Paul Cornell writes on his blog…
“Now, here’s one of those bits of big news that I haven’t been able to talk about yet, but today I can. I’ve been commissioned to adapt Iain M. Banks’ novella The State of the Art, from the collection of the same name, into a play for broadcast on BBC Radio 4 later this year. My producer is the wonderful Nadia Molinari, and we’re looking to keep all the SF goodness of the original. I’m enjoying how serious and thoughtful the brief is. The story is about Banks’ spaceborne utopian civilisation, the Culture, encountering Earth. Some interesting casting of a Ship voice ahead, I should think, and who should be Diziet Sma? I’m anticipating the process hugely.”
[via SFSignal.com]
Posted by Jesse Willis
It should work – BBC has a fine history of adapting books to audio. The BBC adaptation of Anansi Boys was very good, with Lenny Henry doing a very good job of playing a serious character, him being a great comedian.
I still think the two best stories out of that book were A Gift From the Culture and Descendant, State of the Art coming the third.