I’m getting a ton of email about the new tv show Revolution, asking if it is based on my 1983 novel Ariel, and if I had any involvement with the show. I haven’t watched the show and I’m not likely to.
The answer to the latter question is, no, I had nothing to do with the show. The answer to the former question is that I think it is a ripoff of a different novel that seems to be largely a ripoff of Ariel. I’ll leave the issue of whether you can ripoff by proxy for others to debate.
Further details would require a very lengthy post that I would probably regret writing, so this is all I’m gonna say about this for now.
I am about to watch the first episode right now, I will let you know if there is a foul mouthed unicorn in it.
Hi, Andrew! By most accounts it would be an improvement.
I have been watching it and honestly it reminds me of The Postman.
2 episodes in and I’m rooting for the 2 lead teen characters to get bumped off. Seriously underwhelming.
The reviews are certainly not overwhelmingly positive!
Lol, I just posted on Television Without Pity that Revolution reminded me a little of Ariel, a book which I read in high school when it came out and have enjoyed for years. However, I have to say, if Revolution the tv show is attempting to rip off Ariel or anything else, it is not doing a very good job of it. A strong injection of either unicorns and/or common sense in post-apocalyptic worldbuilding could only help that show. Sadly, I think that none of its writers have ever read Ariel.
Nah, I think they read another book by someone who read Ariel. And few people seem to have noticed that the family’s name is Matheson and the bad guy’s name is Neville. The protagonist of Richard Matheson’s post-apocalyptic I Am Legend is Robert Neville. (But Matheson isn’t the writer I’m referring to.)
What really irritates me is that the show seems to suck, and it will likely kill Ariel’s chances of ever getting produced as a feature.
Which is even more frustrating now that technology has caught up to the point that you could DO a credible version of Ariel. (Though I think what I really want to see is a film version of Elegy Beach–the climax struck me as incredibly cinematic–but you can’t easily do that until you’ve filmed Ariel first, can you?)