Sunday, June 23, 2013

The 12 most unfaithful adaptations of science fiction & fantasy books

At io9 Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders came up with the twelve most unfaithful movie versions of science fiction and fantasy books. One entry on the list:
Children of Men

In the P.D. James novel, an outbreak of male infertility leads to no more human births — but in the movie, it's female infertility, and there's no explanation. Apart from that, almost every element of James' novel is tossed out, except for a couple of character names. James' book is half journal entries by Theodore Faron, a history professor who happens to be the cousin to the "dictator and warden of England," and half the story of Theo's encounter with a dissident group, the Five Fishes. The film is a masterpiece, but at the same time, it barely has anything in common with the novel whose title and premise it shares.
Read about another entry on the list.

The Children of Men is on Ben H. Winters' list of three books to read before the end of the world, John Sutherland's list of the five best books about the end of England and John Mullan's list of ten of the most notable New Years in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue