There are three recent TV shows that appeared on my radar as I’ve read the book series they were adapted from.

The Dresden Files

This Sci-Fi installment is the oldest of the stack and has survived one season only. The book series by Jim Butcher have 11 novels to the wiki knowledge and I’ve read eight of them so far.

The premise

Set in the world of magic realism, the story follows the adventures of Harry Dresden, the only wizard listed in Yellow Pages of Chicago, and a real one for that matter. Despite his attempts on quiet and unambitious way of living, Mr. Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden often finds himself dealing with rogue vampire lords, human mob bosses and each and every kind of demon/spook/death curse possible.

Book pros

The series is heavily stylized to resemble noir detective stories, only in magical setting: the lone hero in a long duster coat against a whole army of baddies, saving the world and the occasional damsel in distress. Humor and cheeky approach truly set the series apart (one of my favorite scenes is the animated museum T-Rex crushing the army of undead in downtown Chicago).

Book cons

Highly repetitive, as the genre requires.

TV adaptation pros

Harry Dresden, wizard

Casting Paul Blackthorne as Harry Dresden worked great for me — Paul’s got the looks and the attitude just right.

What went wrong

What usually does: oversimplification of the plot. Each book in the series has Harry working on a big case while also dealing with his complicated personal life, and certain distinctive threads link the books to each other.

While the decision to make each episode of the show a complete case is fully justified, I felt that the links and the attributes of what made Dresden Files fun were overlooked and lost in the process. And the cases presented on the show were not enough to hold interest on their own.

The Legend of the Seeker

This show is based on the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I have a post dedicated to the books, so long story short: a fantasy realm, a Chosen one armed with the Sword of Truth must save the world from the Dark Lord.

Book pros

SoT is one of the quirky-kinkiest fantasy stories out there.

Book cons

Should have been finished long ago — the latest books lost their charm for me and feel empty. The intricate card house of magic laws started falling apart too to provide the author with new plots.

TV adaptation pros

Hmm, lemme think… Joseph LoDuca score? Picturesque New Zealand landscapes? Female lead goodies on constant display? That might be it.

What went wrong

Basically everything. I don’t understand, why would somebody take a fully developed magical world, ditch all the stuff that makes it amusing and unique, add the most overused ingredients (the Massacre of the Innocents, anyone?), keep only the names of characters and places and call that an adaptation. The complicated and twisted story has been turned into ‘found bad stuff, must save people and eliminate evil, rinse, repeat’ episode type. The whole grand plot has been ruined and replaced with very basic and lousy subplots which lack intrigue, consistency and character development.

Say hello to Mistress

Considering all said, imagine my shock when I saw the episode ‘Denna’ when they suddenly switched to the torture-porn channel. I thought that maybe some SoT fans caught the writers, chained them in the basement and presented them the Mord’Sith way while sending directions for the episode via email. But that certainly did not last long, and somehow glimpses of the real book made it even worse. I wish somebody would put this show out of its misery.

True Blood

This one is a heavy-lifter from HBO. HBO is The Sopranos and Rome, and True Blood creator is the person behind Six Feet Under, so expectations were higher than usual. The books in question are the Southern Vampire chronicles by Charlaine Harris.

The premise

TruBlood ad

Here we’ve got another case of magic realism but contrary to #1 (where people are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of supernatural and turn a blind eye to its manifestations) in Harris’ world vampires made their presence public, they are fully legit; and it all was possible due to synthetic blood that can sustain the suckers.

The protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in a small (fictional) town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. She’s cute and otherwise ordinary girl if not for one thing: she’s a mind-reader. Now, everybody knows that being a mind-reading waitress in a small town is a recipe for trouble, and the troubles start towering when Sookie falls for the local vampire, one Mr. Bill Compton, with comfortably quiet mind and manners of a gentleman circa the Civil War.

Book pros

Rather solid series in its niche. I’ve read only the first two, and while not being anything remarkable they provided certain level of entertainment.

Book cons

Two much similarity to the Anita Blake series by Laurell Hamilton for my taste.

TV adaptation pros

Two words: OPENING CREDITS. Both the visuals and the song work together perfectly to create the required atmosphere of sizzling heat, misty swamps and woods hiding unimaginable monsters, and voodoo rituals followed by gospels, sending shivers down your spine. A true masterpiece in itself.

