Huh, I knew my dream would come true, joke!
Got this from the DebSoc mailing list. Just you wait, sooner or later there will be a Draco/Hermione or Harry/Draco movie. I feel it in my bones friends, I feel it in my bones.
Authors: Fan writer's own fantasy comes true
By Julie Bosman The New York Times
MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2006
NEW YORK Naomi Novik has written three
fantasy novels chronicling the Napoleon-era adventures of a swashbuckling ship
captain and a heroic dragon named Temeraire who fight to rescue Britain from a
French invasion.
Now she has a dramatic tale of her own: Geek Girl Makes
Good.
Novik has just sold the film rights to all three of her books to
Peter Jackson, the director of such blockbusters as "King Kong" and "The Lord of
the Rings" trilogy. The deal has completed her ascent from a computer programmer
to a virtually unknown writer to a newly minted member of a select group of
authors - J.R.R. Tolkien among them - whose novels could receive the extravagant
high-tech, big- budget Jackson treatment.
Sitting in the living room of
the tidy Manhattan apartment she shares with her husband, Charles Ardai, Novik,
a petite, pale and bookish-looking 33- year-old, said she had always hoped her
novels would catch Jackson's eye.
"I fantasized about Peter Jackson,"
said Novik, surrounded by bookshelves crammed with "Star Wars" figurines and
vintage toys that bring to mind the apartment of the lead character in "The
40-Year-Old Virgin." "Before we ever sent the books to Hollywood, really, I was
talking, we were joking with friends. Even my parents were saying, 'Wouldn't it
be wonderful if the man who did 'Lord of the Rings' bought your
books?'"
"I'm a big geek and a fangirl," she said, referring to her
penchant for fantasy fiction. "If you wanted to make a dragon movie, I would be
incredibly excited about it, just for that. And if it's mine, so much the
better."
Reviewing her first novel, "His Majesty's Dragon," in The
Washington Post, Rachel Hartigan Shea wrote that the book contained a "generous
dollop of intelligent derring-do." The Times of London called it "Patrick
O'Brian crossed with Anne McCaffrey: historic, seafaring adventure, with
dragons."
Jackson is equally enthusiastic: "The Temeraire trilogy is the
perfect blend of two genres I particularly love: historical war and fantasy.
That blending will generate all kinds of creative possibilities," he said in an
e-mail message.
Novik's books are heavily influenced by O'Brian's
high-sea novels.
After having a lukewarm reaction to the film version of
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" in 2003, Novik read the
original Patrick O'Brian book. Two weeks later she had finished all 20 books in
his Aubrey- Maturin series.
Her U.S. publisher, Del Rey, which
specializes in science fiction and fantasy, is preparing for the interest that
Jackson's films inevitably bring by rushing 300,000 copies of the series into
print. The British publishing company Voyager is also releasing the
trilogy.
Novik grew up on Long Island, New York, the daughter of two
Polish immigrants who read her fairy tales in Polish. She was an early and
voracious reader who, at 6, first breezed through "The Lord of the Rings"
trilogy, and a few years later developed a Jane Austen obsession. In high school
she was a self-described "stereotypical nerd" and a straight-A student who spent
lunch and recess in the library.
A high-seas trilogy that features a
dragon catches the interest of the director of the 'Lord of the
Rings.'
Around 1994 Novik began writing fan fiction, stories based on the
characters of other writers. She called it "embarrassing, terrible early work"
that could not be published - thankfully, she said - because it would be
tantamount to copyright infringement on other authors' characters.
As a
student at Brown University in Rhode Island, Novik immersed herself in English
literature and thought of becoming a journalist. "I wanted to be Lois Lane," she
said. Eventually she turned to computer science, doing graduate work at Columbia
University and becoming a computer programmer.
But working as a designer
on a computer game left her wanting more, she said: "I came back from that
thinking, 'I'm 30. This isn't the life I want at this stage in my
career.'"
A friend suggested she try writing novels, and in January 2004
she began writing "His Majesty's Dragon." In two months the manuscript was
completed. Her agent quickly sold it to Del Rey, which ordered two
more.
Then last February Jackson's representative called: Jackson was
interested in optioning Novik's novels. "It does freak you out a little bit,"
she said. "I have to say, you really sort of have no idea what is going to
happen, how that is going to change your life."
She has yet to meet
Jackson in person, and they have spoken on the phone only once, when he called
her with congratulations on their collaborations as she dined at a restaurant on
the Upper East Side.
"I sat there and tried not to make a complete idiot
of myself," Novik said.
He has extended an open invitation to visit him
in New Zealand, but Novik is busy writing the fourth novel in the "Temeraire"
series, which is due to be released in January in the United States. Most days
she can be found with her laptop in a caf頡t the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one
of the few places where she can concentrate enough to churn out the 6,000 words
that she considers a productive day.
