A producer is always looking for a book or short story that would make a memorable movie. Here is a list of a few that I have loved over the years. If you have a favorite book that you think would make a great movie, drop me a line.
A novel by Connie Willis about time-traveling historians who have to avert a world-ending paradox while on a drunken boat-trip in Victorian England. A spec script was drafted by Johnny Skidmarks writer John Raffo.
A novel by Connie Willis about a young history student is sent back to document history in plague-ravaged medieval England. Arguably the best novel about a global pandemic ever written.
A collection of eight books and 45 stories written by Kage Baker set in the Company Universe of time travel and immortal cyborgs. Mendoza loves and loses three versions of the same man throughout the millennia, sometimes even at the same time. I have never fallen down a rabbit hole as deep and wonderful as this series.
Would be lovely to remake this Belgian film by the Dardenne Brothers about a woman who has one weekend to convince her coworkers to save her job.
A five book series by Mary Robinette Kowal heavily influenced by the works of Jane Austen. Filled with regency romance and magic, these novels follow Jane as she manipulates glamour to forge her own love story.
A “sleepless” series by Nancy Cress. it is a classic sci-fi series of three novels about the first group of genetically modified children who grow up incredibly gifted and without the need to sleep.
A three book series by Robert Sawyer about the meeting of our world and a parallel world where Neanderthals became the dominant life form. The Neanderthals are, smart, handsome, polyamorous, and because there are only a few million of them, they live on a thrillingly beautiful virgin vision of earth.
A novel by Matthew Stover. Actors play out fantastical and fierce adventures for the entertainment of Earthlings on a recently discovered Tolkien-esque planet.
A short story by Sarah Pinsker published in Uncanny Magazine. A woman attending a convention to meet different versions of herself from across parallel universes must investigate the murder of one of her alternative selves.
A novel by David Burr Gerrard surrounding a machine that automatically tattoos a single epiphany onto the arm of whoever uses it.
The second novel in the Albany Cycle series by Pulitzer Prize winner William Kennedy. A pool hustler in Albany finds himself caught up in the kidnapping of a political boss’s son. Pool sharks, gambler, second story men and hope addicts abound.
A Bill Clinton-time travel political satire by author Philip Baruth. A historian goes back in time to meet the charismatic former president and change his political disposition so that America can win a world war in the future.
A short story by Robert Reed about a group of tech dudes who go back in time to the Roman empire to rule as gods.
A short story by Michael Swanwick where an accident at an experimental physics institute causes beautiful dinosaurs to appear in a small East Coast town and forces its residents to examine their lives.
A novel and two sequels by Wesley Chu where a schlubby IT professional wakes up to find his brain inhabited by the voice of an ageless alien and learns that Earth has been the battleground for an eon’s long war between benevolent and viscous alien species.
A novel by John Crowley. It is a magical realist fable about a generations spanning love story in a town that borders another world.
A great children’s novel by Richard Kennedy that is both famous and obscure. It is a seafaring adventure about a girl who becomes a doll who is then rescued by her brother, a doll who has become a boy. An American tale as told by Miyasaki.
Some other producer got to these books first, but they are all extraordinary and I hope I get to see the movie someday.
Light from Other Stars
A novel by Rika Aoki about trans kids, music, selling your soul, and finding it again, aliens, doughnuts and the SGV.
Upload Stories
A series of stories by Ken Liu about a world where people have abandonded ther bodies and uploaded their consciousness to the the web. AMC is making this as an animated series.
Red Shirts
Based on a novel by John Scalzi the story of short-lived young recruits on a 24th century starship who learn that they are somehow the doppelgangers for the extras on a 21st century sci fi tv show. I sold this book twice to FX. But now Seth Mcfarland is developing it at UCP.
10,000 Doors of January
A novel by Alix Harrow Absolutely, it is the ultimate portal fantasy book ever. ITV optioned it, but it never went any further.