My Top Five Sci-fi Books that were Made into Movies. #scifi

Welcome, friends and fellow bloggers!  I’ve signed up to be part of an event in May called CyCon, which features writers from all sorts of genres and has lots of fun events.  I’ve set up an author booth on the OWS CYcon site if you’d like to check it out:  https://owscycon.ourwriteside.com/forums/topic/author-pamela-schloesser-canepa/

At any rate, one of the events is the sharing of our Top 5’s in our genre on a blog hop.  I was excited to do this one!  These are in order from my fifth favorite to my top favorite.  Read on for my top five:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

People from all over the world receive a shared vision and think they are going crazy, while the government is obviously hiding secrets.  What is not intriguing about this story?  I was likely a young child and very impressionable when I first saw this movie.  I can’t ascertain whether I took in the movie or the book first, though it could have been either.  I don’t recall it being very violent, but it was very shrouded in mystery and conspiracy (the coer up kind).  Later, I realized the whole collective consciousness theme running through it.  I found that very appealing. What sci-fi fan has not seen this movie?  The book was just as awesome; its details even more dense than those in the movie.

1984 by George Orwell

This movie came out when I was a young teen and probably not allowed to go see it.  However, I do recall a date in 1984 when someone had predicted the world would end.  Guess what?  It didn’t.  But I digress…  I read the actual book when I was 18, and it stuck with me.  The proletariate enslaved by the upper class, human emotions being discouraged, Big Brother always watching.  This is an excellent dystopian novel!  I don’t know very many people who have seen the movie though.  I ought to rent it someday.

The Time Traveler’s Wife

I never saw the movie.  The previews made it look like a chick-flick/soap opera romance with a slight sci-fi taste.  No thanks.   I read the book; it was earth shattering.  There was violence, a flawed hero, much time tripping, a man protective of our main character’s innocence, and the need to suspend all disbelief wrapped up in themes of coming of age and fate.  There was also an ending that was a big letdown if you were just looking for romance in the story.  It was about much more than that.  It was about how much you would do for the one you truly love.  My feminist taste hated that she was always waiting for him to show up on his own time schedule, but who makes the schedule?  The male lead had no control over where and when he would leap.  Yet, they were always drawn to each other, an element that has appeared in many other stories and movies.  What could ever compare?  How could a movie live up to that?  And I even like Eric Bana.  This one remains a tale I am glad to keep in book form without seeing someone else’s take on the screen.  It was touching in a heartbreaking way, not romantic, and I loved it.

Divergent

I loved the book series and its devotion to family and where that fits with one’s identity.  The details of having a personality that is strong in many areas was very appealing, as well as a government conspiracy enacted on a large group of people who were basically one huge social experiment.  Confronting your fears and finding out who you truly are were themes woven through this story.  All of that seemed similar in the movie, except, the movie also had Theo James.  😉

Bladerunner

This all brings us to number one!  Bladerunner.  I saw this movie in 1985.  It too, had a flawed main character who is in the dark about his identity.  It was pretty violent, but very memorable.  The images were amazing.  The deeper meaning, are we bound to do right by the things we create?  Much like Dr. Frankenstein, do we treat our creation as a lesser being? At what point would a man-made human require human rights?  I am very intrigued by the possibilities implied here, and the idea was even more evolved in Bladerunner 2.  Believing I wasn’t a true sci-fi fan if I hadn’t read the book, I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep about four years ago.  It was great to see the differences between the movie and the book, but I am glad I have now devoured both.  The movie seems to give more of the androids’ perspectives, as the storyline will have you feeling empathy for the villian even as he is trying to kill the protagonist; it’s just survival.  I’d have to say this one is my favorite of all, and it certainly affected my early books in the Made for Me series as well as helping me imagine my vision of the future in the Detours in Time series.  (What does a hover car look like as it lifts off the ground?)

OWS CyCon officially runs May 17-19 with the CyCon website and Facebook events acting as the hub for all of our events. Sign up for our newsletter or RSVP to the event to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the bookish goodness we have to offer. Plus, you can read more about our participating Sci Fi authors and their Top 5 favorites in Sci-Fi before CyCon starts. Visit the blog hop page any time leading up to CyCon for the latest posts and your chance to enter our MEGA giveaway (open May 10).