Genre Novels That Would Make Excellent Television

It has proven an incredible stroke of good fortune for the fantasy genre that some of the most successful recent TV shows have been adaptations of books that might not otherwise reach mainstream attention.  I am thinking specifically of True Blood, inspired by Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries, and Game Of Thrones, based on A Song Of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin.  It is undoubtedly no coincidence that the success of these two dramas derives from their home at HBO, known for high production values, in-depth storytelling that does not insult the viewer, and huge marketing campaigns which ensure a wide audience.

This got me thinking: there is a wealth of fantasy and horror literature out there to be mined for miniseries success.  Below are a few novels that I think make excellent candidates for adaptation.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Considered by many of Gaiman's fans to be the most ambitious of his novels, American Gods is a modern epic.  There has been talk on and off for years of a film version, but I think the cast of memorable characters and apocalyptic story arc would be better suited to the 12-hour series format of HBO, allowing ample time to explore the bizarre world that ex-con Shadow finds himself becoming a part of.  The great thing about this particular corner of Gaiman's universe is that there is room for expansion: the collection Fragile Things includes a Shadow novella, and the novel Anansi Boys features one of the supporting characters from American Gods, so producers would not run out of source material for a while.

The Book Of Lost Things by John Connolly

Considering the number of fairy tale-inspired pilots that came out this season (Grimm, Once Upon A Time, 17th Precinct), I'm surprised this book hasn't already been adapted.  The story of a teenage boy who accidentally enters a world comprised of myth and legend and is immediately threatened by the sinister Crooked Man, there is enough folkloric whimsy and genuine menace in the source material to make ideal family viewing - imagine the quirky charm of Doctor Who with the combined humour and violence of Buffy.

Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter

While that other infamous circus-centric HBO show Carnivale was an ultimately shortlived lesson in avoiding overly complex mythology, the recent film Water For Elephants has proved that there is still mileage in the backdrop of the travelling fair.  Carter's magical realism would make for some impressive visuals, in particular her winged heroine Sophie.  The novel is separated into sections based on the circus's location (London, Paris etc.), so an episodic format would fit the narrative fairly well.

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite

A show about vampires in the American South? Yes, it sounds uncomfortably similar to True Blood.  But Brite's edgy, sexy novel was around long before Charlaine Harris dreamed up the by-comparison wholesome Sookie Stackhouse series.  Lost Souls centres on a band fronted by best friends Steve and Ghost, and the vampires who come to town to see them play.  If the bluesy, bloodsucking content is too similar to True Blood, then there are other options from Brite's oeuvre: Drawing Blood, in which a troubled comic book artist returns to a small town where the past is a living thing, or Exquisite Corpse, a twisted saga about two serial killers who fall in love (think Dexter, only ten times darker).

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice

The hugely popular Interview With The Vampire movie, starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, brought a massive readership to Anne Rice's novels.  The second fim adaptation, The Queen Of The Damned, tried to incorporate too many of the saga's various backstories and ended up being a bit of a mess (although it wasn't without its high points).  Anne Rice has since stated that her style of storytelling might be better suited to television.  A longer, more leisurely format would certainly compliment the lengthy character histories and far-reaching events covered in the novels.  If all ten books were to be adapted, from the now-classic Interview to the more recent and much more convoluted Blood Canticle, not to mention the offshoot "New Vampire" books, there'd be at least a dozen potential seasons of slick, sumptuous television.  Personally, I'd be fascinated to see how showrunners would portray the Egyptian origin story, which the second film completely skipped.

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Top 5... Short Stories

For me, short stories are a fine art - when done well, they are able to take the reader on a journey, without the luxury of a few hundred pages to set the scene and develop character.  Below are five of my favourites; the titles in brackets refer to the author anthologies in which they can be found.

5. The New Daughter by John Connolly (Nocturnes)
A single father and his two children move to a house on the edge of a vast field, home to a mysterious mound.  As time passes, the man begins to notice peculiarities in his daughter's behaviour.  She spends more and more time by the mound behind their house, and odd-looking straw dolls keep appearing, as if from the ground...  A chilling fairy tale that is made all the more effective by its brevity.

4. A Lamia in the Cevennes by A.S. Byatt (Elementals)
Magical realism at its best here, as a troubled Brit awakes one morning in his sun-drenched villa in the Cevennes to find a mysterious, serpentine woman living in his swimming pool.  Bizarre stuff, beguilingly written.

3. House of Flowers by Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
Surreal and beautifully imagined, Capote's writing has never been better than it has here.  House of Flowers follows the trials and tribulations of Ottilie, a beautiful young prostitute in the West Indies. 

2. The Problem of Susan by Neil Gaiman (Fragile Things)
Something that has long bothered fans of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia is the way in which Susan, the eldest Pevensie sister, is dismissed at the end of The Last Battle as too much of a grown-up to return to the magical land.  Gaiman's tale catches up with Susan years later in real life, by which time her memories of Narnia have become distorted symbols of her adolescent anguish and sexuality.  A wonderfully dark look back at a masterpiece of childrens' literature.

