[FRIAM] Double Master Function (was Re: bad covid story)

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

Regarding the Amber series and Zelazny.   They were very influential on 
me... really the first/only "Fantasy" I ever cared much for.  If 
Zelazny's writing could be credited properly it would be to call it 
*Hard* Fantasy which seems somewhat a contradiction in terms.    When I 
moved to the area, I was surprised to discover that Roger Z had moved to 
Santa Fe himself not long before.   One of his later Amber novels 
included Santa Fe and Berkeley locations, so I might have guessed.   In 
any case, I discovered that he gave (twice-annual?) one-day workshops on 
fiction writing in Taos and Los Alamos.  I attended a few of them over 
the years and really enjoyed his personal style and writing tips.

Regarding a serialization/adaptation of Amber...  I would not expect it 
to be an easy one to adapt well... just as I've been very disappointed 
in the treatment of the Foundation Series on AppleTV...  The one 
redeeming opportunity *might* be Zelazny's "hard boiled" style which I 
do find renders well onto the screen with both dialog and imagery.

My cousin's (Vonda McIntyre) 1997 novel The Moon and the Sun (beat out 
Martin's Game of Thrones for the Nebula that year) and went on to be 
made into a "Hollywood Blockbuster" starring Pierce Brosnan as Louis 
XIV.   The project had lots of starts and stops but was finally 
*completed* in 2014.  It was finally released in theaters last month.

I went to see it as my first visit to a cinema since COVID out of 
loyalty.  It was a fine Disney-style PG movie for pre/teenage girls,  it 
didn't begin to do justice to the novel (as often happens).

Vonda died fairly abruptly of Pancreatic Cancer 3 years ago (April 1, 
following her quirky nature) but had enough time to polish of her last 
and final Novel which may eventually be published.  Her literary agent 
has been coy.   She was never forthcoming about why the movie itself was 
so slow in release.  I now suspect *she* may have been holding it up 
somewhat as it was such a weak adaptation, despite a huge budget and a 
star leading man.

- Steve


> No word yet!?!? My cynicism says it won't happen.
>
> The World Needs a ‘Chronicles of Amber’ TV Show
> https://www.wired.com/2021/05/geeks-guide-roger-zelazny/
>
> Just for kicks, here's some of the art in my 1981 copy of Madwand:
>
> https://slate.host/gepr/misc?cid=bafybeicwqgmnevz7eozntvhigdskcgezmprd55ec6ys2mrj2zlwlmpp4oa 
>
> https://slate.host/gepr/misc?cid=bafybeicnyt2xgr2heluzbzpeofzkf7arti5qsk7dpr6dg6mcrapcjuqxp4 
>
>
>
> On 2/2/22 16:01, Steve Smith wrote:
>>
>> On 2/2/22 1:36 PM, glen wrote:
>>> No relation at all! I chose that theorem arbitrarily just to 
>>> distinguish when I post from my newly configured TBird client versus 
>>> other clients. Never ascribe intelligence where stochasticity will 
>>> suffice. I could have equally chosen something from Zelazny or 
>>> Feyerabend, two other members of the set of my favorite people.
>>
>> MadWand strikes again!
>