
Amazon developing three new sci-fi series: Lazarus, Snow Crash and Ringworld - molecule
http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/amazon-studios-lazarus-snow-crash-ringworld-1202576048/
======
Animats
Amazon is "currently in preproduction, production or post on 67 TV series and
20 movies around the world." That's more than the old networks.

So finally, a video version of "Snow Crash". That should be fun. Bringing the
scope of Ringworld to the screen will be very tough. Good that they're trying.

Finally, we're getting past Star [Trek|Wars|Gate|Craft] and the Marvel
Recycled Universe, into better SF.

~~~
mistersquid
_Snow Crash_ is one of Neal Stephenson's best, including the cinematic ending.

The novel's depiction of different tribes and factions is done with care and
respect, so that the cultural melange of ethnicities, customs, and
technologies is convincing and compelling.

Given Stephenson's sensibilities in _Snow Crash_, I wonder if Amazon will have
the forthrightness and integrity to cast Hiro Protagonist as mixed-race black
and Korean. [0]

    
    
      > His father was a sergeant major, his mother was a Korean
      > woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon, and Hiro
      > didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain
      > Army, whether he was rich or poor, educated or ignorant,
      > talented or lucky.
    

[0]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=RMd3GpIFxcUC&pg=PA61#v=one...](https://books.google.com/books?id=RMd3GpIFxcUC&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
freehunter
Everyone fawns about it and it sounds like an awesome novel, but I've tried
reading it three times and every time I can't get past the fact that the hero
(the protagonist, if you will) is literally named Hiro Protagonist. I know
it's supposed to be funny, but after my eyes see those words five or six
times, I can't do it anymore. Maybe Neal was the first, maybe he does it best,
but I've read too much shitty sci-fi where heavy-handed slaps to the face like
that are far too common, and it really ruins any plot the book gets going for
me. I have a hard time reading the book when I'm imagining the author's shit-
eating grin as he wrote it.

I'm sure it's an awesome book, but I really need a copy where someone did a
find-and-replace and changed the hero's name to something other than Hiro.

~~~
ethbro
Your problem with a book that begins with high speed pizza delivery by a
coder-ninja into a fortified corporate suburb on behalf of a mafioso pizza
company... is that the protagonist is named Hiro Protagonist?

I would have expected suspension of disbelief to have been broken somewhat
earlier, if that's an issue.

~~~
falsedan
Sometimes the terrible writing is what breaks the suspension of disbelief.

~~~
freehunter
Very true. I read the Mistborn series and absolutely loved every minute of it,
so I picked up The Way of Kings thinking I like Brandon Sanderson and it's a
popular book of his. I didn't make it past the second chapter because the
story demands I memorize dozens of ridiculous names, made-up words, magical
objects, and fictional cities right off the bat.

Suspending disbelief is not the problem. The problem is when the author writes
something _so unbelievable_ that there's never a chance to suspend. It's all
disbelief, all the time.

Again maybe I'm ruined by years of reading bad sci-fi and fantasy, maybe I
would have been better off if I read it 20 years ago. But Snowcrash and The
Way of Kings both start their story with all of the hallmarks of every awful
book I've ever read.

I'm sure the durian fruit tastes great, but unfortunately I've smelled a
dumpster before and now durian is ruined to me forever.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _I didn 't make it past the second chapter because the story demands I
> memorize dozens of ridiculous names, made-up words, magical objects, and
> fictional cities right off the bat._

Is that a requirement for that book? Stephenson's _Anathem_ starts off with a
word-dump full of vocabulary that you as the reader will not know, but
everything slowly becomes clearer.

