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.

Button fiddling

Long, long time ago, when the grass was greener and the sky a deeper shade of blue, I was naive enough to believe that there was no better epic fantasy than Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

Somewhere in the gap between n^th and (n+1)^th book I grew bored and decided to look for new options. Immediately A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin caught my attention.

Several reviews praised it to the stars yet also mentioned that no other author was so prone to crippling and murdering his characters like Martin. I knew how attached I might become to the characters so the doubts lingered. Then at some point I decided to give it a shot.

Prelude

ASoIaF is not just a book. Every book is a story but this one is a Story. As much as I respect Martin for that one, the discover of his earlier books (Sci-Fi of luscious-ladies-in-tight-outfits-with-laser-guns type) would never make me look in the direction of his work again. So I believe that this is a case of those sparkles of inspiration that simply have to find its way into somebody’s mind.

Dragons and magic (thank God, no elves!) might attract you to this story if you’re into that stuff, but they have been playing a somewhat desaturated role so far. When I read it first, I found it very refreshing that the amount of magic was cut down to premonitions, dreams and old stories.

The story is set in kingdom of Westeros, what immediately manifests as Europe of Dark Ages: knights in shiny heavy bloodstained armour, stench of war, deadly intrigues and poisonings, bastards, trueborns, lordlings and matters of inheritance.

Key figures, families of Starks and Lannisters are the easiest allusion of all, the War of Roses. The plot follows the fall of Stark family to the hands of Lannisters and their underlings, the civil war tearing the realm apart and the wild tribes stirring at the border. Among other things the surviving child of the previous dynasty is sold to the great clan leader in the Far East.

Other hints are not so eager to be spotted. I have a reason to believe, for example, that the world of Westeros will never see its Genghis Khan

Intercourse

One of the most appealing and wonderfully done feats of the book that truly sets it apart is the way of narrative: each chapter is told from the point of view of another character, sometimes, the “good” guy, sometimes, the “bad”, never judging and never failing to underline that the world is not black and white but the shades of gray.

Besides making it more subjective and objective at the same time, this way of storytelling truly connects you to the characters.

I’m an escapist, what I demand from a book is to take me away, to make come to life in my head, and this is the greatest magic Martin could have possibly invoked. The characters live and breath with you, and you laugh/suffer/love/hate/die with them.

Each chapter is told in the unique voice, even the choice of words used is often specific to the character.

The atmosphere is terrific. Descriptions of balls and battles, knights’ armour and kitchen utensils, sophisticated outfits and meals are very graphic and sound very authentic to what I have read about that era. You can almost smell the scented oils or rotting flesh.

Getting back to magic, it seems to be on the same level that was believed in those times: witches, martyrs, stories of dragons and creatures of the night. The news never travel fast, gossips arising from the news are wildly out of proportion which makes it strike even closer to home.

There are layers and layers and layers of subplots, e.g. the religious confrontation: old pagan gods, the Christian-like seven-faced god and more harsh and strict concept of Red God of Light.

Underneath it all it is an apocalyptic story of the world on the verge of catastrophe: the long winter is coming, the comet paints the skies crimson and long forgotten evil is awakening from its several thousand years slumber. And people are still playing their little games, fighting their petty wars, and that is another ‘so true’ point.

Climax

I could talk about this book for ages. I have read the whole series twice already and I’m sure it’s not going to stop there. Four books have been published to the date. I was lucky to have started reading when there were three already or I could have gone mad.

A cigarette after

Funny thing: first time I was reading the books in Russian, and each book was divided in two parts and published that way. I managed to mistake the second book for first, thought it was author’s plot to immerse the reader in the thicket of the action explaining things in characters’ recollections. Imagine my surprise when the last book I had and started to read in high hopes of finding out what happened next (lots of cliffhangers) occurred to be the first!

I enjoyed the first book nevertheless, learning how it all began, and took a sort of pride in the fact that I rebuilt most of the events in my head. The fourth book came a year later and I devoured it in three days. It wasn’t what I expected but that’s the way of Martin.

Here are some final thoughts that might let you decide whether you wish to mess with ASoIaF:

1. It’s VERY LONG. War and Peace? Multiply by 2 and that sounds about right. For the books already written.
2. Yes, it’s far from being finished. The fifth book is on the way (and been there since 2005), and Martin said, he felt like seven books were enough to tell the whole story. If judged by the rate so far, it might as well take another 10 years.
3. It’s complicated: a whole another kind a pleasure was to pick up things only slightly hinted at and never stated for sure.
4. There are lots of characters, some major, hundreds of other people; historical figures are mentioned constantly. If your memory is good and enjoy puzzles of the kind, then it’s a good read.
5. This book will do things to your head. I keep catching myself speaking to the characters in my mind, even yelling at them and wishing to appear in the scene and kick some ass.

P.S.

George R.R. Martin

Martin is a cruel author. Not only are the books gritty, the characters do really die (quite messy, I must say, especially the good guys) and his cliffhangers are just VIOLENT.

Here, look at the smirking face of this ruthless bastard and hate him as much as I do.

I LOVE you, Mr. Martin. Do publish The Dance with Dragons this year, PUH-LEEEAASE!