Apple is turning William Gibson’s Neuromancer into a TV series

I LOVE Shadowrun, but it would be so criminally expensive to do (and do well) as live action that I would be genuinely worried if someone tried.

Read [or reread] "Damnation Alley" by Roger Zelazny. You could argue that it's the original 'punk' science fiction novel. A hard bitten Hell's Angel is chosen to drive across the post-atomic wasteland to deliver a life giving serum to the last city on the East Coast.

When I think about it, I decide that the Atomic War took place circa 1970 and keep all the background details in that era.

I gave up on Foundation by the end of the second episode.

It doesn't take place in the Neuromancer universe, whatever that means. It was an homage to the book, inspired by it, but that's where the similarities end.

And it was still pretty bad, despite looking very pretty.

"You killed my child."

"No, I killed someone else's kid, they just had your kid's name."

"So we agree you killed a child?"

Also, people that say that Foundation was unfilmable are just parroting what others have said. If it had been done by someone with any talent, it would have been just fine. Instead they gave it to a milquetoast superhero writer/director. Dune is a great example of a property that really should only work as a book, but it's directed by someone who gives a shit and has vision.

If they wanted to do an original story, then why license the property and attach the name?

See "I, Robot" with Will Smith.

Totally agree. I was put off by it at first, but I forced myself to pretend it was new IP with similar character names, and now I love it. It’s a very well-made show with excellent acting, gorgeous set design and beautiful cinematography.

I implore folks to just watch it like it’s not based on any books.

The fact that book-readers don't like the TV show isn't some failure to conceptualise on their part - it's because Foundation is a below-average TV show and a terrible book adaptation. The Foundation series is an examination of the social and political forces that shape society on the scale of millions of people and hundreds of years. But none of the science and politics that underpins Foundation comes through in the TV adaption. In the books, Hari Seldon is just a scientist, but in the show he becomes more like magic wizard man\Jesus allegory, while Salvor Hardin (who is mostly a politician in the books) ends up as a low-rent space action hero.

The fact that the series doesn't directly follow the books isn't the problem, because a 1:1 adaption of the book probably wouldn't make for good TV, it would feel dated and dry. I generally like it when an adaption has a new, original spin on the material. The problem is, Foundation isn't a good show on its own terms, it's a shallow-but-flashy science fiction soap opera with thin characters and an overarching plot mostly driven by pointless mystery boxes and stupid coincidences. It never engages with the political and sociological ideas presented in the novels, but it also provides no new ideas to replace them. The whole experience feels empty and meaningless.

In your post, you don't just say that you like it, you're actually implying that you think the people who prefer the books are wrong, and that they have a lesser understanding of the material than you. So I ask you: what is the foundation TV show actually about?

See, I disagree. They ruined it with the stuff they added, and they completely changed the premise of the books. The books aren't about people, they're about predictions playing out over thousands of years. The show is about people, and not very believable or interesting ones at that.

Strongly agree.

I was making a joke about the famously bad audio book Gibson did for Neuromancer. I've listened to it, it's really bad.