semper Mars, Luna Marines and Europa Strike have a great background, interesting visual potential and the USMC in space. How cool is that? There are plenty of books for sequels and lots of room to develop this one.

On a non-combat vein, how about Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land? Time Enough for Love as an HBO mini-series? Or I will Fear No Evil for cable as well.

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester): Big weird (good weird) baroque space opera with a tortured anti-hero, sex, violence, vast conspiracies involving shadowy government agencies and evil corporations, a beautiful twisted femme fatale, more freaky environments waiting to be art-directed into oblivion, and the mother of all MacGuffins. What's not to love?

Could it happen? Well, Alex Proyas keeps talking about it -- and while you may think I, Robot was an abomination, it proved he could make a commercial SF/action flick, and Dark City remains to remind us that he can do disturbingly grotesque as well.

I too would like to see films of Miles Vorkosigan, but am not sure Peter Dinklage would be quite right for a live-action version; he's a little old for the young Miles (he turns 40 this year) and actually a little short (4'5" where Miles is a little over 5 feet). Now if somebody cast Dinklage as Miles in a motion-capture animated film of, say, The Warrior's Apprentice, that might be pretty cool.

Two other Connie Willis novels have been mentioned so far, but the one I'd most like to see on film would be Passage. At the moment my dream cast would include Samantha Morton as Joanna Lander, Hugh Jackman as Dr. Wright, Queen Latifah as Nurse Vielle Howard, Ian McKellen as Maurice Mandrake, maybe Kirk Douglas as Ed Wojakowski if he's not too old, maybe Abigail Breslin as Maisie if she's not too old, Peter O'Toole as Mr. Briarley (the English teacher) and Amy Adams as Kit (the English teacher's niece). I don't have a specific director in mind, but it should be someone with a feel for the fantastic who knows how to effectively utilize literary sources. Only two names comes to mind, but surely neither Peter Jackson nor Christopher Nolan would be available for a project like this...would they?

Oh, and if Little Brother gets filmed, I'd love to see it done with a low-budget vérité semi-documentary look along the lines of Half Nelson, Once, Rachel Getting Married or 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Ideally it'd be produced by Paul Greengrass (best known for directing the last two Jason Bourne movies, but who also wrote and directed Bloody Sunday and United 93, producing the latter as well) and written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (the team behind Half Nelson).

I agree with the Altered Carbon recommendations. I don't think a good director would have a problem with the different sleeve issue. There is only four in that book, and one covers bout 80% of the action. What I fear is they will try to make Kovacs into a nicer, gentler hero.

I think CJ Cherryh's Cyteen or Downbelow Station would make excellent miniseries. I fear they would require more time than a movie could do justice to.

On Old Man's War, I think the special effects in Benjamin Button prove that it could be filmed well on the age thing.

I believe a new movie of Dune has been greenlighted. Peter Berg is to direct. I also agree with C's comments on the previous versions - Lynch's was a better film, the miniseries was more faithful to the book. And Jodorowsky's version would have been something to see...

It seems a few people here haven't quite grasped the concept of film adaptation. Look what happened to Dune, to I, Robot, to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?... It's irrelevant whether they made good films - they bear little resemblance to the source text. The ones that are going to transfer well are the ones where an exciting two-hour story in three acts can be distilled from 400+ pages of prose. So all those great visuals in Banks' Consider Phlebas... they'd be ditched from the story and any movie would likely turn out like a space opera version of Descent...

Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth novels, particularly some of the Pip and Flinx stories, would be good. Or maybe the Icerigger trilogy. Perhaps the Taken trilogy.

Let me add my voice to Tunnel In The Sky as well.

It's fantasy rather than science-fiction - but what about Katherine Kurtz' Deryni Rising? The special effects are nearly trivial at this point, it's a simple story, so I'd expect it to adapt well. And if it did well, there's a lot more where it came from!

Oh, this could be fun: Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers.
-- hey, I think I'll reread that now.

@dionysus1999
I second John Varley's Titan. And would love to see it followed by Wizard and Demon. That'd be some crazy sh--. I could see Titan being live action, but especially Demon would probably have to be animated, yeah. In a live action flick, there'd be no suspension of disbelief with that King Kong sized Marily Monroe stomping around. :-)

Strange that no one has selected any Heinlein. Though given the past track record...

Still, I'd like to see The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress as a film. Although the original work was done from a libertarian point of view, the themes of overpopulation/starvation on earth and artificial intelligence could be enhanced in a film version to make the story a lot more morally ambiguous. Plus I'd like to see if the filmmakers dare to put the various permutations of marriage into the film version. There's enough raw action in the film to attract Hollywood's attention, but I suspect the themes are a little hot for them to touch.

For a successor to "Amadeus" and "Chronicles of Narnia" all rolled into one, I pick Greg Bear's "Infinity Concerto". Even if they strip out half of the material, there's still a lot to work with here. Best chance of getting it made is probably to sell it as an LA movie where weird stuff starts happening to the hero, rather than a fantasy with bird people.

How about LeGuin's The Left Hand Of Darkness? This could be an interesting film if done right.

Ken Grimwald's Replay would also be an interesting choice to be made into a movie. It would probably look like a cross between Gattica and any time travel movie you'd care to name.

