Take Me To Your Reader

Peter Kuskie, who joined me for the Hugos There episode on Project Hail Mary, joins us for a discussion of the new movie, with some brief discussion of the book as well. For more book discussion, refer back to the Hugos episode. The movie is a terrific adaptation and a great experience in the theater. … Continue reading Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir (with guest Peter Kuskie) →

Following up on our previous episode, we cover the latest season of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters, which is by almost any measurement a better adaptation than the movie. I’d been sick a looong time and wasn’t quite out of the woods at the time of recording, so make some … Continue reading The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan, Part Two (Disney+ series, season two) →

We return to Percy Jackson and the Mystifying Adaptations with Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the 2013 movie based on The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan. Will this movie right the ship and kick of the remaining three movies into a successful and beloved quintilogy? (It will not.) We’ll reconvene next month for the … Continue reading The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan, Part One (2006 book/2013 movie) →

We all attended a screening of the Star Wars Holiday Special in Vancouver, Washington a couple of weekends ago, and I reached out to one of the co-producers on the documentary film A Disturbance of the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened, who happens to live in our town, and he agreed to … Continue reading Star-Wikileaks! (The Star Wars Holiday Special, with guest Scott Kirkwood from starwarsholidayspecial.com) →

This time we cover the remake/re-adaptation of Stephen King’s The Running Man. Rankings!: Colin: Book/2025 movie/1987 movie James: Book/2025 movie/1987 movie Seth: Book/1987 movie/2025 movie

It’s been 10 years since we covered this topic last, and we finally have a great adaptation! We got to see the new Frankenstein adaptation in theaters and recommend you do the same.

Double-dipping this month, covering a couple of previously covered books that got new adaptations. First up, the absolutely delightful nonsense that is The War of the Worlds, starring Ice Cube.

Seth was under the weather after returning from doing the Cotswold Way hike in England, so to protect the other guys from germs, this was recorded on his backyard patio, so please forgive the neighbor dog’s squeaky toy accompaniment. Rankings! Colin: movie/book James: book/movie Seth: movie/book Post-credits scenes for this episode include some discussion of … Continue reading Assistant *to* the Regional Major (The Long Walk, by Stephen King) →

Wrapping up (for now) the informal Robot series we’ve been doing, we discuss Brian Aldiss’s short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” adapted (loosely) to A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Rankings! Colin/James/Seth: Film Short Story Notes: https://brianaldiss.co.uk/writing/story-collections/collections-r-z/supertoys-last-all-summer-long/    

We discuss the final four episodes of Season One of Murderbot, then discuss the season as a whole, and then have a long post-script about what project to undertake after we cover one more robot story. (Hint: both possibilities begin with the letter S.)

Our continuing coverage of Murderbot, er, continues. We spend a bit of time discussing the pacing of the series. What do you think?

We’re doing a Murderbot series! We reacted to the trailer, and now we’re covering the first two episodes. We’ll do at least two more of these to cover the full season. If you’re listening on the website because your podcast player feed has gone dead, please update it to the RSS feed below: https://pavementpodcast.com/feed/podcast/tmtyr/

We recorded some quick thoughts that ironically take a while to get to about the Murderbot trailer and what we hope to see in the series. Happy May the Fourth! Murderbot is a droid, so it’s clearly canon.

We got to go see The Wild Robot at our local SF Film Festival, so we figured it was high time we covered this terrific movie, and we were joined by Colin’s elder son, Peter. Rankings: Peter/Colin/James/Seth: Movie/Book

We had a great conversation with Ed Ashton about his background in engineering and medical research, how he finds the time to write a novel every year, and how Mickey7 and Mickey-17 came to be. Edward’s website: https://www.edwardashton.com/

This time the guys look at Mickey7, by Edward Ashton, and its new adaptation, Mickey-17. We pretty much go full spoilers for everything, so be warned. The book takes a couple of days to read, and the movie will be on streaming soon. Rankings!: Colin: book/movie James: book/movie Seth: book/movie

This time the guys take up “The Bicentennial Man,” by Isaac Asimov, the 1976 novelette, and its 1999 movie adaptation Bicentennial Man. Rankings!: Colin: movie/story Seth: story/movie James: story/movie Notes & Links: That Joel Kinnaman/Eric Roberts looking The Positronic Man cover: Elizabeth Freeman, who successfully sued for her freedom from slavery https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/elizabeth-freeman-sued-for-freedom Bicentennial Man as … Continue reading “Bicentennial Man,” by Isaac Asimov (1999 movie) →

We take a quick look at the new Nosferatu movie as part of our ongoing Draculadaptations series. We had some trouble with our digital recorder and lost parts of the conversation. I’ve tried to salvage what I could and I hope you enjoy it. Good news is that we all enjoyed the movie.

