What/who are the authors reading?

[SimonDoom]

Yes, but in terms of dramatic arcs, the Atreides coming to Dune up to the crash in the desert is an obvious one, and this was very much the basis for both films. It's not clear to me that the rest can be divided neatly into two to make a satisfying middle movie.

I agree. Novel 1 is a two-parter. There's no way to end a middle part of the Dune story in a satisfactory way. And it would just be padding the story, like The Hobbit did. The Hobbit was a modest children's book and Jackson turned it into a bloated trilogy. I found myself counting the minutes during the final battle with the orcs. I got annoyed with the CGI, just as I did during the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

That wasn't the case with Dune. The visuals were great. But there's something missing. There's no humor in Dune. There are no light moments. No moments that make you connect with the characters. A book can get away with that, but it's harder for a movie to do so. I don't think carving up the story differently would make any difference. I thought Villanueve did about as good a job as one could do, but it still felt like there was something missing.

 

[lovecraft68]

Rereading Wolfen by Whitley Streiber, very under rated werewolf novel, and a decent film adaptation, but as in most cases falls flat,. Unique aspect of some of he book being told from the perspective of the pack leader and in this version they are far more wolf than man so they communicate with movements of their ears, faces, etc, neat trick to pull off, and a good back story about a husband wife who are both detectives, and he's on the take but to be able to keep his father in a decent nursing home, the other MC is in love with the wife, but never comes forward with it until he kisses her at the end after a showdown with the wolf pack, great death scenes for the husband and pack leader.....I know that's a spoiler, but no one here is going to read it, its too low brow

 

[lovecraft68]

I enjoyed Peej's LOTR more than I expected to, especially FOTR. The changes he made in that one were very forgivable, and made the story tighter.

His insertion of the Elves into Helm's Deep was my least favorite moment in the films, as it took Tolkien's entire theme and set it on its ear. That's, my least favorite moment... until he bent Faramir over and buttfucked him into being Boromir II. That was even less forgivable.

But visually? Jackson got it right. And the music... oh, the music...

I've avoided the Dune movie so far. I am a diehard fan of books 1, 5, and 6. The middle ones... less so. I believe the books are unfilmable in terms of getting the built world's nuances, but then I thought the same about LOTR.

Even though the elves coming to fight at Helm's Deep wasn't faithful, it was well done enough I went with it, but you're dead on with Faramir.

I watch this clip from time to time and it never fails to give me goosebumps. The Theodin speech....

 

[Demiurging]

Rereading the Stormlight archives. Much, much better the second time around a few years later when you can really pick up on all the foreshadowing. Going to reread the Dresden files afterward to refresh myself since a new one came out recently, though the last one didn't resonate with me so much as it's mostly setup for the next, or felt like it.

 

[AlinaX]

Rereading Wolfen by Whitley Streiber, very under rated werewolf novel, and a decent film adaptation, but as in most cases falls flat,. Unique aspect of some of he book being told from the perspective of the pack leader and in this version they are far more wolf than man so they communicate with movements of their ears, faces, etc, neat trick to pull off, and a good back story about a husband wife who are both detectives, and he's on the take but to be able to keep his father in a decent nursing home, the other MC is in love with the wife, but never comes forward with it until he kisses her at the end after a showdown with the wolf pack, great death scenes for the husband and pack leader.....I know that's a spoiler, but no one here is going to read it, its too low brow

I loved The Hunger as a film so much I read the novel by Streiber and enjoyed it. At some point I read the sequel and felt disappointed with it. If I ever read Wolfen, it's lost in memory now.

 

[lovecraft68]

I loved The Hunger as a film so much I read the novel by Streiber and enjoyed it. At some point I read the sequel and felt disappointed with it. If I ever read Wolfen, it's lost in memory now.

Hunger was a rare case of the movie matching the book, great cast. I don't remember much about the sequel, which means I probably wasn't thrilled.
Rice, King, and I suppose Koontz are the names that usually come to mind for horror novels, but Robert McCammon wrote some masterpieces. They Thirst, Wolf's Hour, Swan Song are all amazing, he also did Usher's Passing which brought the Usher family into the modern world as billionaires, but with a curse that only had one cure, I won't spoil that because the delivery of the reveal was so well done.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Just finished one of the Vorkosigan saga books I hadn't read before, which was a lot of fun as ever. (Lois McMaster Bujold).

Now on a Rivers of London novella (Ben Aaronovitch). There's a small underfunded magical department in the Metropolitan Police... The world building is fantastic and his portrayals of modern London and architecture second to none, but by book 4 he'd run out of plots and ripping one character from the main stories didn't help. Still worth reading, though.

 

[Handley_Page]

The Mabinogion.