While it seems every comic book character ever thought of is getting a movie (Ant-Man?! Really?!), there are some deep and thought provoking Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels & Series still waiting to get picked up and get a big screen adaptation.
Stranger in a Strange Land / Robert A. Heinlein
Think Jungle Book, only with Martians raising the boy instead of wolves, before he is picked up by a ship and heads over to Earth, and is used as a tool to criticize and describe he consumerist and media-driven 20th-century United States.
Snow Crash / Neal Stephenson
Paramount have the rights to develop a film for the book, which invented cyberspace, or at least depicted it, way before we even knew what it is. It’s about Hiro Protagonist trying to save the world, but alos about a lot more than that.
Chronicles of Amber / Roger Zelazny
There’s no way the sci-fi/fantasy story about a bunch of demigods fighting for control of the one true world can be condensed into one film, but Lord of the Rings is doing so well into its fourth installment, and there’s no reason this epic story shouldn’t get a similar treatment.
Elric / Michael Moorcock
There have been talks about a movie for years and years, but so far, nothing. Anti-Heroes like Elric are much easier to pull off and hope for public acceptance these days than in the past, at least on the big screen, He is the reversal of old Fantasy cliches, similar to what A Song of Ice and Fire is, and especially the antithesis to everything Conan the Barbarian represents.
Belgariad & Mallorean Series / David Eddings
Unlike some of the other books on this list, Eddings doesn’t offer any significant changes from the traditional hero-evil battle we’ve seen quite a few times, but if the humor and dialogue of the books, which makes them stand out after more than 30 years since they began coming out, this one might be a huge success in the form of a long series of movies.
The Man in the High Castle / Philip K. Dick
This man isn’t getting a movie, but it is getting both a BBC version and a SyFy mini-series version, and yet nothing usually speaks volumes of a story like getting a movie adaptation, with the alternate reality of what if the Axis powers won World War II probably serving as a huge potential hit for the studio that picks it up.
The Mote in God’s Eye / Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
A story full of epic space battles, death-defying escapes and terrifying plot twists from start to finish about mankind discovering an alien race that looks cute initially but turns out to be quite a nasty threat to humanity. It would undoubtedly be extremely expensive to produce, but in the right hands, could become a sci-fi cinema classic, like it is in the book-world.
For a bit more to add to your must-read list, check out the 10 popular science books every geek must read.
