Glenn Reynolds pointed out the following highly interesting story over at SciFi.com today:
Diamond Age, based on Neal Stephenson’s best-selling novel The Diamond Age: Or a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, is a six-hour miniseries from Clooney and fellow executive producer Grant Heslov of Smokehouse Productions.
When a prominent member of society concludes that the futuristic civilization in which he lives is stifling creativity, he commissions an interactive book for his daughter that serves as a guide through a surreal alternate world. Stephenson will adapt his novel for the miniseries, the first time the Hugo and Nebula award winner has written for TV.
My heart simultaneously leaped and sunk as I read those words in roughly the following order of rationales:
- A Neal Stephenson mini-series? Awesome!
- It’s not Snow Crash? D’oh!
- Oh, it’s The Diamond Age. I guess that’s okay.
- George Clooney is producing it? Crap.
- Well, at least Stephenson is being tasked with writing the screen adaptation.
So, I guess we’ll see what comes of it. If it completely rocks, maybe SciFi and Stephenson can work on Snow Crash as a follow-up. I so want to see The Deliverator and “Reason” brought to the screen, silver or small, it matters not which.
Like episodes 2 and 3 of Star Wars you know in your heart that you must see this mini-series even as you dread the ruination of fond memories.
My only question is, what the hell is the date of release? I can’t find even a ball park guess anywhere online. Please help!
As far as I can tell, it’s slated for 2008. Anything further is only available to IMDB “Pro” users.
Ptui!
I loved Snow Crash don’t get me wrong, but the creativity and depth of the story in Diamond Age blow it out of the water. And if all you know about Clooney is that he’s better looking than you (or me), try checking out some of the projects he’s working on. The guy is smart, takes some great rolls (yes and some trash, but so have they all), and evidently likes great sci-fi. If all you want to see is the Deliverator you can probably find similar cars in a dozen sci-fi-made-for-beta movies in your nearest blockbuster.