For now, the concept of Hollywood
fame isn't weighing heavily on her. "I don't have visions of red carpets," she
said. "I have visions of actually seeing the movie."
Authors: Fan writer's own fantasy comes true
By Julie Bosman The New York Times
MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2006
NEW YORK Naomi Novik has written three
fantasy novels chronicling the Napoleon-era adventures of a swashbuckling ship
captain and a heroic dragon named Temeraire who fight to rescue Britain from a
French invasion.
Now she has a dramatic tale of her own: Geek Girl Makes
Good.
Novik has just sold the film rights to all three of her books to
Peter Jackson, the director of such blockbusters as "King Kong" and "The Lord of
the Rings" trilogy. The deal has completed her ascent from a computer programmer
to a virtually unknown writer to a newly minted member of a select group of
authors - J.R.R. Tolkien among them - whose novels could receive the extravagant
high-tech, big- budget Jackson treatment.
Sitting in the living room of
the tidy Manhattan apartment she shares with her husband, Charles Ardai, Novik,
a petite, pale and bookish-looking 33- year-old, said she had always hoped her
novels would catch Jackson's eye.
"I fantasized about Peter Jackson,"
said Novik, surrounded by bookshelves crammed with "Star Wars" figurines and
vintage toys that bring to mind the apartment of the lead character in "The
40-Year-Old Virgin." "Before we ever sent the books to Hollywood, really, I was
talking, we were joking with friends. Even my parents were saying, 'Wouldn't it
be wonderful if the man who did 'Lord of the Rings' bought your
books?'"
"I'm a big geek and a fangirl," she said, referring to her
penchant for fantasy fiction. "If you wanted to make a dragon movie, I would be
incredibly excited about it, just for that. And if it's mine, so much the
better."
Reviewing her first novel, "His Majesty's Dragon," in The
Washington Post, Rachel Hartigan Shea wrote that the book contained a "generous
dollop of intelligent derring-do." The Times of London called it "Patrick
O'Brian crossed with Anne McCaffrey: historic, seafaring adventure, with
dragons."
Jackson is equally enthusiastic: "The Temeraire trilogy is the
perfect blend of two genres I particularly love: historical war and fantasy.
That blending will generate all kinds of creative possibilities," he said in an
e-mail message.
Novik's books are heavily influenced by O'Brian's
high-sea novels.
After having a lukewarm reaction to the film version of
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" in 2003, Novik read the
original Patrick O'Brian book. Two weeks later she had finished all 20 books in
his Aubrey- Maturin series.
Her U.S. publisher, Del Rey, which
specializes in science fiction and fantasy, is preparing for the interest that
Jackson's films inevitably bring by rushing 300,000 copies of the series into
print. The British publishing company Voyager is also releasing the
trilogy.
Novik grew up on Long Island, New York, the daughter of two
Polish immigrants who read her fairy tales in Polish. She was an early and
voracious reader who, at 6, first breezed through "The Lord of the Rings"
trilogy, and a few years later developed a Jane Austen obsession. In high school
she was a self-described "stereotypical nerd" and a straight-A student who spent
lunch and recess in the library.
A high-seas trilogy that features a
dragon catches the interest of the director of the 'Lord of the
Rings.'
Around 1994 Novik began writing fan fiction, stories based on the
characters of other writers. She called it "embarrassing, terrible early work"
that could not be published - thankfully, she said - because it would be
tantamount to copyright infringement on other authors' characters.
As a
student at Brown University in Rhode Island, Novik immersed herself in English
literature and thought of becoming a journalist. "I wanted to be Lois Lane," she
said. Eventually she turned to computer science, doing graduate work at Columbia
University and becoming a computer programmer.
But working as a designer
on a computer game left her wanting more, she said: "I came back from that
thinking, 'I'm 30. This isn't the life I want at this stage in my
career.'"
A friend suggested she try writing novels, and in January 2004
she began writing "His Majesty's Dragon." In two months the manuscript was
completed. Her agent quickly sold it to Del Rey, which ordered two
more.
Then last February Jackson's representative called: Jackson was
interested in optioning Novik's novels. "It does freak you out a little bit,"
she said. "I have to say, you really sort of have no idea what is going to
happen, how that is going to change your life."
She has yet to meet
Jackson in person, and they have spoken on the phone only once, when he called
her with congratulations on their collaborations as she dined at a restaurant on
the Upper East Side.
"I sat there and tried not to make a complete idiot
of myself," Novik said.
He has extended an open invitation to visit him
in New Zealand, but Novik is busy writing the fourth novel in the "Temeraire"
series, which is due to be released in January in the United States. Most days
she can be found with her laptop in a caf頡t the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one
of the few places where she can concentrate enough to churn out the 6,000 words
that she considers a productive day.
For now, the concept of Hollywood
fame isn't weighing heavily on her. "I don't have visions of red carpets," she
said. "I have visions of actually seeing the movie."