TTT #1 - Top Ten Books I Would Love To See As A Movie/TV Show

hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

I just recently found out about Top Ten Tuesdays, and I've been meaning to get back into blogging. So what better way to start than by playing with memes? =)

So for my first time doing TTTs, these are the top ten books I would love to see as a movie/tv show:

 

1. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper - This is one of my favorite fantasy dystopian novels. I read it five years ago and remember thinking that it would make a great movie with special effects and all.

The world Tepper built in this book is just so imaginative and complex that bringing it on screen would be a spectacular feat. Also, its originality as a story would be very popular with both readers and movie lovers, IMHO.

 

 

 

 

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(recently republished
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2. The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike - Christopher Pike is one of the most underrated authors I've read. He's a genius as a writer, but goes mostly unnoticed because he wrote sophisticated YA before YA became popular. At one point, the publishers stopped publishing his books, but he seems to be getting popular again now with the YA resurgence. 

This book is one of his adult novels, and it's my favourite book by him. It would need to be at least a trilogy as a movie, I think, to truly capture the intricacies of the story. Condensing it even a little to fit into a two-hour movie would take away a lot of what makes it beautiful.

It’s funny that I would call a horror novel beautiful, but it is. It’s hauntingly beautiful. It’s bargain price on Amazon.com now, so this would be a great time to buy a new copy. My original copy is worn out from too much love. =)

3. The Dragonlance books by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis - These books are one of the best fantasy series ever. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series are my favourite fantasy series, but since it's already been made into a TV series, I think the next logical step is to bring Dragonlance to our screens.

There are so many stories within the series, and so many interesting characters that I have no doubt a TV show would be very successful. It would also probably be very complicated, and some of the Chronicles may best be made into movies in the vein of The Lord of The Rings movies, but I’d love watching them in any form!

4. The Dark Visions Trilogy by L. J. Smith - I was a fan of L. J. Smith before the TV series The Vampire Diaries came out. Funnily enough, although I love The Vampire Diaries TV show, I didn't like either The Vampire Diaries or The Secret Circle books.

I loved the Dark Vision trilogy though, and The Forbidden Game trilogy, and I’m glad that these books are getting some interest now with the popularity of The Vampire Diaries.

The Forbidden Game trilogy is slightly similar to the movie Labyrinth with David Bowie, which I loved, so I would love to see that made into a movie too, but of the two trilogies, Dark Visions is the one I love better. It's quite a simple book with a simple storyline, I would say, but I love it because of the characters, so a movie based on this book would probably fail or succeed based solely on its cast.

 

5. Thirst series by Christopher Pike - These were first published as The Last Vampire series, many years ago before all the vampire hype started. I've read a lot of vampire stories and watched a lot of vampire-themed movies and TV shows lately, and frankly, I'm getting sick of them, but this series is different. I have always maintained, since the first time I read the series in 1994 to 1996, that this is the best vampire story ever.

Even now, after all the current popular vampire books have been published, it still stands as the best vampire story I've ever read. There's only one vampire in this book, and she's different from all the other vampires you've read about. Casting her character would be the singular most important thing for the movie.

I heard news that they were planning to film a movie based on these books back in 2010, but haven’t heard anything about it since, and I’m not sure if it was anything definite, or just the hopes of fans like me. I do hope that they do make a movie, because I’d spend good money to watch it.

6. The Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M. Auel - I realize this was made into a film with Daryl Hannah, but it didn't do well and I don't think it included all the books anyway since the last three books weren't even written yet, so now that all the books are out and we have better technology for special effects on screen, I would love for this to be made into a TV series. Maybe that was the problem with the film, this series is too big to fit into one movie. The first book itself is too big to fit into one movie.

7. The Light Bearer by Donna Gillespie - One of the most amazing books I've read about a strong female character in the times of ancient Rome and Germania. This is a relatively unknown book and I think that's a huge shame. More people need to know about this book and read it.

I read this book as a young girl, and it probably influenced a lot of my own independent personality. I’m reading it again right now, imagining all the scenes in my head and I think this would be an amazing mini-series. I don’t even know how to stress how good this book is, but I really wish more people would read it and know about it. Again, the casting for the lead character, Auriane, would be the most important thing to get right.

There’s also a sequel which I have but haven’t read, I plan to read it right after I finish re-reading this book.

 

8. The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo - This is the newest addition to my favorite books, and the newest book on this list. 

It's set in Malaysia, which of course, is what initially caught my attention, and shows a great deal about the superstitious Chinese Malaysian culture.

In my review of it, I said that it was like a Chinese Malaysian version of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which is another book I really love. I would be extremely interested to see a movie made about this book.

 

9. Dark Life and Rip Tide by Kat Falls - There are two books in this series so far, I'm not sure if a third book is planned, but I really enjoyed these two books and I think it would be great as a movie. It's set mostly underwater as most of the Earth's surface has already been submerged due to global warming, and humans have adapted themselves to underwater living. The second generation of 'immigrants' have even evolved somewhat.

The stories are really exciting, and the characters really interesting, and I would so love to see how this movie would be made, with all the underwater living and the beautiful (and some ugly) sea creatures, and of course, the special effects.

 

10. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - This one has already been made into a movie, but I didn't like the movie at all, and I loved the book so much. I understand that the book is probably too complex to be made into a 2-hour movie, so I'm thinking, why not a mini-series then?

It’s one of the most intense books I’ve ever read, and it shows so much about the human psyche; the pain and suffering and anger we go through, and eventually, the growth… I think this book made me more compassionate and understanding towards others, especially the ones who’ve hurt me and whom I’ve hurt. A mini-series, if faithfully following the book, would be extremely powerful.