On the other hand, I gave up on Stephenson's Baroque Cycle for much the same
reason you mention.

~~~
freehunter
It might not be a requirement to memorize all of the words, but then again
it's hard to tell which ones will still be important later on. It does add a
significant mental load not only trying to pronounce the words, but try to
remember them and then try to recall those memories when the word is
referenced later in the story.

I had a hard time with Game of Thrones for the first few seasons too, because
of the absolutely massive cast of characters. It became easier when most of
them died off. It's one of the reasons I don't read a whole lot of fantasy
novels, every author considers themselves a Tolkien and has to show off how
much work they put into world-building.

------
ilaksh
Sounds like there could be multiple more really interesting things to watch.

It's great to have entertainment choices, but does anyone else get the feeling
that there are literally tens of thousands of interesting things to read,
watch, look at, or play with, and only time to check out a handful of them?

It makes it hard for me to pick because I know I will be ignoring most of this
huge pile of amazing stuff.

For example, I played The Witcher 3 for a month or two and really enjoyed it.
But eventually after seeing 20 or 30 other things pop up that seemed amazing,
I decided to check out a few of them. And then there are more and more. But I
actually barely started progressing in The Witcher.

I have several books that I got really cheap used and I intended to read like
Ringworld (which I don't remember if I actually read many years ago or not)
and The Engines of God. Plus six more good ones. I got halfway through one of
them before realizing I needed to catch up on some Westworld episodes or
something.

The thing that makes it tough is I do a ton of filtering with metacritic or
whatever to ignore everything except the best stuff, then I try to dismiss
more things as boring or uninteresting but anytime I actually check them out,
they are amazing like the reviews said. But then that means I am going to miss
out on thousands of amazing things.

I guess I just feel like it's a shame that I have to ignore most of it, until
such time as I no longer need to work or spend time on my own creations and
can dedicate full time to consumption, and am able to upload my brain and
clone it 500 times to start to trim the pile.

~~~
marmaduke
> feel like it's a shame that I have to ignore most of it, until such time as
> I no longer need to work or spend time on my own creations

That's the thing though: none of those great pieces of entertainment will be
things you put effort into.

If all the reviews of all the things are five stars, maybe the scale is wrong,
no?

~~~
icebraining
I don't think the idea is that all things are five stars, but that _so many_
things are made that even the five stars minority is enough to occupy one's
full attention.

------
musha68k
This is very “annoying” as I usually am able to dismiss most modern TV shows
because of mediocre to bad writing. Each and every show I am able to skip is a
huge win in life/time – most good old Star Trek and TV shows of the 80s and
90s let you skip episodes without you losing track of (most of) the story.

I digress. I’ve read Snow Crash and Ringworld – for the most part they were
genuinely fantastic, let’s hope they don’t over-polish (most new productions
don’t have “soul” IMHO) and over-stretch the TV adaptations (mini series ought
to be enough in these cases).

While they are already at it - time to see a show based on Ursula K. LeGuin’s
writings as well.

~~~
arethuza
I'd dearly love to see something based on the _Culture_ books - though I
appreciate that stories about atheistic, space faring, hedonistic, drug taking
communists who are more or less kept as pets by god-like AIs might make the
pitch a bit tricky to anyone other than the BBC...

~~~
MikusR
Basically any existing TV show or movie can already be considered part of
Culture verse. Take any character and imagine it works for Contact.

~~~
Sharlin
Hey, this is a fun game. Some ideas:

Game of Thrones - Varys

The Expanse - Chrisjen Avasarala. Or maybe her bodyguard, Cotyar.

Narcos - Bill Strechner

Archer - Lana Kane

~~~
arethuza
So who on HN is a Contact/SC agent then?

(Wait - Elon Musk - it's obvious! ;-)

~~~
MikusR
He is suspiciously against AI.

------
undersuit
I hope Ringworld tries to be a bit funny. It's got a 200 year old playboy, an
impossibly lucky female sex symbol, a conniving vegetarian coward, and let's
not forget the gruff, cuddly, badass Kzin Speaker-to-Animals; not to mention
the tech is godlike, I'd bet on a Known Space fleet beating a Star Trek fleet
any day.

