I didn’t read this series when I was a kid, but I finally got around to reading Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber.
Given it’s an older series, I wasn’t sure how much I’d like it (some of those older series age horribly), but it was actually REALLY good still, and the few minor things that’d aged too much wouldn’t be hard to update for a modern audience.
But the concept of Amber is fantastic, Corwin’s behavior and arc perfect, and I think a TV series could do it justice nowadays. Man, some CGI artists could do some beautiful work depicting a hellride through shadow.
I also would really, really love to see Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern adapted…but there’s a few parts that have aged pretty badly, so it’d need careful handling of things like Lessa and F’lar’s relationship and such. And maybe, you know, keep Jaxom the hell away from Corana.
But I think the whole idea of threadfall, and Impressing dragons, could be done beautifully on the screen. I think a run from Dragonflight to All The Weyrs of Pern (including the Harper Hall Trilogy) could be done. (Then leave the later books out, they don’t really add much, lol.)
The series would need a top-notch composer scoring it, though. I’d vote for Natalie Holt. She did wonderfully with Loki, and it’d be a nice touch having a woman score the series that’d have the Harper Hall Trilogy included in it.
What didn’t you like about them?
It just gets… dumber? It’s pretty subjective though.
Spoiler alert
Not a dumb part, but the main characters, being separated for a long time, don’t get their own interesting storylines. It seems like authors got bored with characters and didn’t know what to do with them. New characters are usually boring. Duarte’s daughter, Kamal’s son - they are just background… The only strong character in focus is Tanaka.
Ah ok, I see. Well I want to be clear, if someone is interested in reading, don’t be deterred by this, make your own opinion. My wife and I loved every book. I really liked Amos’ trajectory especially.
To touch on how I interpreted your points in the story (CONTAINS SPOILERS AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO HIDE THEM):
-It pointed out the higher dimension beings couldn’t actually pinpoint anything in our spacetime unless a huge amount of energy was released at the exact moment we crossed their dimension through the gates. -It seemed to me that everyone was scared of duarte and even more scared of modifying themselves with protomolecule after his “coma” where he killed someone instantly. -I think I remember the Laconians basically being arrogant and underestimating everyone.
I hear that you have a different opinion and maybe you got burnt out on the books, but I really hope the show finishes them up because I enjoyed them.