"Lord of Light" - Roger Zelazny. Sweeping epic, hi-tech Hindu gods/goddesses, massive battles mixed with philosophy and soap opera... kind of like "Dune" but somewhat less involved.

Permutation City by Greg Egan. I really don't see how to convey the "dust" theory on-screen.

Well, John, I was reading your debut novel again this week and it occurred to me that, as much as I really want to see green soldiers on the big screen, Old Man's War would need to be substantially condensed or split in two if it was to have any hope of being under 3 hours.

RJ:
I've always envisioned starting from the Godzilla scene and working in both directions...

As for unfilmable:
Diamond Age by Stephenson for much the same reason as SIASL... chapter-long speeches on the nature of morality.

Sadly, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As evidence, I submit the film of the same name.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the radio series and TV series? yes, obviously completely unfilmable.

Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" has somewhat recently been given the green light. It's going to cover both books (Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion)... even the first book alone would have been hard enough to cram into 2-2.5 hours, so I'm not expecting the final product to resemble the original story much aside from sharing a few names and characters a la "Starship Troopers". As a miniseries it could work pretty well, but I don't know who'd finance it. I'll certainly not begrudge Simmons his paycheck, but I can't imagine it turning out to be a great movie.

I'm not a diehard fan of "The Watchmen" or even the graphic novel medium in general, but it doesn't seem like it'd be as difficult as some of the other books mentioned.

"Robert Heinlein's 1961 satire of religion [Stranger in a Strange Land] is arguably the most influential science fiction novel of all time,"

Actually, I would think that would be Orwell's 1984.

As far as "unfilmable", most novels are, at least in the sense that they are too long for an average length movie. Novellas seem to be a better fit, but they don't have the name value on a marquee.

I'd have to agree that most novels are "unfilmable" in some sense. Some are more so than others, of course (Naked Lunch, for instance, ended up being the film of the writing of the novel, as the novel itself was pretty much unapproachable on its own in cinematic terms). One of the novels that I most desire to see filmed is largely unfilmable: Schismatrix. It would be interesting to see someone try to film Storm Constantine's "Wraeththu" books, but I'm not sure that it could be done at this time.

I think "A Canticle for Liebowitz" by Walter Miller is essentially unfilmable, with its centuries-long span and its meditations on religion, destiny and the such. Though perhaps as a mini-series, if someone had deep pockets and a vision of how to make it work...

Classic problem: A shooting script for a 2-hour movie is 120 pages. Yup, a page a minute. That doesn't necessarily mean a 120-page novel becomes a 120-page shooting script -- all the "set direction" etc. gets stripped out, but it's not a bad yardstick. Short novels are easier to adapt than long ones, novellas even easier (see Different Seasons by King -- three of four are movies, two of them excellent). Many PK Dick-based movies come from short stories.

So... Wheel of Time? Forget it. GRRM's multi-tome fanatasy? Destined for HBO series, thankfully. Snow Crash? Can't be done (an animated miniseries would be do-able, though). Cyteen? Who boy... that'd be cool, but only a few dozen thousand might care to go watch it. Nope, too long, couldn't get a 2-hour narrative out of it.

Whenever I read Delany's Babel-17 I spend the first half of the book wondering 'why have they never made a film of this'. And then I read the second half and remember why.

It's not necessarily science fiction, but House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski has always struck me as unfilmable.

The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton & Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison.

I think the "Foundation" trilogy is filmable only under the right circumstances.

The thing is, "Foundation" does something that novels do really well: it has lots of people talking and attempting to solve problems using their, y'know, whaddayacallit, "brain."

What it doesn't have is lots of what Hollywood-style sci-fi does well: laser guns, explosions, action, that sort of thing.

A couple books I think are unfilmable:

Lady of Mazes: Karl Schroeder - The concept of consensual realities would be difficult to represent properly

The Uplift Series: David Brin - "Sundiver" (book 1) could be possible, but "Brightness Reef" and "The Uplift War" would be un-workable.

The Golden Age: John C Wright - Too much hard SF material, also the story takes place across three really long books.

Just due to the length of the book, versus what could be projected on the screen (and the multiple plotlines), I think Robert Jordan's, "The Wheel of Time" series is unfilmable.

