Frank Herbert was always amenable to the idea of his work being adapted into other mediums, but the prose on the page proved to be lost in most attempts at creative translation. Once an individual or studio secured the rights and pursued the project, it shuddered through iterations, changed hands as frequently as loose change and wound up sitting idle in the backs of executives' minds and on the shelves of potential screenwriters and directors.
The industry term for this hot potato stagnation is "development hell," and Dune has had a long history of unenviable stops and starts when it comes to what was once referred to as unadaptable material. However, its recent success may jumpstart other languishing endeavors but also invite interest in riskier fantasy and sci-fi material. The following is a list of intellectual properties that deserve some sincere consideration.
Unsouled Written by Will Wight
The Cradle series is about a world brimming in magic, where law enforcers travel on jade-colored clouds and almost every man, woman and child practices a mystical discipline known as the sacred arts and spirits roam as ravagers, schemers and maybe even as dreadgods. The first book, titled Unsouled, follows Wei Shi Lindon, a young man whose spirit was born with a stunted spiritual core that blocks him from advancing as a sacred artist. He is doomed to a life of pity and scorn until an otherworldly entity takes an interest and sets him on a dangerous path of ascension to save his village from annihilation.
Will Wight is a self-published author whose Cradle books only exist in digital or audio formats. Earlier in 2021, the ninth book in the series, Bloodline, was 13th on the New York Times Audio Bestseller List. In the past he has expressed a desire to see this world depicted in an animated series on his platform "A Blog of Dubious Intent," and up until recently, it would feel like the only medium that could contain the tremendous scope and planet shattering imagery of his novels.
The First Law Written by Joe Abercrombie
A paragon of the grimdark sub-genre, Abercrombie's books traffic in a heroic cynicism replete with flawed men and women taking on or supporting flawed systems all the while trying to stay one step ahead of whatever is out to kill them. Set in the fictional Circle of the World with many real world pre-industrial age parallels, magic is dimming and fleetingly rare, practiced only by a few devotees who have typically broken one or both of the two laws of forbiddance: Do not tap into the power of the realm below and do not gain power by eating the flesh of man.
A memorable but shifting array of characters navigate a world where betrayal is common and honor is mythical. The glorious battle between good and evil happens in the unspoken background while the daily toll of living through the machinations of emperors, kings and prophets fills the spaces between the pages. A Game of Thrones serves as an analog, but with fewer scruples or pretension toward selflessness.
The Broken Earth Series Written by N.K. Jemisin
Essun is an orogene, a person born with the ability to psychically manipulate tectonic activity with surgical precision and deadly results. On the dystopian supercontinent ironically called the Stillness, her kind is at worst hunted and at best enslaved by a coven of specialized warriors to be used as weapons of the state. The Broken Earth series opens with Essun having discovered that her infant son was murdered by her husband because he found out that he too was an orogene, and left their community with their teenage daughter, who also bears the curse. Essun sets out to find her daughter and kill her husband and, along the way, discovers that her vast power may be required for something more important than the life of her last living child.
Each novel in the trilogy won the prestigious Hugo Award, a feat that has never occurred before or since. There is nothing like it on television or on the screen, though Sony Tristar recently purchased the movie rights. The people who populate the Stillness are, by and large, people of color. In the most superficial and irrelevant way, Black Panther is a lazy comparison, but again, due to its success, this type of incredible storytelling is made possible in visual formats.
The Patternmaster Series by Octavia Butler
Spanning five books published non-chronologically and thousands of years of internal fictional history, The Patternmaster Series, or Patternist Series, is a fascinating treatise on misogyny, racism, power and intersectionality before the term had been coined. Patternmaster is the first book published in 1976 but is the last book in the series temporally. Taking place in the far flung future, humanity is separated into three distinct castes: Telepaths who share a hive mind ruled by the most powerful among them, mutated hybrids descended from a plague and an enslaved populace of genetic dead enders called mutes. The book follows Teray, son of the current Patternmaster, and his navigation of a strictly ordered feudal system on his rise to succeed his father.
The subsequent books hop through time, dating back to ancient Egypt, to describe the series of events that lead to Teray's trials by fire. The intricately woven concepts and commentary are perhaps more timely now than the time in which they were written, and stories like The Handmaid's Tale have proven that topically violent morality plays have an active and enthusiastic audience.
Girl in Space Written by Sarah Rhea Werner
Narrative audio fiction has found a resurgence in recent years with series like The Black Tapes, The White Vault, Welcome to Night Vale, Janus Descending and Homecoming, which was adapted into a series starring Julia Roberts. Girl in Space, created and starring Sarah Rhea Werner as the titular girl in space, is about a young woman alone on a space station orbiting an anomalous star. After years of watching Jurassic Park on a loop and experimenting with microbes, cheese and her automated companion Charlotte, she finds a mysterious nondescript button attached to nothing and seemingly without any discernible function.
After pressing the button, her life changes include a mysterious ship, capture, mutiny, a somewhat cyborg friend and the chilling realization that she was never quite as alone on the station as she had imagined. The story is charming and endowed with a rhythm of earnestness and indomitable spirit, smartly and humorously provided by the girl herself, "X." The podcast has won numerous awards and is currently preparing for a second season.