It should be more like Tripping the Rift, Lexx, or Stargate with Daniel and
O'Neil than one of the more serious Sci-Fi shows.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _not to mention the tech is godlike, I 'd bet on a Known Space fleet beating
> a Star Trek fleet any day._

This is not the venue for this discussion, but it's one I'd love to have with
you. Known Space has two gimmicks that might throw Starfleet for a loop, but
I'd put my money on N.C.C. Anything in just about any fight.

(Now, if there's a Protector aboard, then I'd hedge my bets a bit
differently...)

~~~
undersuit
Stasis Fields and General Products hulls?

------
snowwrestler
Can't believe no one has made a Cryptonomicon series. It would be way more
complex and interesting than Snow Crash, which has crazier visuals but a
fairly simple linear story.

~~~
Turing_Machine
I don't think _Cryptonomicon_ would translate to TV very well. While there are
some action sequences, way too much of the plot relies on philosophy, science,
math, etc. It's hard to show that stuff on a screen without resorting to lame
tricks like voice-overs.

 _Snowcrash_ is a lot more visual (it was actually originally intended to be a
graphic novel).

~~~
snowwrestler
That kind of stuff is kind of hot on TV right now--think of Sherlock from the
BBC. Lots of crazy graphics overlaying the shot, with narration or voice over.
I feel like producers have figured out how to do shows about super geniuses
and their weird way of perceiving the world.

I mean, you'd have to cut down some verbose stuff, sure. But you could also
expand some stuff, or turn narration into visual action.

------
loteck
Will somebody for the love of god please rescue Hyperion from Syfy before it's
too late, and give it a serious treatment?

~~~
crdb
If you enjoy literature and have not read the Hyperion Cantos yet, I _beg_ you
to stick to just the first book.

What Simmons did to conclude the Cantos is on par with Star Wars episodes
I-III. Sometimes it is better to preserve the magic by omission.

As for a movie, I do not think doing it justice is possible today. The only
adaptations that came close to a suitable spirit were Dune (1984) and Beowulf
(2005). It is SF only by name and requires a very strong and independent
minded writer and director, both of whom should be relatively well read as
well.

~~~
berberous
Is this a common view? About to start fall of Hyperion. I thought people
generally liked it and the Endymion books?

~~~
epmatsw
I really enjoyed Fall of Hyperion. It's very different from Hyperion, but I
think the plot is still very satisfying. Endymion and Rise of Endymion are
okay and interesting in their own way, but a definite step down IMO.

~~~
crdb
It is different, and it does wrap up the quest at least. I guess I read it
quite a while back and thought of Hyperion and Fall as one book in two parts,
and got carried away in my original comment.

------
ejosafat
Worst news I've read in a long time. All series produced by Amazon based on
books or comics I love have been a huge disappointment: The man in the high
castle, preacher, American Gods...

You can watch a whole season and what happened? Basically nothing. They
stretch and stretch a couple of plots and that's it. My friends says that's
ok, they create a specific atmosphere/mood with that...bullshit, it's just
like when you get a present and you're actually more exicited about unwrapping
that fancy colourful wrap that in the content.

At least HBO (Game of Thrones) or Netflix (The expanse) tend to be more
faithful to the content and things happen at a reasonable pace

~~~
VLM
I think what you're describing is the difference between a soap opera that
could, in theory, continue forever, versus a miniseries with a defined start
and end.

I'd love to see a snow crash miniseries that covers the snow crash series. I'm
not so interested in soap opera style "General Hospital, but in the snowcrash
setting"

A mini series would cover the actual snow crash story, which is pretty
interesting. On the other hand, a soap opera would be Hiro atarting as a beta
orbiter and improbably having a romantic relationship of many ups and downs
with YT or perhaps the rat thing becomes a long term pet or companion of YT,
Rife would be the bad guy who always escapes to fight again next week, it
could be pretty awful indeed.