As far as I remember, the first season of the show (it has been renewed for a second 12-episode season) followed the course of the first book rather closely, extending and cutting here and there but staying on the same course.

Sookie and Bill

I’ve read several reviews that tore True Blood to pieces, being especially rancid about Anna Paquin’s performance as Sookie. That felt rather strange as I thought that both Sookie and Bill on the show were very similar to their book prototypes. I don’t remember Sookie’s brother being that big an idiot or the local vamp boss Eric being that glamorous and not at all menacing but other than that the adaptation seems flawless.

What went wrong

1. Fangs. Nobody does them right, I admit.
2. Accent. I’m not American, I can’t tell real Southern accent from the fake one, but the accents on the show felt forced and unnatural.

Why do I care?

Recently there was another fantasy show, BBC’s Merlin, and while, thankfully, it wasn’t a book adaptation in the strict sense, you can get from the title that it’s another take on the story of the king Arthur and Camelot. That one was BEYOND good and evil. Way beyond.

But: HBO is considering another adaptation, this time the biggie — A Song of Ice and Fire I’m so obsessed with. There’s one and only chance it might turn out good: if HBO people would forget the word fantasy and give it Rome- or Tudor-esque treatment it deserves.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read the last book (at the moment) in Sword of Truth (SoT) series. It was the 7^th or even 8^th, I think.

My feelings about the book were mixed. I loved me some fantasy back then. And it appeared to push all the right buttons. Behold:

1. Cute guy living in a forest who is destined to get the sword out of the stone and become a king for great things — check.
2. A seemingly harmless old man who is a mighty wizard in disguise — check.
3. A magic sword that is meant only for one person (guess who?) — check.
4. A pure evil that is a major peril to the kittens, dolphins and vicunas along with democracy and human rights all living things — check.
5. A pretty girl whose fate is intertwined with our hero’s and a miserable fate it is — check.
6. Dragons — what, only #6? How could I forget the dragons? — check.
7. Many other traditional things such as witches, trip to the underworld, evil kings and queens (or duchesses, I don’t remember exactly), curses, other magical artifacts, etc. — check.

But: the more I was into reading it the closer resemblance it seemed to bear to the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (WoT). WoT got to me first so, I thought, maybe I was just being prejudiced.

The story and origins of the main character, the bipolar system of magic, the manipulative Sisters of Light (and Dark Sisters among them), discrimination of male wizardry, the avoidance of naming the evil god — these are the points I remember now but back then I had a whole table of similarities between those two.

Among other things these books have in common are huge armies of fans and the ability to capture and hold reader’s attention. But while WoT feels like a clean version, Sot is more like a wicked dream.

Some scenes are full of vividly described violence but the hardest things are only hinted at and the moment you think of them is the moment you start hating yourself for what you can come up with.

There is a whole army of Mord’ Sith, women who were taken from their parents at very young age, abused and tortured to become the torture masters themselves (also immune to magic). They are dominatrixes clad in skin tight red leather who can reduce even the strongest person into begging and weeping. Does not it count as porn already?

The magic sword (see cl.3 above) is a broken toy too: it only works if the sword bearer truly believes that his opponent is guilty, otherwise it’s useless.

The girl (cl.5) is a holy figure, Mother Confessor, with a power to perform non-surgical lobotomy on people to learn The Truth. The person is a vegetable afterwards though. Side effects of Truth are unpleasant.

With each story arc our hero gets a new enemy that wipes the floor with him in the beginning of the arc and is wiped in the end. No matter what wild powers the protagonist got in the process, the next arch-enemy will overthrow him easily.

I know that there are a few more books but I have no desire to indulge in this guilty pleasure.

Ah, the books also had some strong allusions to Soviet Union as the Empire of Evil. And the main character (who somehow turned sculptor) defeated it by carving a sculpture that by description was a dead ringer for the famous ‘Worker and Kolkhoz Woman‘ only naked.

So, what was that all about? Ah, yes. It was decided to be made into a TV show, Legend of the Seeker. And it’s Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi. It might be cheesy but I’m sold.

Links:

• official TV show site;
• imdb page;
• Terry Goodkind official site.