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.
