I was thinking the other day about the different books i have read that would make really good movies and came up with few of my top choices.  These are books that would lend themselves to being rewritten as movies without loosing too much of their meaning in the process.  My choices are pretty much Sci-Fi/Fantacy novels which is the genre of books I tend to read.

1.  Incarnations of Immortality Series by Piers Anthony:  This is a series of books that would lend itself well to being produced into a movie per book.  There are 7 books in the series, each one depicts the life of different incarnations.  The stories assume that incarnations such as War, Death, Nature, etc are “job positions” held by persons for several hundred years before they are allowed to die and move on to heaven.  On a Pale Horse for example, is the story of the Grim Reaper (Death) and the problems, adventures he has after taking on the job of helping fellow humans to the afterlife.  The books intertwine with one another and you will see characters from the other books appear in each novel.  This may also lend itself well to a TV series.

2.  The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester:  Hundreds of years in the future, Mankind has spread out to colonize the Moon, Mars, Venus (thus creating the Inner Planets), as well as the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune (the Outer Satellites). Man has also learned to “jaunte” or teleport himself over distances up 1,000 miles. The advent of jaunting radically changed the economies of all human-inhabited worlds, with the eventual reorganization of the Solar System into two camps (the Inner Planets and the Outer Satellites) of corporate fiefdoms or clans. A trade-war between the two major factions gradually grows, and eventually becomes outright war.

3.  The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein:  Smarter and more humane than Starship Troopers.

4.  Caves of Steel (Robot City) by Issac Asimov:  A terrific combination of two movie genres, the sci-fi spectacular and the murder mystery.

5.  Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome:  Maybe the funniest book ever written - everything from satire to slapstick.

Let me know what books you think might make the transition from print to film and why.