It completely stands on its own. No worries there. The sequels are set in the same world, but are wildly different in tone. Aliens, sex, murder, angels? The sequels have everything!

Gentry Lee took the story in a completely different direction from Clarke’s original book.

Thankfully Villeneuve has never been a director who has struggled with low-action concepts. Arrival is one of the most gripping scf-fi stories I’ve seen in years and it has maybe half a beat of action. Can’t wait for this (not familiar with it at all prior to this article).

OOOOOhh he’d make that GRITTY!

Hmmmmmm....

Oh hell yes. They need to just let Villevenue make all of the SF classics from the mid-20th century.

Rendezvous With Rama is one of the best “hard” science fiction novels there is, IMO. It’s a fairly short book that could potentially make a great movie. There’s not a lot of action in it, though, so it will very likely be much more 2001 than Star Wars, which is fine if it’s well done. I also enjoy the wackiness that is…

This whole conversation gets my vote for best thread on the internet today.

Maybe the real killer is the friends we maimed along the way.

I vote cop car.

i bet its the house. 

That anecdote reminds me of an old quote of Dave Barry’s. “Someone who is nice to you, but not to the waiter, is not a nice person.” Glad to hear that wasn’t the case with her. RIP

That verifies how good she was.

I worked as an assistant at her publishing house around the same time and spent time shepherding her around New York when she came to town. She was extravangantly kind to me and everyone she interacted with. I have great memories of Anne Rice, RIP. 

May she spontaneously rise up from the dead, newly fanged and ready to haunt the streets of L.A. as a cursed vamp, preying on drunken partygoers and bad guys. A little creepy, sure. Anne Rice woulda liked that better.

Back in the 90s, I was the book signing coordinator for a regional chain bookstore and Anne Rice was one of the people we got to come around the time that Memnoch the Devil was released. Most of the bigger name authors who came acted the part, not particularly friendly to (or even willing to acknowledge) our staff.…

RIP to a great writer, an occasionally epic poster, and a mighty foe of fanfiction. 

Hard to over-estimate her impact on genre. Strange how her work translated so poorly to film - the first one was pretty good but after that it went cheeseball, but her writing and stories were wonderful.

Yeah, but will she have a cool theme song?