Item — HN Reader

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.

2 comments

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...

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

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

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

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

He is suspiciously against AI.

Cue the "outrage dollar" but you could be right there...

The most far-out sci-fi needs to be read anyhow – so many images today, so little imagination.

"Be conservative in what you choose to binge-watch and be more liberal in taking time to read instead."

I'd rather like to have a snarky SC drone (if that's not a tautology) voiced by Peter Capaldi in a detuned Malcolm Tucker mode. The Scottish accent would, of course, be appropriate...

I quite like that idea, although I guess in my head the drones were more a cynical Received Pronunciation, like Daniel Craig’s Bond.

For some reason your suggestion makes me think of a drone with the voice of Kenneth Williams.....

The TV Earthsea series was pretty terrible, unfortunately.