Streaming Recommendations (Netflix, HBO, Amazon, etc.)

Quote: ams288

I actually do own the book. It's been sitting around gathering dust waiting to be read for several years now...

If you were to bet on the book being better than the movie every time a movie is made from a book, you'd win an overwhelming percentage of the time (above 99%). Largely this is because the book's author didn't need a large budget (with exceptions), nor were they limited by time constraints or visual effects or even good actors.

But how does a book compare to a TV series made of it?

Budget, talent and visuals remain, but time is not as troublesome.

Quote: Nareed

But how does a book compare to a TV series made of it?

Interesting question. Out of the over 150 examples listed in Wikipedia, I can't find one where I've read the book and seen the TV series. It's funny, because there are a number of movies where I have done both (i.e. "Bonfire of the Vanities"). Actually "Bonfire of the Vanities" would make a great Netflix series.


"Television programs based on American novels"
0–9
13 Reasons Why
79 Park Avenue
The 100 (TV series)
666 Park Avenue
A
Adderly
The Adventures of Hiram Holliday
The Alaska Kid
Alex Haley's Queen
The Almost Royal Family
The Amazing Mr. Malone
The Andromeda Strain (miniseries)
Animorphs (TV series)
Anna and the King (TV series)
Archer (1975 TV series)
B
The Baby-Sitters Club (TV series)
Bannertail: The Story of Gray Squirrel (anime)
The Blue Knight (TV series)
Bosch (TV series)
Broken Arrow (TV series)
Brush with Fate
Buffalo Girls (1995 film)
The Burden of Proof (miniseries)
C
The Carrie Diaries (TV series)
Centennial (miniseries)
Chesapeake Shores
Children of the Dust (miniseries)
Christy (TV series)
Cora Unashamed
D
Dan August
The Dark Secret of Harvest Home
Darkover (TV series)
Decoration Day (film)
Dinky Hocker
Dinotopia (miniseries)
The Dresden Files (TV series)
E
Earthsea (miniseries)
East of Eden (miniseries)
Eastwick (TV series)
Emerald City (TV series)
Emily's Reasons Why Not
Empire Falls (miniseries)
The Expanse (TV series)
F
Family Album (miniseries)
A Farewell to Arms (miniseries)
Father Dowling Mysteries
The Firm (2012 TV series)
Fudge (TV series)
G
GCB (TV series)
Gideon Oliver
Gone (TV series)
Gossip Girl
H
Hannibal (TV series)
Haven (TV series)
Huge (TV series)
I
If Tomorrow Comes (miniseries)
The Immortal (TV series)
J
Ein Job
L
Lanigan's Rabbi
The Last of the Mohicans (1971 series)
Legends (TV series)
A Lesson Before Dying (film)
Little House on the Prairie (miniseries)
Little House on the Prairie (TV series)
Little Women (1950 TV series)
The Long, Hot Summer (TV series)
The Lying Game
M
The Magicians (U.S. TV series)
Maximum Bob
Miracle's Boys
Monday Mornings
P
Peyton Place (TV series)
Q
Quarry (TV series)
Queen Sugar
R
Roswell (TV series)
S
Salem's Lot (2004 miniseries)
Seventh Avenue (miniseries)
Shōkōjo Seira
Space Strikers
Spenser: For Hire
Star Wolf (TV series)
The Starter Wife (miniseries)
The Strain (TV series)
Sweet Valley High (TV series)
T
Tales of the City (miniseries)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (film)
The Thin Man (TV series)
Time After Time (TV series)
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (TV series)
True Blood
The Two Mrs. Grenvilles
U
Under the Dome (TV series)
Unforgettable (2011 TV series)
V
The Vampire Diaries
W
War and Remembrance (miniseries)
Wayward Pines
The Wedding (miniseries)
Windmills of the Gods (miniseries)
The Winds of War (miniseries)
Witches of East End (TV series)
The Women of Brewster Place (miniseries)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1986 TV series)
Y
The Young Pioneers (miniseries)
Younger (TV series)
Z
Zane's Sex Chronicles
Zane's The Jump Off
Zoo (TV series)

Under the Dome - I LOVED this book. One of Stephen King's best in recent years.

The TV show was a complete abomination. Horrible. They completely neutered the book. I watched a season then I couldn't take anymore. Can't believe it got two more after that...

Quote: Pacomartin

Interesting question. Out of the over 150 examples listed in Wikipedia, I can't find one where I've read the book and seen the TV series. It's funny, because there are a number of movies where I have done both (i.e. "Bonfire of the Vanities"). Actually "Bonfire of the Vanities" would make a great Netflix series.

Bosch
I read all the books
then
watched the TV series

Quote: Pacomartin

Interesting question. Out of the over 150 examples listed in Wikipedia, I can't find one where I've read the book and seen the TV series.