From TaleSwapper.net:

Movie Update - February 25, 2009

I have finished the latest (and best) revision of my Ender's Game screenplay, which I have turned in to Odd Lot Entertainment as the first step in their option of the film. We have assembled a team of producers who understand the story and I believe we have our best chance yet of getting a good movie made. — Orson Scott Card

More OSC, from last November: "I am so optimistic that I believe the actor who will play Ender has not only been born - he's already in school."

The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester. This novel won the first Hugo award but would be pretty difficult to film without substantial reinterpretation.

It's a bit like Minority Report, with a cadre of telepaths who monitor the population's thoughts for criminal impulses. In the book Bester experimented with a grid-like typographical layout to show how telepathic conversations might work. He was aiming for a distinctly different conversational style than vocalized chatting.

I'd actually prefer to see his other big book, The Stars My Destination, appear in film. It has telepathy, too (telepathy and teleportation are fixations of Bester's), and its own typographic experiments to try and convey the effects of synesthesia, but I think they could be more easily approximated in film.

I'd choose Dhalgren.

(BTW, contra that other columnist, Moore is neither a recluse nor particularly cranky except on the subject of films of his work).

As a refutation to 'Starship Troopers' (both the book and the very loose cinematic adaptation) I'd love to see John Steakley's Armor filmed.

It's very anti-war, though, which might influence its filmability.

I'd also like to see a serious adaptation of Starship Troopers: it's not a "basic training, then the trenches" movie; it's a "special forces training, then covert ops" movie.

gaijin:

With all due respect to OSC, he's been this optimistic before.

Dhalgren. Definitely Dhalgren.

Shouldn't that be the Arnel Pineda Synd--oh, sorry, wrong comment thread.

'Unfilmable' is pretty relative... I mean, you can make a total hash out of the book and still have a decent movie (Blade Runner), and there are plenty of overly-literal adaptations that are true to the book but make lousy movies. It depends a lot on how invested you are in the text.

I'd cast my 'unfilmable' vote for any of China Mieville's Bas-Lag books - I don't think there's any way you could make a decent movie out of those without losing too much of the stuff that makes the books so cool - it would just end up being the cantina scene in Star Wars: check out all the crazy critters!

The issue w/ Ender's Game to me seems more one of marketing - how do you market a story about a bunch of 5-year-olds to adults? I can see the studios wanting to make it a kids movie... [shudder]

I agree that the hyperion series is pretty much unfilmable, but mostly because it gets to be so "out there" that it would be difficult to approach for a director if they wanted to do a faithful movie, and then it would make no money because the audience would never get it, or accept some of its tenants. I mean, really, the shrike? I loved the books, but most wouldn't

What would be very difficult to do, I think, would be The Forever War, which is consider one of the most important scifi books ever (yes, I haven't read Stranger in a Strange Land). Capturing the emotion of the books would be hard, but if someone could do it, I would pay alot of money to see it.

I don't think foundation is undoable, its actually a pretty simple series of books, because most of the tenants of the series are pretty easily explained through dialogue, and with the exception of the mule, the story flows very easily from the dialogue.

Lastly, the most unfilmable series ever would have to be the Commonwealth Saga (Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained) by Peter F. Hamilton. Very satisfying series, but so incredibly dense and with so many characters it could never be turned into something other than a 10 hour miniseries.

On a happier note, Old Man's War would be awesome as a movie, but challenging because Perry would be in EVERY seen and risks getting old to the audience, who can't watch the movie in increments as easily as reading the book. Now Ghost Brigades (I am a heretic hear, but i liked Ghost Brigades more than OMW) would be an awesome movie...

John,
I was originally correcting the "doesn't appear to be under option" bit, but yeah, I let the optimism pull me along with it. Don't make me abandon it again so soon. I can't! I won't!

Much as I hate to conclude this, I think The Stars My Destination is unfilmable. Just how do you get Gully's face tattoo so that, for the first part of the story, his true face is unidentifiable to Dagenham with all his resources? And Gully's synesthesia is impossible to put across in film, I think; better left to the reader's imagination acting on Bester's and Jack Gaughan's special typography. Also, the entire Gouffre Martel sequence (months are spent there) requires total darkness, with a few exceptions such as the occupational therapy tank in Gully's cell. The dialogue in the novel is great ("Always a lovely day somewhere, sir."), and there's a lot of it, but inherent non-dialogue problems such as these are pretty difficult.