Another defining characteristic of miniseries vs soap opera is soap operas run
out of creativity and crash over time, think of the arc of "breaking bad" or
"Downton Abbey" where the first quarter or so used up all the creativity, then
a long coast to miserable end. On the other end a miniseries would end like
King's "The Stand" or the book version of snow crash, exciting till the very
end.

~~~
ghaff
>soap opera

Soap opera isn't really the term you're looking for. Soap opera (besides the
literal meaning of daytime soaps) suggests lots of (possibly overblown) drama
about emotional and melodramatic relationships.

You're really just talking about TV series without fixed end points.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I think soap opera might still be correct.

As you watch a Soap Opera it becomes apparent that all the drama has no real
consequence, and thus becomes meaningless. That is why General Hospital can be
on for 40 years or something at this point. You can watch for a year, skip a
year, then come back. You missed a ton of events, but it doesn't effect what
you take from the show.

Once "the ending" becomes detached from the show, it is very difficult to
manufacture meaningful drama.

Some shows, like Seinfeld or Simpsons always return to a set point at the end
of an episode. So they don't need a real ending. This is different than the
soap opera. Because there is no illusion of an ending. You know the show isn't
going anywhere and you experience just what it is in that moment.

The soap opera is diabolical. As each episode ends, you are hooked, waiting
for the next so you can find out "what happens", but there is no ultimate
payoff. Just a never ending sequence of false promises.

Soap operas are the worst offenders, who best illustrate the point. But any
drama series without a fixed end point is guilty of the same crime. Take LOST,
which began as a brilliant show, but as it was stretched out began to anger
many people. When would it have become a full Soap Opera? 10 more seasons? My
point is that it already was, just shorter than some others.

------
ajmarsh
Gil the Arm would make such a great detective show. I hope Ringworld is
successful so Amazon develops the rest of Larry Niven's known universe
properties.

~~~
pp19dd
The Mote in God's Eye could make an incredible movie.

~~~
Rhinobird
I thought it would make a good mini-series. Needs like 3 or 4 hour long
episodes.

------
puranjay
I'm surprised HBO or Netflix haven't tried to pick up Dune.

Would be a great follow-up to Game of Thrones.

~~~
jsat
Dune is hard to get right... although someone someday will make an excellent
TV show out of Dune I think.

~~~
ZenoArrow
The Jodorowsky version sounded interesting:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg4OCeSTL08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg4OCeSTL08)

~~~
loopbit
I watched the documentary in a small screening a few years ago and the project
sounded incredible... It wasn't Dune, not the Dune we've read, but amazing
nonetheless. I definitely recommend watching it (be forewarned, Jodorowsky's
english is atrocious). So many interesting stories about that movie:

Some of the design work and the people that worked with Jodorowsky actually
went into Alien. I mean, Giger, of course, but also Dan O'Bannon a few other
people.

He actually got Dali and Orson Welles to say yes to the project. Dali wanted
to be the most expensive actor in history.

The story with his son borders abuse. He basically wanted to convert him into
the Kwisatz Haderach and made him go through a very tough training for years.

Personally, I did enjoy David Lynch's version and even the tv mini-series they
did (back in the late 90's?).

~~~
mahyarm
It's crazy he could put his son through training for years, yet cannot bother
to read the book over a weekend?!

------
mseebach
I hope they don't end up reveling in the dystopia rather than accepting that
it's the backdrop, not the story. I think The Man in the High Castle rather
overdid the dystopia-part and suffered for it.

~~~
moomin
Indeed, the book isn't about Nazis and the show 100% is. Snow Crash is hard to
adapt because the author treads a very fine line between the future being a
negative judgement on today's values and it being... cool. I imagine they'll
go for the cool and leave the eco meta narrative on the cutting room floor.

------
nextstep
Wish it were Netflix or HBO or even Showtime. Amazon has a history of giving
showrunners much less creative freedom and I have less faith this will be a
satisfying adaptation. :/

~~~
narrator
Man in the High Castle was a bit of a let down. It didn't have the ambiguities
of the book that made the alternate history complex and interesting. The TV
show was too much of a comic book with nice sharp moral edges.