Likewise.

In the 50s Asimov wrote a series of short, adolescent-oriented novels about a character called "David Starr: Space Ranger" (surely you see where this is going). By the second novel, I think, the title character was known as "Lucky Starr." The titles were things like "Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus" (I know, I know). Other than the fact they were more or less astronomically accurate (oceans of Venus and all), IMO they're Asimov's most pulpish work after his very early short stories (albeit smarter pulp than you get in most TV).

I mention this because Doubleday urged him to write them so they could shop them around to the nascent TV networks as a basis for a TV series. In his memoirs he says "we had no clue how TV would work."

As an aside, he used the pseudonym "Paul French" in the initial print run for some reason (I forget). In any case, chockfull as the stories were with positronic robots, needle guns, neuronic whips and other Asimovian paraphernalia, he might as well not have bothered.

Winds of War book and series are above
excellent, I have both in my library. Bosch
us a great new series on Prime. Peyton
Place book and series excellent. I think
I never saw the rest.

HBO NOW
Just started watching a new series "The Young Pope"
1st 15 min blew me away and sucked me right in
Good stuff, just finished the 1st episode

Quote: Nareed

Other than the fact they were more or less astronomically accurate (oceans of Venus and all), IMO they're Asimov's most pulpish work after his very early short stories (albeit smarter pulp than you get in most TV).

According to a 1969 New York Times profile, Asimov started his work day between 9:30 and 10 am. He typed over 90 words a minute on his electric typewriter, with a backup in case it broke. Asimov took only small breaks and worked well into the night. He went to bed at 10 or 11 pm, probably drafting an outline for the next part of the book in his dreams. Through this process he sometimes churned out an entire book in a few days.

Asimov’s lunch pail approach to writing made him put words on paper even if the muse did not visit him that day. He scoffed at the idea of “writer’s block.” His father was a candy store owner in Brooklyn who opened his doors at 6 am every day, whether or not he felt like it. The elder Asimov did so without ever complaining about “shop keeper’s block.”

Asimov preferred a completely unembellished style of writing. His characters were so simple and the dialogue so functional that it approached the telegraphic minimum of language. There is little literary criticism on Asimov despite his widespread popularity and influence as a writer. This is because he stated so clearly to the reader of his intention in the plot what is happening in the story and why it is happening. Characters do not speak so much as exposit. There is very little for a critic to interpret when characters do the work for them.

Asimov credited this approach more than anything else to his high output. When Writer’s Digest asked him the secret to his prolific writing, he replied, “I guess I’m prolific because I have a simple and straightforward style.”

Quote: Pacomartin

Asimov’s lunch pail approach to writing made him put words on paper even if the muse did not visit him that day. He scoffed at the idea of “writer’s block.” His father was a candy store owner in Brooklyn who opened his doors at 6 am every day, whether or not he felt like it. The elder Asimov did so without ever complaining about “shop keeper’s block.”

Which was, of course, bullshit.

In his memoir, "I, Asimov," he explains he usually worked on several books at once, and most were non-fiction. If he got stuck in one, he'd turn to another. He also had a method for dealing with being stuck with fiction. He'd go to a simple-minded action movie, like a James Bond film, and let his subconscious solve the writing problem, or so he claimed.

By the 60s his output was mostly non-fiction, with occasional SF and mystery short stories he sold to various magazines. His only SF novel between the late 50s and 1981 was "The Gods Themselves." In 1981 he was finally pushed enough by Doubleday to continue the Foundation saga. He wrote three more books for it, as well as two more for his Robot novels. But still his main output was non-fiction.

Quote:

This is because he stated so clearly to the reader of his intention in the plot what is happening in the story and why it is happening.

I don't know about that. In a 50s novel, The Naked Sun, he completely hides the guilty party until after the climax. In the sequel, The Robots of Dawn, the lead character, Detective Elijah Baley, has the crime solved, to his satisfaction, when I had no clue how that could possibly be.

Me, I think Asimov implicitly followed Niven's dictum: if you have nothing to say, say it any way you want. If you have something to say, be perfectly clear about it; let it not be your fault if you're not understood.

Asimov had 4 Selectric's, not 2. The
one he was using, 1 for backup, and
the other 2 were always in the shop.
They broke down a lot.

He said fiction was the hardest to write,
it would take him as long as 30 hours
to write a SF novel. But it was in fits
and starts, he worked mostly on science
books.

In the 70's he had the most books in print
at the same time than any author in history,
I think it was over 100. He said he didn't
think when he was writing, information
seemed to be flowing into him on the left
side of his head and out thru his fingers
onto the keys.

He was plagued with anxiety and superstition.
Every time his wife left the house he would
work himself into a tizzy, imagining her being
killed by a bus, or hit with a piano falling from
40 story's, or stepping into an open manhole.