A Canticle for Liebowitz was my first thought, but the Red/Green/Blue Mars series wins out for sheer bigness -- number of characters, length of time, number of locations. I'd love to see the space elevator fall on the big screen, though.

Of course, starting with novels, especially modern ones, is usually doomed because they are so long. Instead, we should be asking which SF novellas should be made into movies. Or older novels, which were much shorter. Most the Heinlein juveniles would work fine. A Tunnel in the Sky would be easy to adapt for the screen. For novellas, scan the The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two and start imagining.

I'd like to see someone try Ubik.

There is in fact an Ubik screenplay, by PKD. In fact, I have it in my hand right now! (not the hand I'm typing with, clearly). It's available via Subterranean Press.

Vernor Vinge's, "A Fire Upon The Deep" and its sequel, "A Deepness in the Sky" are two excellent books that I believe are pretty much un-filmable. Mostly because they involve so many non-anthro aliens and a great deal of the plot movement involves alien-to-alien interaction.
Does anyone know if either of these books was ever optioned even once?

David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series comes to mind.

and ditto on the Red/Blue/Green series. 2nd only to space elevator fall, the underground aquifer bursting to the surface would be full of awesome!

Personally, I'd love to see Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's been a long time since I read it, but it surely impressed me. Perhaps it is time to try it again. Wonder what Ridley Scott would do with it?

And He Built a Crooked House by Robert A. Heinlein. Just a short story, but. Hard enough to describe a 4d tesseract in 3d space, harder to film it.

I also would suggest that Stranger in a Strange Land might be hard to get financed.

@chevybythesea: ditto on Jordan. A perfect example of a great, cinematic (storytelling wise) epic fantasy series that would have to be pulped and gutted to fit anywhere near the time/space requirements of a hollywood movie. one book alone is like 800 pages...not to mention 11/12.

sadly i think this goes for GRRM as well. there's some pretty exciting rumors about an HBO miniseries but he had to cut half his characters out just to fit in 700 pages in the last book...even 10 hours of HBO time might not get through book one

I actually think "...And He Built a Crooked House" would work fine as a movie (except for being too short and maybe too talk-y). Heinlein is pretty scrupulous about not actually making his protagonists see anything that can't be described in three-dimensional (and thus filmable) terms--it just all fits together strangely.

Any novel can be filmed, as long as you're willing to sacrifice most of what made it good.

I would have called The Lord of the Rings "unfilmable" if someone hadn't made a film of it. The film is maybe 10% as good as the book, with most of the characterization, depth of feeling, poetry and richness sucked out of it. That it managed to hold on to as much as 10% is a testament to incredible skill on Peter Jackson's part; if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it was possible to do that well. Alas, the other 90% of what makes me love the book remains unfilmed, and probably unfilmable.

But if you're okay with topping out at 10%, you name it, it can be filmed. Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, whatever, no problem.

Gosh, any of Iain M Banks' Culture novels, but especially Use of Weapons. I'd love to see it, but I can't imagine how.

Unfilmable works from development hell, we will never, ever see a live action Ranma 1/2, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or Good Omens. They are perceptually resident in development hell and shall never emerge.

As with any book, they are all "filmable". Even books where the author plays with time "Feersum Endjin" comes to mind are filmable - just look at primer which managed to show time travel and still earn a 6.9 on IMDB.

Evan is right, it's all about leaving parts out while still maintaining the core themes. The trick is to find the core themes. You can even ignore vaste portions of the plot if you're willing to stand up to the fans (internal and external).

For example, you could probably film Peter Hamilton's Pandora Star series by concentrating on one group (probably the main war), and completely ignoring the starflayer as well as everyone's backstories.

But I'm not an author.

I'd love to see some of Ian Banks' work filmed, complete with divergent plot lines and other games. Both frustrating and cool.

I would love to see Roger Zeleany's Amber series in a tv series.