Hammer's Slammers. I could see Bruce Willis as Alois Hammer.

Olton's Abandon In Place. _I_ have imagined making this into a movie. After Jumper, I'm not sure I'd trust Hollywood to do this right.

If we're including fantasy, I'd like to see Charles Stross's "The Merchant Princes" books make it to the big screen.

A fun movie i think "Wolf and Iron" - Gordon R. Dickson, with Clive Owen as Jeebee

I've had a few ideas:

The Barrayar Novels by Lois McMaster Bujold: They've got a lot going for them in the summer blockbuster category really. The Vorkosigan series has always succeeded best in my opinion because its dialogue is good. Half of any good action movie is the witty banter, and the unique nature of the main character's illness would make casting a young adult as the main character and having him "grow into" the later roles, figuratively and literally, less painful than say Harry Potter. It's also a lot more approachable to a young audience than Weber I think, which would be my second choice for mining for the next blockbuster science fiction series.

John Ringo Books I really detest John Ringo myself, but most of his stuff would likely be made into great movies and might even come out in the end without me feeling like wanting to shower after the inevitable whitewashing of the source material took place to turn them into easy digestible two hour shoot-em ups.

The Man in the High Castle by Dick. I have less confidence in this actually being done properly by Hollywood than I'd like, but if done right I think this is one of those things that could earn prestige points for the director because the source material screams Oscar.

The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans. If Eragon could get funding, this one should be a no-brainer, especially if they jazzed up the ending for more of a climax. With a Single Spell would work for the same essential reason, Watt-Evans' books are often wonderfully simple. I think simple usually works really well in Hollywood, even if it doesn't always mean great movies. That doesn't mean I don't think either of them wouldn't be better than Eragon.

Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross.Structurally I think this is the only Stross book that I can see making sense as a movie, though I think some major restructuring would have to be done with some of the characters to bring them more in line with the simplifying that Hollywood requires to fit things into their time format. The plucky young girl-spy pitted against interstellar genetic Nazis who blow up stars though? There's a line of young actresses waiting to fill the role, courtesy of things like High School Musical and Disney. I think this would probably come off a bit cheesy in execution, but Hollywood's never stressed over cheesy when there's a dollar to be made.

Hyperion & Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I think this would work well as a miniseries deeply entrenched in horror actually. I think Hollywood could grasp the concept of the movie no matter how strange they found the other concepts, when it was explained as "a bunch of people go to a planet and tell horror stories to each other, before facing off against a monster." Unfortunately I don't see how you'd do it outside of a miniseries, and miniseries often get lazy budgets that don't allow great acting and special effects. If Dean Cain were in this I think I would weep.

Flandry by Poul Anderson. I think for this to work it would take a lot of reworking and picking and choosing to distill the essence of the character, but as he's essentially a sort of doomed James Bond fighting for a civilization not worth saving I can't see why it wouldn't work with the right treatment. As social commentary I think they all still work.

I agree with the comment posted way up above that Mote in God's Eye would make a great movie adaptation. But only on the condition that George Lucas be prohibited from ANY involvement at ANY level. We don't need the Moties cuddlefied by his merchandising industrial complex. Also, this deserves a live-action treatment, no cartoon crap.

Another good one would be Frederik Pohl's World at the End of Time. It's out-of-print and Pohl would likely license it for a song-and-a-dance, but the problem is that there were no sequels, either. Hollywood seems to only get excited about SF series so they can create a 'franchise'. So, perhaps Gateway would be more likely. I just love Pohl's increasing depressive slow-down in World at the End of Time. The Gateway series would work best to make the first movie based on Beyond the Blue Event Horizon to get people all excited with the Old Ones, etc. Then go back and release the first book, Gateway, and follow up with the third (if profits warrant that).

I am very happy to learn that Forever War has been optioned by Ridley Scott. Haldeman deserves all the credit and success that Hollywood can heap on him.

I have a few suggestions.

Books:

Code of the Lifemaker
Voyage from Yesteryear - James P. Hogan

Friday
Job: A Comedy of Justice - Robert A. Heinlein

In Conquest Born
This Alien Shore - C. S. Friedman

Little Fuzzy
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen - H. Beam Piper

The World Inside
Lord Valentine's Castle - Robert Silverberg

Emergence - David R. Palmer

Anglemass - Timothy Zahn

Homeward Bound
Noninterference - Harry Turtledove

Freedoms Landing
Nimisha's Ship
Crystal Singer - Anne McCaffery

American Gods - Niel Gaiman

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett

Towing Jehovah
Only Begotten Daughter - James Morrow

Starship: Mutiny - Mike Resnick

Waiting for the Galactic Bus
The Snake Oil Wars - Parke Godwin

The Big Time - Fritz Lieber

To Your Scattered Bodies Go
The Lovers - Philip Jose Farmer

Directors:

Robert Rodriguez,
Peter Jackson
Paul WS Anderson
Ridley Scott

I've always dreamed of The Book of the New Sun being made into a movie, and while Peter Jackson might be able to do it, I can't see it happening in real life.

On the other hand, Wolfe's latest book, An Evil Guest would make a fantastic sci-fi/horror film.