This time, the guys are joined by both of Colin’s adult sons as well as a mystery guest, at a secret location known only to everyone who listens to this episode. It’s a Christmas miracle! We’re covering The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy, and its 1990 film adaptation. It’s fringy science fiction, but … Continue reading LMNOP-plots (The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy, recorded at ) →

Yes, we were going to be doing The Hunt For Red October. But we decided to kick that one down the road a month and replace it with a much less worthy movie, and an even less worthierer book. It’s the 1987 novel Penal Colony, by Richard Herley, and it’s a bit of a stinker. … Continue reading Mad Max in the Jungle! (Penal Colony, by Richard Herley, and 1994’s No Escape) →

This time we discuss the 1981 Caldecott-winning children’s book Jumanji, by Chris Van Allsburg, adapted into the 1995 Robin Williams movie of the same name, and expanded into the new Jumanji franchise started by Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Rankings!: Colin: 1995 movie, 2017 movie, book James: 2017 movie, 1995 movie, book Seth: 2017 movie, 1995 movie, book

This month, we keep things close to home, which makes sense given that last month we were quite far from home. We go small like we’ve never gone before, diving into a local adaptation of R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots, by Karel Čapek. It’s not necessary to have gone to our local theater for the … Continue reading It’s not Jersey Boys! R.U.R, by Karel Čapek →

We had a fun time recording live at WorldCon with a few select friends in the audience, talking about games and video games adapted into movies. And with a bonus quiz from listener and fellow podcaster Andy Parry. We discuss (briefly) Battleship, Doom, and Clue, and also mention a number of other game to movie … Continue reading Live at Glasgow 2024 WorldCon! Games/Video Games Adapted to Film! →

This time we picked up a very hard to find story, “A Situation of Gravity,” by Samuel W. Taylor, which was adapted into the 1961 movie The Absent-Minded Professor and the 1996 remake Flubber. The story was originally published in the May 22, 1943 issue of Liberty magazine. We couldn’t find that. It was also anthologized in … Continue reading Flubber Colonoscopy! (The Absent-Minded Professor/Flubber, based on “A Situation of Gravity,” by Samuel W. Taylor →

Ben DeBono from The Sci-Fi Christian joins us once again to discuss a slow science fiction movie and the book that inspired it. It’s Roadside Picnic, by the Strugatsky Brothers, adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky into Stalker. SFC episode about Ben catching up with the Criteron Collection: http://thescifichristian.com/2023/08/episode-1107-criterion-completion/ SF 101 episode about the OMSI Science Fiction … Continue reading Stalker, based on Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky (with guest Ben DeBono) →

It’s unfortunately time to talk about the A Wrinkle In Time adaptations. We also discuss the book, of course, but I tried to pull back a bit since my fuller thoughts on the book are also covered in my Hugos There episode with Mandy Self: https://hugospodcast.com/podcast/a-wrinkle-in-time-by-madeline-lengle-feat-mandy-self/ Rankings! Colin/James/Seth: book very large chasm, perhaps a cloud … Continue reading A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeline L’Engle →

In this episode, we discuss the new Adam Sandler movie (okay, it came out March 1st, but it was new for us!) Spaceman, based on Spaceman of Bohemia, by Jaroslav Kalfar. It’s an interesting adaptation of an interesting book, but don’t go in looking for an action movie. It’s not necessary to read the book … Continue reading Arachnotherapy! (Spaceman of Bohemia) →

We saw Dune: Part Two, then grabbed dinner, then got together to discuss our thoughts on the second half of Villeneuve’s Dune adaptation. We all loved it and welcome any other SF adaptations he wants to do in the future.