The culture novels are mostly filmable with constraints to limiting viewpoints. 'Inversion' and 'Use of Weapons' are probably two of the easiest considering their relatively linear stories, and unitary topics.

Charles Sheffield's 'Dark as Day' might be hard. Don't think it's unfilmable, just difficult due to length, imagery, approachability etc.

Btw. Ender's game on film has one overriding problem: Killing of children by children. Not going on screen for censorship reasons. Other issues can mostly be covered by special effects.

LOTR - they cut out everything that makes the book impossible to reread. 1.5 readings is all I managed for that. Worked great for a movie though.

Impossible, such a big word. I think any novel where to grasp essential points there needs to be internal dialogue become very difficult. I.e. Anything that leads to in-the-head voiceovers. Old Man's War falls very nicely into that category. So does Starship Troopers. You can make a movie about/from it, but the end result is a work of fiction that may be entertainment, but falls squarely in the Action bracket, without any of the thoughtful qualities of the original work.

Since Heinlein seems to be the star of the unfilmable, how about "I will fear no evil" or "Time Enough for Love"?
I don't know if Morgan's "Altered Carbon" would be unfilmable but I would love to see someone try.

Since Heinlein seems to be the star of the unfilmable, how about "I will fear no evil" or "Time Enough for Love"?
I don't know if Morgan's "Altered Carbon" would be unfilmable but I would love to see someone try.

Thanks for the shout out, John! Great choice with Dune. No one has managed to properly capture it on film. And Lynch's version isn't crazy enough to even qualify as a good Lynch film.

I would add Slaughterhouse-Five and Wrinkle in Time. The Slaughterhouse movie never really did anything for me. The way both books play with time and structure--I just don't think they work on film. It's no surprise that Wrinkle has never made it to the big screen. There was that pretty forgettable TV movie, but not much else.

--Nick
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/bookscomics/

"Use of Weapons" is by definition unfilmable because SPOILER the plot hinges on one chap taking another chap's name and the reader not realising it's happened. Difficult to do that on film. Similar thing happens in "The System of the World" - one character turns out to be another character using an alias. And "Altered Carbon" and the other books have a lot of changing bodies -- also tricky.

Altered Carbon was optioned by Joel Silver (producer from The Matrix) when it came out but that may have expired. The violence may be a problem as well (rape scene with switched points of view). And depicting 300 year old people as 30 may not be believable to regular movie-goers.
The Culture novels would be cool but I agree with other commenters, too many sub plots to make the movies as good as the books.

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Unreliable narration, maddening caesuras, but oh wouldn't it be glorious? The fight with the alzabo, Typhon in his mountain....

To take another tack, how about 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Arthur C. Clarke's story was NOT all that unfilmable. But I'll bet if you tried to describe the movie that Stanley Kubrick actually made out of it, it would have sure seemed unfilmable.

Great post!
What I'd really love to see is some very FILMABLE superhero movies made - some low-budget indy approach to the genre. This would be a really interesting change of pace, and could be done with one of many interesting novels out there, such as Wylie's Gladiator, or something.

As for unfilmable, how about Fletcher Hanks!

I' thinking Brunner's Shockwave Rider, Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer and The Mote in God's Eye.

Shockwave Rider would probably be banned by the government- too many odd notions in that one :)

Lucifer's Hammer might make two movies or a decent mini series, but not a single movie, and Mote in God's Eye is just too big and too full of assumptions, but I could see it getting the kind of treatment Starship Troopers got and possibly being watchable, just not very closely related to the original story.

Generally, I think anything can be adapted in some way from one medium to another. It won't be the same thing, it'll be an adaptation or a translation and it can work as long as the soul of the story remains.

For example, I think someone could make a great China Mieville Bas Lag movie complete with weirdness, although a lot of details would be lost.

But I think it would be incredibly hard to do Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun justice.

Wow, a Ubik screenplay, awesome! I wasn't being ironic when I said I'd like to see someone try it. I really would.

Until last night (when we saw Watchmen) I would have said Niven's Ringworld couldn't be done...but I'd love to see it or "Mote in God's Eye" done.

I don't see why, if someone had more guts than brains, that Stranger in a Strange Land couldn't be done...