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As someone who gorges chronically on sword and sorcery, who touts his own fantasy pilot, soon to be submitted for an international screen writing competition, I'm often flummoxed and infuriated by the dearth of fantasy IP's in cinema and television. It seems if you're not formative fare like LOTR or tit-riddled nihilism like 'Game of Thrones' you don't get to be on TV; when, frankly, these are two polar ends of the fantasy spectrum, one being high or "classic" modern fantasy and the other being "low" or "dark" fantasy, which is a more recent movement in this story-telling genre. There are other fantasies, just as thoughtful, just as immersive and human as 'LOTR' or 'Game of Thrones', and I'm going to rattle off a few:
1)'The Lies of Locke Lamora'
This story features high fantasy concepts--alchemically enhanced food stuffs, clock work gardens, and whole cities constructed of glass synthesized by eldritch hands long dead--all of these marvels grounded by the ever urbane and out-gunned rogue, Locke Lamora. In the Venetian city of Camorr, they solemnly worship a pantheon of 12 gods, but this family of deities has a secret brother, the blasphemous, and nameless 13th known as "the Crooked Warden", the patron god of thieves, beggars, liars and spies. Locke is the secret High Priest of the Crooked Warden, and "garrista" (gang leader) of The Gentleman Bastards, his fellow priests and childhood friends; who plunder exclusively from the elite of Camorr, despite the Secret Peace between the aristocracy and the city's Capa (gang Lord), Vencarlo Barsavi, Locke's sworn master (and soon-to-be father in law).
One of Locke's elaborate shake downs attracts the attention of the Gray King, a supernatural vigilante picking off garristas one by one. The Gray King, wanting a cut of the underworld, demands a sit down with Barsavi; and for Locke, at gun point, to broker the deal, disguised as the King himself!
It's gangland melodrama in a fantasy setting as hardboiled as its plot. In a word, it's genius.
2)The Merciful Crow
A holy plague afflicts a kingdom segregated into 13 castes, the 13th being the Crows, who, immune to the plague deliver "the final mercy", death for anyone infected by the plague; poor bastards doomed by their sins to become Crows in the next life, or so the scriptures say (none of them written by Crows). The Crows, charged by the gods to dispense their "mercy", are denied lives or roots anywhere, they have nothing but the endless road. They rely on gifts for their work, murdering children and burning loved ones to ash. These gifts are as begrudged as they are infrequent. Disarmed, the only weapon the Crows have is the plague, threatening to leave the infected unbloodied and unburnt: "One way or another", the saying goes, "We feed the crows." For this and more, the Crows are despised by the other castes, and, at night, hunted by the Oleanders, zealots who blame the Crows for the plague itself, and butcher them behind white hoods.
Fie, a Crow chieftain, is charged with carting away and burning the plague-infested corpse of the reigning prince, Jasimir, and his body "double": only to find out, when they've carted the prince and his loyal sword miles from the palace that not only is the prince alive, but he faked his death so his step-mother, the Queen, wouldn't poison him (as the prince suspects she did his late father). The prince needs a favor--for the Crows to take him to his general so he can seize the throne--but the Crows need a toll; so in exchange for protecting the prince, the Crows demand a royal guard to protect the Crows exclusively. The Prince, feet to the fire, agrees, and Fie's journey to spare her clan begins.
Those two stories are fresh, inventive, beautifully rooted in fantasy as much as human drama, and they are both begging to be televised; so WTF, Amazon!? You're wasting my time and your money trying to make 'The Lord of the Rings' into 'Game of Thrones'; with a script promising sex and nudity; a script based on the Silmarillion; a book based on notes and plot sketches jumbled and ordered together after Tolkein's death. All of this guaranteeing to piss off the core and majority of Tolkein fans, who know that the oh-so-Catholic Tolkein wrote G-rated fare on purpose; and don't want 'LOTR's wholesome family-friendly appeal to be pissed on by woke, starbucks-swilling idiots in a board room.
Meanwhile, there's a laughably vast, and tragically untapped, vein of more recent books practically screaming, 'Millions of people read us, love us, and will watch us if you make us into shows!'; so, again, I ask: what the fuck? Just do it, already!
You could be making Solomon Kane; you could be making Conan and Red Sonja; you could be making John Carter and Tarzan; you could be making Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser; you could be making Corum, Hawkmoon, or Elric; The Ender series; Wheel of Time; Dune; Mistborn; but you're not!
Why, Amazon, are you so financially suicidal? Why are you so pathologically averse to turning a profit? Are Tumblr and Twitter, now festering with Tumblr refugees since the porn ban (let's face it), really so goddamn important compared to the much larger audience that is binge-buying mangas? That clearly is thirsting for apolitical, original, and iconic IP's? To move on from 'Game of Thrones' to less derivative, and complete, stories?
I'm just screaming into my sad corner of the internet, but these are questions I feel compelled to ask.
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