Via Deadline, Dark Horizons - my go-to source for movie news and reviews - reports than Battlestar Galactica and Carnivale showrunner Ron Moore is set to adapt Diana Gabaldon's bestselling Outlander fantasy saga into a series for cable TV.
I first heard this news on Tuesday, but it came up again yesterday, and then for a third time today. So that's the charm, and I simply had to ask: should I be paying more attention to Diana Gabaldon than I am?
For once, I can tell you exactly why I've steered clear of her work before now, though I'd be the first to admit my reasons apply only to me. Quite simply, I've never read Diana Gabaldon because, for all the wrong reasons - at least from my particular position - my mum used to love these books. Given the chance, she'd go on and on about Claire and Jamie, long past the point that everyone had started idly pushing their cuticles, and I got the distinct sense that she was reading the Outlander saga for the romance, rather than the fantasy.
Which was - and is - perfectly fine, but not what I was interested in either then, or now.
Methinks reason number two is more damning. You see, at some point, my mum went from an attitude of undying devotion to the series to one of utter disinterest. I think A Breath of Snow and Ashes put her off her coffee, because she still hasn't read An Echo in the Bone, nor - and I've asked her - does she plan to. Presumably six books of will-they/won't-they sexual tension was as she had in her... which I can kind of get behind.
But if I'm honest, I've never been able to determine if there's more to this series than that. So in light of the Ron Moore news, you tell me, good people: is the Outlander saga any good? Are its early novels self-contained and satisfying enough that I could read Diana Gabaldon's debut without feeling compelled to continue on, ad infinitum? Because that's what I'm inclined to do, assuming my mum isn't completely out of her wheelhouse on this one.
Meanwhile, who's keen to see a cable TV adaptation of the epic tale? And from the man behind the divisive modern-day interpretation of Battlestar Galactica, no less.
Is Ron Moore a good choice to bring this story into our living rooms, do you think, or are alarm bells ringing with anyone else?
0 comments:
Post a Comment