-
On Adaptation
Adapting is not a matter of reformatting. Adaptation is re-imagination. When you’re reading prose, the incidents may run as vividly in your head as when you’re watching a movie, but don’t let that mislead you into thinking that there can’t be that much difference between them. Back in 1997, Pumpkin Books published the full text…
-
Horrocks, Capaldi, and the Rain That Never Fell
The first time that he saw her was across the parking lot of a motorway service area. It was about a quarter to midnight, and it had been raining. He could see that she was tired and cold and that she’d probably been on her feet for some time. She didn’t look much more than…
-
Process and Procedure
Which ought to be the title of Jane Austen’s unpublished crime novel… It’s the network pitching season in LA, and I just got back after an intense week with results that I should be able to tell you about sometime soon. After nine hours plus of breathing buggy plane air on the way home, I…
-
Radio Daze
I’ve had a heads-up to say that BBC Radio 7 will be airing my 90-minute adaptation of Chimera in two slots this coming Sunday (August 22nd) and again the following day… click here for the scheduled times, if that appeals to you. And, tying in with my Quiller post below, I notice that all this…
-
Of Girls, Swedes, and Dragon Tattoos
If you’re interested and you get the chance, try to see Niels Arden Oplev’s Swedish-language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo before you hear much more about the planned David Fincher remake. That first adaptation isn’t a perfect movie by any means, but as screen mysteries go it’s a very good one. A…
-
Chimera at the BFI
Here’s some news… on Monday July 5th as part of the Future Human season, my 1990 miniseries Chimera is getting a screening at the BFI South Bank. A while back I was asked if I’d say a few words before it, but that’s now expanded to become a Q&A with me and director Lawrence Gordon…
-
Writers Who Direct
In Conversation: A Writer’s Perspective is a projected series of author interviews edited by James Cooper. Volume One is available now and is a publication of The British Fantasy Society. Contributors include Joe Lansdale, Graham Joyce, Ramsey Campbell, Mark Morris, and Tim Lebbon. My conversation with James was in the form of a series of…
-
Dracula
In a post titled What I Learned in 2009 I promised I’d tell of my experience adapting Bram Stoker’s classic novel for BBC Wales. Much as I’d like to say that I had a flood of emails urging me to go ahead, I haven’t. But you’re getting it anyway. (Nope, that’s not it in the…
-
John Wyndham and Me
I haven’t seen the new adaptation of The Day of the Triffids yet – the parts are lined up on my hard drive, ready for when I’ve fought my way through all the BAFTA screeners in time for the next round of voting – but this review on the Blowing my Thought Wad blog inspired…
-
The Thirty-Nine Steps
I recently went back to John Buchan’s novel The Thirty Nine Steps, the template for all modern on-the-run thrillers from The Fugitive to 24 to the entire Jason Bourne trilogy. The re-reading confirmed my remembered impressions. The book has terrific narrative velocity. It also falls apart to an utterly unmemorable end, and the story doesn’t…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