The guys follow up their coverage of The Lightning Thief by discussing the first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Rankings: Colin/James/Seth: book/series/a very large gap/movie

This is the first of two episodes we’ll do on The Lightning Thief. In this one, we just discuss the book and 2010 movie. We’ll get to the series next month once it’s complete. Rankings!: James/Colin/Seth: book/movie (duh) A couple of links: My blog post that I resurrected and commented on: https://pavementpodcast.com/the-lightning-thief-movie-how-to-badly-adapt-a-book-a-case-study/ Rick Riordan’s reminisces … Continue reading Those Meddling Satyrs: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan, Part One (2010 movie) →

A quick end of the year episode about the new Disney+ short film (40 minutes), Shepherd, based on the Frederick Forsyth novella of the same name. I believe the story is more well known by folks in Britain and former Crown Colonies than it is to American audiences; this was certainly our first experience of … Continue reading The Shepherd, by Frederick Forsyth (and 2023 short film) →

While James was away in South America, Colin’s younger son, Tim, joined us for a discussion of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, along with several adaptations, including the radio play, the classic movie, the 2005 remake with Tom Cruise, and the 2019 BBC limited series. Rankings! Colin: 2005/novel/Radio Play/1953/2019 Tim: novel/Radio Play/2005/1953/2019 Seth: … Continue reading The Woking Dead (The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells), with Tim Kuskie →

This time we just roundtable some other Dracula-adjacent material we’ve consumed. Consider it a DVD extra from our previous episode. Works referenced (not exhaustive): Van Helsing (movie) Renfield (movie) Love at First Bite (movie) Dracula Untold (movie) Dracula Daily (book/email subscription) The Dracula Tape (book) Blade (film series) Underworld (film series) The Strain (book and … Continue reading Dracula-Adjacent (movies, TV, books) →

This time, the guys discuss Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel, Dracula, and two of its direct adaptations, the classic 1931 Universal movie, and 1992’s lavish Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. We also mention quite a few other direct or slightly indirect adaptations. Rankings! Colin: 1931 film, book, 1992 movie James: Audible version, 1931, 1992 … Continue reading So Many Transfusions! (Dracula, by Bram Stoker) →

On The Beach, by Nevil Shute (feat. Michael Simshauser) (Content warning: discussions of suicide and euthanasia) Michael Simshauser, our favorite Aussie and longtime friend of the pod, joins us for a long awaited discussion of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and its two film adaptations from 1959 and 2000. We do try to keep the … Continue reading On The Beach, by Nevil Shute (feat. Michael Simshauser) →

This time, the guys welcome back Dr. Phil Nichols to talk about the recent adaptation of H.G. Wells’s “The Crystal Egg” by the Planet Zoom Players, as well as briefly touching on the Tales of Tomorrow adaptation from 1951. Rankings: Colin: PZP adaptation, story, Tales of Tomorrow James: PZP adaptation, story Seth: PZP adaptation, story, Tales of … Continue reading The Crystal Egg, by H.G. Wells (feat. Phil Nichols) →

Spoilers abound! The screenplay for The Last Voyage of the Demeter has been passed around Hollywood since the late 90s. It’s finally in theaters, and the screenwriter, Bragi Schut, joins us to talk about the new movie, based on a brief chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. (Chapter 7 “Captain’s Log” if you want to read it.) We … Continue reading The Last Voyage of the Demeter (with screenwriter Bragi Schut) →

It’s summer, and Shark Week, so the guys take on Steve Alten’s 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror and its 2018 action movie spectacle starring Jason Statham. Rankings! Colin: Movie/Book James: Audiobook/Movie Seth: Movie/Book

This time, the guys consider Isaac Asimov’s excellent short story / novelette “Nightfall,” adapted to pretty dreadful movies in 1988 and 2000. Rankings! Colin: story/1988 movie James: story/2000 movie/1988 movie Seth: story/2000 movie/1988 movie

This time, the guys hop in the way back machine to 1909 and William Hope Hodgson’s short story “A Voice in the Night” and its small screen adaptation (Suspicion S1.E24) and big screen Japanese adaptation (Matango, or Attack of the Mushroom People!). We neglected to rank them, which is surprising. Maybe we were distracted by … Continue reading Fungal Furor! (A Voice in the Night/Matango) →