~~~
hkmurakami
Never read the book (been meaning to!) but thought their cinematography was
solid, and that the supporting cast puts on a strong performance. Agreed
though that the protagonists' arcs are very cliche and flat.

~~~
rangibaby
The book is pretty ...out there. It’s certainly not what I was expecting but
it was interesting.

~~~
uptownJimmy
Ha! "Out there" is just par for the course with PKD....

Read "A Scanner Darkly", if you haven't already. That's one of the supreme
weird tales.

~~~
e12e
Or "Martian timeslip". In fact "blade runner" is a pretty poor adaptation of
the book (but a great film, imo). I'm not sure most of pkd would benefit too
much from a "direct" film adaptation...

I loved the man in the high castle for many of the changes and the overall
style - but it seems the writers got a bit lost trying to round off the open
ended story and fill in some blanks. Small wonder, considering the book.

------
bandrami
Good Lord. "Let's make everything; one might be the next GoT"?

~~~
btown
This is literally the thesis of the software startup industry as well.
Ironically it was Amazon that arguably kicked off the latest wave by
leveraging their resources to create AWS... can you blame them for doing the
same in media, especially given the wealth of metrics they have about both
physical shopping habits and digital media usage by the same people?

------
paulajohnson
I don't believe that you can do justice to Snow Crash in just an hour. Its
going to be visually great, but with all the complexity and depth stripped
out.

~~~
icebraining
I think they mean each episode is one hour long, not the full show.

~~~
croon
But Amazon usually produces pilots for shows before deciding on a full season
order. Or has this changed?

~~~
empath75
So? I would just be the first episode. You don’t do the whole book in an hour.

~~~
croon
So, they need to sell people in that first hour, to get the chance of telling
the rest of the story.

~~~
empath75
Snow crash has one of the best opening chapters of any novel I’ve read.

Though the central premise feels somewhat dated now that everybody assumes
self driving cars are around the corner.

------
Dowwie
Snow Crash deserves a $100 Million production budget

~~~
EvanAnderson
I remain convinced that any treatment, aside from Anime, won't do Snow Crash
justice.

~~~
hprotagonist
the ghost in the shell OVA or SAC team could probably pull it off.

live action will be challenging. i’m not enthusiastic about their success.

~~~
ihuman
Which OVA are you talking about, the SAC compilation OVAs, or the Arise
series? Both are by Production I.G., but had different directors and writers.

------
nickhalfasleep
Yeah, you know, a monopolist's work is never done. No such thing as a perfect
monopoly. Seems like you can never get that last one-tenth of one percent.
Chapter 14 (Interview with L. Bob Rife)

So Bezos will play the part of L. Bob Rife?

------
overcast
I love when books become movies/series. I get to sell off my mint 1st edition
hardcovers :D

Apparently an unpopular opinion, but Snow Crash was horrendous. I slogged
through that "in the present 3rd person point of view" satirical mess.
Terrible prose, uneven pacing, painful.

~~~
shkkmo
I also find Snow Crash to be my least favorite of Stephenson's works.

~~~
falsedan
There are so many to choose from, and the terrible part is seeing how he tries
to grow his writing skills and… doesn't.

> _Boston 's a dollop of hills in a spoon of marshes._

------
camillomiller
Wow, we're living in the Streaming Rinascimento of popular culture. I like it.
:)

------
mixmastamyk
I wish someone would pick up “Dark Matter.” Came to really enjoy the show on
Netflix only to see it cancelled. It was popular too, doesn’t make sense.

------
swasheck
I am certainly excited about this. However, I am also curious about what
happened to Oasis
[https://www.amazon.com/Oasis/dp/B06W5H33JH](https://www.amazon.com/Oasis/dp/B06W5H33JH).
The pilot was interesting and engaging. I'd like to see where that story goes,
too.

------
johan_larson
Snow Crash and Ringworld are no-fooling classics of SF. Alas, I am too manly
to actually squee with delight at this news.

