At io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell tagged ten "books that we think can’t be put on film, but we’re hoping that someone will prove us wrong," including:
The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
This one is a personal favorite, and it got me back into the broadsword-swinging, mage-battling, riding-through-mystical-realms-on-a-mighty-steed genre after a long, sour absence. The book balances the brutality of this kind of fantasy book with an unsentimental sadness, and has a fantastic speech at the end that I still mutter to myself when I want to psych myself up. It’s not the fact that the hero, Ringil Eskiath, is gay that makes it unfilmable. It’s not the fact that he’s cast out of his homeland for his sexuality, and it’s not the love scenes. The reason I doubt this book will ever be filmed is the reason I love it. This book is just one long exquisitely satisfying break-up story. It’s both too personal and too epic to fit any one mode of being.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
The Steel Remains is among Annalee Newitz's
top ten "stories that seem like fantasy at first, but the science fiction creeps up on you."
The Page 69 Test: The Steel Remains.
--Marshal Zeringue
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