I just read on Science Fiction Weekly (site listed under links to the left) that Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh (of Lord of the Rings fame) have written a script adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones. I loved the LoTR movies, and I loved this book, but I am fearful TLB won't translate well to the screen. In some ways, it's a delicate story. A teenage girl is raped and murdered and then narrates from heaven the story of what happens to her family and her murderer. The book was marketed as mainstream, but obviously it has spec fic elements. What makes it so wonderful is that Sebold writes about a horrible violent act in a way that's not at all voyeuristic or gratuitous. I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best.

Another wonderful book that I don't quite see how anyone could ever do as a movie is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It's about a very smart boy with a form of autism called Asperger's syndrome. It was so good at making me see life from the boy's point of view that it actually made me wish I wrote mainstream-- for a little while, anyway.