Deadline is reporting that Amazon is pushing ahead on three new genre series to add to their streaming service slate. All three will be adaptations of literature including Neil Stepheson's cyberpunk smash Snow Crash, Larry Niven's Ringworld and the comic book Lazarus by Jessica Jones' Greg Rucka.
(Snow Crash) In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain.Ringworld, a co-production with MGM, is based on Niven’s science fiction book series from the 1970s and tells the story of Louis Gridley Wu, a bored man celebrating his 200th birthday in a technologically advanced, future Earth. Upon being offered one of the open positions on a voyage, he joins a young woman and two aliens to explore Ringworld, the remote artificial ring beyond “Known Space.” The books cover their thrilling journey as they attempt to fulfill their original mission to uncover the mysteries of Ring.Written by Rucka based on his comic book, Lazarus is set in an alternative near future where the world has been divided among 16 rival families, who run their territories in a feudal system. Each family has allies and enemies among the other families. To crush uprisings and fight wars, most families have a Lazarus: a one-person kill squad.
I know I am not supposed to pick sides here but I am over the moon that an adaptation of Snow Crash is finally coming. It has been, what, five years since there was news that someone was trying to adapt Neil Stephenson's seminal cyberpunk novel? It was in 2012 when we reported that Attack the Block's Joe Cornish was working on a adaptation. The good news is that he is still attached to the project as a producer.
I read Snow Crash once a year. And I should be scared that someone is finally going ahead and adapting a cyberpunk novel that I clearly, clearly have strong feellings for, maybe even romantic ones. But I am not as freaked out about this as I am about the adpatation of William Gibson's Neuromancer. Probably because putting it to series means not having to compress everything into feature length runtime, losing bytes in the process.
You know my feelings about Snow Crash. Are there any fans of Ringworld and Lazarus that want to chime in, share their thoughts?