My Cart - Take a glance at some of the most popular titles on TV right now and you’ll see that many of them have something in common. Game of Thrones, Orange Is The New Black, Wolf Hall, True Blood, Dexter and many, many more: they’re all adapted from books.
It’s a logical thing to do; after all, in many cases the books already have a large fan following, so adapting an existing work for the screen is less of a risk than commissioning a brand new original story. However, there are many different ways to do it, and various pitfalls along the way.
Game of Thrones offers a prime example of one of those pitfalls. The fandom is pretty much split between those who have read the books and those who haven’t, and until now, the “books” side of the fandom have been the ones on top. They knew what to expect from the Red Wedding and were privy to the outcome of the duel between the Mountain and the Viper before it hit the screens. However, that’s all about to change.
The next book “The Winds of Winter” has no release date – author George R. R. Martin is very frank about the fact that it’s not finished yet so it’s not really likely to even be this year – and meanwhile the younger actors are growing up to the point that their plotlines need to move faster. Showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss are, it’s said, privy to the intended ending of the series and have no intention of padding it out to wait for the novels to be completed, so it looks very likely that the TV series is going to start overtaking the books at some point soon. Those who like to read the books first? Well, good luck avoiding the spoilers!
This could, of course, have been avoided if they’d waited for the books to be complete before they started the adaptation, but that wasn’t the only option. They could, if they wanted to risk the wrath of the fans, have taken the route chosen by the writers of serial killer drama Dexter – simply change the plot. Although the first series followed the events of the book “Darkly Dreaming Dexter” quite closely, the following seasons veered away from the books pretty drastically.
If you’re in the mood for some light reading – or if you want to skip the book and watch the TV series instead – here are some of today’s popular TV adaptations from books and their source material:
* Game of Thrones: George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series
* Orange is the New Black: Piper Kerman’s “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison”
* Wolf Hall: Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up The Bodies”
* True Blood: Charlaine Harris’s “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” series ( aka The Sookie Stackhouse novels)
* Dexter: Jeff Lindsay’s “Darkly Dreaming Dexter” and subsequent books
* Call the Midwife: Jennifer Worth’s “Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy and Hard Times”
Here at Electronic World, we offer a great range of quality graded TVs so if you’ve blown your budget on books and are looking for a cheap TV to catch the next series of Game of Thrones, look no further! You can get in touch with us on 0121 327 3273 or visit our Birmingham showroom.
