Martha Wells, Murderbot, and Books That Should Be Made Into Shows

Epic novels we should see on the screen

The Murderbot Diaries are coming to the screen and I’m beyond thrilled! Author Martha Wells was excited about the screenplay, approves the casting, and serves as a consulting producer, and that’s good enough for me to get my hopes up fairly high.

The show is currently in the filming stage, and will appear on  Apple TV+ at some point in 2025.

Of course, the streaming series will have a lot of differences from the books because such big parts of the all the stories take place inside SecUnit’s head. Wells herself acknowledged that in an author talk video, linked below. So the challenge will be in creating external action from internal conflict.

If you’re a Martha Wells fan, either her science fiction or her fantasy works (I’m both), there’s a lot of news about her upcoming works. Queen Demon, the sequel to Witch King, will be released July 8, 2025. She said in her talk that it will actually be a trilogy, but she needs to finish a new Murderbot book before starting on the third Witch King book. And, she is currently working on that new Murderbot book. She noted that there will be two future Murderbot novellas, and  there will be a new short story. Lots of good stuff to look forward to!

More Books That Should Be Made Into Shows

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. With 20+ books and short stories, there’s more than enough material to work with. The series has adventure, political intrigue, romance, and some space opera elements. The main hero, Miles Vorkosigan, is unusual, resourceful, resilient, witty, and manages to get himself into some almost absurd situations. A streaming series could last for many seasons.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Sure, this would be more of a slow burn than a rollicking adventure show, but the potential for fantastic and futuristic characters is immense. I’d love to see a show that illustrates the best that we could be as people, and the ending does offer the chance for some action to take place.

The MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood. Great dystopian books completely different from The Handmaid’s Tale  and a nice challenge for makeup and special effects people.

Lastly, I would love to see any series at all by Kate Elliott. She writes fantasy to rival anything streaming today.

What do you think? What would you want to see on the big or small screen?

What I’m Reading

I’m a little late to the game, but I just finished An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Unsettling, thought-provoking, vivid, disturbing, and ultimately hopeful, are my main thoughts. It’s hard to think of a future in which a generation ship could be racially segregated, and I mean “hard” as in, I had to stop in a few places to wonder how we would or could get from here to there as a society. Solomon doesn’t really address that in the book, and they don’t draw obvious parallels in the story, but that’s what makes it interesting to think about.

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