------
uoaei
Ever since I read Snow Crash, I wondered to myself, why hasn't this been
adapted as a screenplay yet? It played in my head like a movie when I first
read it. No other book has done that. Neal Stephenson's writing style is
really cinematic and I'm glad it's now being adapted for viewing.

------
s_kilk
I'll take Snow Crash, but wouldn't a TV series of Gibson's "Bridge Trilogy" be
sweet?

~~~
e12e
And/or "Diamond Age".

------
viraptor
> “Snow Crash,” ..., is a one-hour science fiction drama ...

It sounds like it could be a very cut down version with just Hiro, Metaverse,
maybe some sword swinging. I hope they'll go for more than just an extended
action sequence in CGI world.

~~~
notatoad
a "one hour drama" probably means it's a show with hour-long episodes, not
that the whole production is only an hour long.

"one hour drama" and "half-hour comedy" are fairly standard tv formats

~~~
viraptor
Ah, today I learned...

------
Sniffnoy
Ringworld, huh? When are they going to do Footfall, is what I want to know.

~~~
moomin
Don't get me wrong, I love Footfall. But its politics are a vastly bad idea in
the current environment. (Get someone like Jimmy Carter as president and then
do Footfall. Just like Trump makes The Handmaid's Tale apposite.)

Also, it's a fundamentally limited story. It'd make a great mini-series but
Ringworld could go anywhere. There's not only multiple sequels, but you could
junk the lot and explore the world further, take off and expand into Known
Space or do backstory with the Man-Kzin Wars. In short, it's got what you want
for a long running TV show.

~~~
ghaff
Ringworld and Known Space more broadly provide a really interesting and large
canvas. In fact, the flaws of Ringworld as a novel (like a number of Niven's
longform works it's a bit of a travelogue) actually makes it a great setting
for a somewhat open-ended set of stories.

~~~
greedo
"like a number of Niven's longform works it's a bit of a travelogue"

So it's like GoT in the first five seasons? :)

------
TheMagicHorsey
Snowcrash did not age well, in my opinion. I remember it fondly, and it was
cool when it came out ... but Neal Stephenson is a great concept artist, but a
terrible writer.

Diamond Age is so much better.

~~~
Sangermaine
I think the issue is that most people, especially people reading it today,
read it out of context. Most people approach it as a work on its own, and so
it can appear odd. What you need to keep in mind is that it's a parody of
cyberpunk tropes, as the genre had congealed and become stale by the early 90s
and Snow Crash pokes fun at what it became.

------
VikingCoder
I hope they keep doing well.

And maybe someday, one of these networks will earn the right to make a
miniseries out of Daniel Suarez's "Daemon."

------
tmaly
I really enjoyed reading the Ringworld series. Snow Crash was also good. I
would love to see the produce a series on Neuromancer

------
denisehilton
I cannot help but be skeptical about these series. Amazon should leave it to
the other producers that are popular in this field.

------
sideshowb
[011010001 100110000 011111001 001001101]

Gotcha. Haha.

------
cableshaft
Probably an unpopular opinion here, but maybe I'll watch Snow Crash now that I
won't have to wade through the awful word vomit "let me prove how smart I am"
never-ending-sentences that Neal Stephenson used in that book.

I've also read Cryptonomicon, and he dials it down a lot more in that one
(although it's still present), and I found it a lot more readable.

------
zimpenfish
I'm still holding out hope that a Lensman TV series / movie will appear before
I die.

~~~
ghaff
It would be hard to get the feel right. It's so grounded in old school pulp
SF/space opera that it would be a tough balancing act to update it to
something palatable while staying true to the spirit of the original.

------
ccozan
Lazarus sounds like an echo to the Into the Badlands, which I very much enjoy.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
The Lazarus comic is excellent. I didn't realise the show was being developed
by Amazon. It really deserves the same level of treatment Marvel and Netflix
gave Dare Devil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron First and The Defenders.

They managed to pull off the Marvel cinematic universe on TV and I think
overall they are better than the movies.

------
NedIsakoff
I really want a TekWars remake ;p

------
davidw
As well as Ringworld!