1. Don't Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier (Not After Midnight)
The story will be familiar to many fans of the film adaptation.  A grieving couple travel to Venice following the death of their child.  They are approached in their hotel by an elderly, scatty woman who claims that the spirit of their daughter is still with them.  Shortly after, the husband begins to see a small hooded figure running through the side streets and back alleys of the city.  Could their daughter have truly come back to them?  For newcomers to this tale, the climax will truly shock.  If you're familiar with the ending, then I recommend you try Ian McEwan's novella The Comfort of Strangers, in which another couple find themselves in trouble in Venice.

Top 5... Fantasy Novels

Here goes, my round-up of the best fantasy fiction. Ever. It might piss off a lot of people that The Lord of the Rings isn't on here. I apologise in advance, but I figure that Tolkien won't mind being benched just this once in order to put the spotlight on a few other deserving authors.

5. The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis
When I first read this book in primary school, the cover proclaimed it was the first instalment of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. It was only later that I realised it was written much, much later than its supposed sequel The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe.  What I love about this book is that it can be read as a part of the larger saga, as it explains such anomalies as the presence of a Victorian lamp-post in another world, or it can be read in total isolation.  Like any other Narnia book, The Magician's Nephew is a children's story first and foremost, and as such is a rollicking adventure, but it provides endless enjoyment into adulthood too.

For other youngsters discovering new worlds, you may also enjoy: Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

4. The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice are often shelved as Horror or Romance, but I feel that they fit more into the genre of Fantasy, never more so than in the case of The Queen of the Damned.  While the central characters consist of vampires, witches, ghosts and paranormal experts, the novel's aim is not to deliver chills like a conventional horror novel.  Instead, Anne Rice uses these horror staple figures to spin an epic tale that begins with a curse in Ancient Egypt and climaxes at a rock concert in California.  The titular vampire, Queen Akasha, is awoken from her eternal slumber by the music of Lestat, the anti-hero of Rice's previous novels.  But this is only a small part of the plot.  An antiquated organisation, the Talamasca, have taken it upon themselves to record the activities of supernatural beings such as vampires, and their interference in events ends up being life-changing.  One of these investigators, a woman named Jesse, discovers just how closely she is connected to the vampire world.  Ancients begin to gather from around the globe, some to aid Akasha in her newest quest, others to stop her.  Told from multiple viewpoints (a rarity in this series), The Queen of the Damned is one of Rice's strongest, richest novels, with an engaging cast of supporting characters and fascinating historical detail.

You may also enjoy: Dracula by Bram Stoker, another rendition of the original vampire.

3. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Fairy tales are big business in Hollywood right now. Hansel and Gretel are being reincarnated as witch hunters, Red Riding Hood is getting a sultry reimagining and there are two "dark, gritty" remakes of Snow White in the works.  Movie producers are obsessed with upping the sex and violence of old Grimm favourites and serving them up to teenagers on a platter.  And it's easy to see why.  Fairy tales are often about, at their core, the loss of innocence, the journey from a world of children to a world of adults.  John Connolly takes this as his cue in The Book of Lost Things.  The young hero, David, has recently lost his mother.  His father remarries, and soon David's stepmother gives birth to a baby boy.  Feeling pushed out, David takes refuge in his books.  One night, a series of bizarre events lead David into another world entirely, one which may or may not be of his own making.  He encounters knights, wolves, hunters and the sinister, ever-present Crooked Man.  At its heart, The Book of Lost Things is a coming of age tale, but it is also a reminder of the immense power of stories.

You may also enjoy: Pan's Labyrinth, a film by Guillermo del Toro, in which a young girl escapes her own brutal wartime life and goes on a magical quest.

2. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Published outside of the UK as The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman's vision of an alternative, steampunk Britain, populated by humans and their animal "daemon" counterparts, captured readers' imaginations the world over.  Young, feral, and relentlessly questioning of authority, Lyra finds herself at the centre of a plot involving missing children, a witch's prophecy, a journey to the North and a mysterious device that seems able to tell the truth and predict the future.  This is the first novel in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which evolves into an ambitious, controversial, Blakean masterpiece over the next two books, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.  I first read this trilogy when I was thirteen or fourteen, but like every other entry on this list, it is a hugely rewarding read at any age.


For other remarkable children growing up, you may also enjoy: The Harry Potter novels by JK Rowling.

1. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Shadow is released from prison, just in time to learn that his wife Laura has died.  Adrift in a world that he no longer understands, Shadow is employed by the mysterious Mr Wednesday to accompany him on a road trip across America.  Gaiman adeptly merges genres and creates a unique mythos here, by asserting that a country as new as America is built on the traditions and faiths of other lands - and as such, is inhabited by all of the gods, spirits and demons that true believers brought with them when they came to start a new life in the New World.  Mr Wednesday is an old soul, and he sees a war coming between the new wave of technology, media and science, and the gods who fear that without worship they will simply cease to exist.  The over-arching narrative is interspersed with tales of immigrant deities doing their best to make their way in the modern age (my personal favourite is the New York taxi driver who is also a Djinn).  American Gods is a hugely imaginative piece of fantasy, but it may also be the Great American Novel.

You may also enjoy: Neil Gaiman's loose sequel, Anansi Boys.

Some other fantasy titles that deserve an honourable mention: Wicked by Gregory Maguire, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton (a well-executed piece of modern fairy folklore, sadly let down by its sexed up sequels).