Nick

Dune Series: "What if the hegelian synthesis of social darwinism and eugenic breeding programs was a big worm boy and everyone was horny for a guy named duncan idaho"

Vorkosigan Series: "What if the hegelian synthesis of luxury gay space communism and regency novel england was a fucked up little dude who decided to run away from home to become a space mercenary and spy during a cold war against a society that is the embodiment of both imperialism and eugenics, then came home in disgrace only to become a supreme court judge, oh, and also his evil clone reconciled gay space communism with space anarcho-capitalism and founded a commercial empire based on eating weird shit excreted by superbugs"

you can have more fun with your space operas than frank herbert did, is what I'm saying

I know I've posted this before, I just can't find it right now, so I probably didn't tag it.

I've often claimed that the Vorkosigan books would make a great tv show, and this is true, but it would be extremely hard to pitch it for many reasons. But what I realized a second ago is that it would be much easier for several reasons to adapt it as a manga, and someone should extremely do that

Note: spoilerful

• It's a space opera series set against the backdrop of a cold war between two interstellar powers, one of which is an almost posthuman colonialist power devoted to eugenics, and a former colony that had to go from a quasi medieval level of technology to a spacefaring one over the course of a single generation, and wound up with social mores that are basically regency england-ish
• The first generation protagonist (Cordelia) starts as a citizen of beta colony, which is basically a fully automated luxury gay space communism society. She ends up in the regency space power first as a political prisoner and later as the wife of one of the planet's major political and military players
• The second generation protagonist is their son Miles, who is born with serious physical disabilities in a society that is aggressively and violently biased against disabled people. He is something of a genius who first finds a place as a deniable operative running a mercenary fleet, then, after becoming more disabled and making a career-ending fuckup related to this, returns home to become a kind of special prosecutor and politico.
• There are several other important side protagonists, including a clone of Miles created as part of an elaborate assassination plot who is later adopted into the family and shipped off to beta colony for psychotherapy and becomes a business magnate for some reason
• In genre terms, the stories cover a huge range including straight-up military SF, straight-up romance, murder mystery, military and political espionage, and comedy of errors.
• Thematic elements include reproductive autonomy, disability, science fictionally weirded gender (beta colony has three sexes and one of the books features a major subplot involving a character on the regency world transitioning tactically in order to inherit an aristocratic title), extensive meditations on nature vs nurture, cloning, body modification, and lots of other stuff

The series is decades old and absolutely dated and problematic in some respects, but fundamentally really interesting and fun and sprawling in scope

I know I've posted this before, I just can't find it right now, so I probably didn't tag it.

I've often claimed that the Vorkosigan books would make a great tv show, and this is true, but it would be extremely hard to pitch it for many reasons. But what I realized a second ago is that it would be much easier for several reasons to adapt it as a manga, and someone should extremely do that