8 Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books to Read Ahead of Their Adaptations

Since its earliest days, Hollywood has been fond of adapting books for the screen—and in recent years, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books have become even more popular with screenwriters and studios. io9 has done several lists like this in the past (there’s still time to read Mickey7 before Bong Joon Ho and Robert Pattinson’s Mickey 17 comes out next year!), but there are always potential new film and TV projects being announced.

The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur

Lev Grossman (The Magicians) released this fresh take on the legendary Knights of the Round Table over the summer and it became a big hit with reader. But even before it arrived on bookshelves, Lionsgate had snapped up the rights for a series adaptation, according to a Deadline report.

Seveneves

In August, Deadline scooped that the rights to Neal Stephenson’s 2015 sci-fi novel had been acquired by Legendary Television (Monarch: Legacy of Monsters). According to the trade, Seveneves “follows how the best scientific minds come to the same conclusion after a meteor shatters the moon into seven pieces: in two years’ time, all humans on Earth will be destroyed by a ‘hard rain’ that will make the planet uninhabitable. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise a plan to ensure survival for humanity, initiating a new chapter for mankind.”

Dungeon Crawler Carl

Matt Dinniman’s indie novel (the first in a seven-part series) got a traditional publishing release in August, which is the same month it was nabbed for a TV series adaptation by a team that includes Seth MacFarlane’s production company. According to Deadline, the battle over the property was “highly competitive,” and Chris Yost (Thor: Ragnarok, The Mandalorian) is aboard to pen the adaptation. Who will play Princess Donut, Carl’s feline sidekick? Place all bets now.

MEM

Bethany C. Morrow’s dystopian 2018 novel is set in a world where people can extract their memories—and then re-live them over and over, with worrisome consequences. In August, it was announced in the Hollywood Reporter that actor turned screenwriter Nesta Cooper (Apple TV+’s See) will take on the big-screen adaptation.

In the Lost Lands

A short story by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin (it appears in 1982 multi-author anthology Amazons II) will form the basis for a fantasy adventure film from the Resident Evil team of Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich, with Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Dave Bautista also part of the cast. According to Deadline, whose news story suggests this film is already completed since it’s about the acquisition of its U.S. rights, “the story centers on a queen who, desperate to fulfill her love, makes a daring play: she sends the powerful and feared sorceress Gray Alys (Jovovich) to the ghostly wilderness of the Lost Lands in search of a magical power, where the sorceress and her guide, the drifter Boyce (Bautista), must outwit and outfight man and demon.”

Three Kings: The Institute, Fairy Tale, Carrie

With all the big-name casting announcements for Edgar Wright’s Running Man we’ve been getting lately, it’s almost possible to forget how much more Stephen King is on the way.

These three are just among the most recently announced, so consider this merely a drop in the King bucket: child-genius tale The Institute is getting an MGM+ series starring Mary-Louise Parker and Ben Barnes (read more details at Deadline); epic fantasy Fairy Tale is being made into a series—outlet TBD—by A24, director Paul Greengrass, and showrunner J.H. Wyman (Fringe); and the oft-adapted Carrie, King’s first published novel, will become an eight-episode Amazon Prime Video series by noted King enthusiast Mike Flanagan.

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