On the one hand, these announcements make me caper with glee to think of such interesting and seminal SF works being adapted to mini-series for TV.
Then I consider that it's Syfy, and that for Ringworld they are talking about only a 4 hour miniseries, which seems insanely short. We'll see.
Syfy announces Childhood’s End and Ringworld miniseries
Two new miniseries are on the way to Syfy, and they should sound familiar to fans of classic sci-fi literature.
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Childhood's End? I'm intrigued. This was a formative book for me.
Childhood's End was a pivotal work in my mind. I pray that it won't be bungled. The core message is staggering: humans have and will trade their innovation, creativity and future for the promise of health and prosperity. Let's hope SyFy can get the message out.
CE was a remarkable "thinking" work. There's a lot more to it than the core message you mention, +Lorin Olsen (though that is there, perhaps in a broader form than that). The nature of religion, of human destiny, what is important, parents and children, all of that.
Now I want to go read it again.
Indeed, +Dave Hill. It also includes one of Clarke's obsessions: that the final step in human development would be to either create or become some form of pure mentality. This is the theme of 2001 and The City and the Stars.
And, nicely, it debates both of those questions:
– If offered health, prosperity, and creativity within leisure, should humanity take the offer, vs. constant striving and strife?
– Would a step-change from individuals to a group mentality (destined or not) be a good thing?
And this was one of the reasons that Clarke settled in Sri Lanka. He had a "kinship" with many Hindu concepts of "evolution" and the destiny of mankind. I read this one at the same time that I read Asimov's The Gods Themselves. Taken together, these authors paint decidedly different thoughts about our long-term destinies.
Ringworld??? Oh, man, the possibilities! If it gets picked up as an ongoing series, there’s just so much to explore. (I hope they pronounce Wu’s first name as “Louie” and not “Lewis,” per Niven’s response to a question I asked on the Niven-L mailing list a decade ago.)
I’m rereading Lucifer’s Hammer and have been thinking that the time is ripe for a movie version. And they mention Saberhagen’s Berserker books, so I will probably read those next, and they could make a great series, too (would it be an anthology show or have a continuing lead character?).
My sense of what’s being talked about for Ringworld is a simple mini-series, not a pilot. Though an ongoing series would make a huge amount of sense …