Famous Fantasy Author Neil Gaiman is involved in the development of The Building, a new TV Series
The award-winning author Neil Gaiman has plenty on his plate as far as cinematic and TV adaptations of his works are concerned. American Gods, Likely Stories, Interworld, Fortunately the Milk, and even The Sandman (although, admittedly, that last one can’t seem to find its footing). This, however, does not deter Gaiman from becoming involved in yet another project. Interestingly, this project, a TV series called The Building, is not based on one of Gaiman’s own works.
This Twentieth Century Fox production is based on a movie from 2015, called Parallels, which was directed by Chris Leone, based on a story written by Leone and Lora Harcom. The movie aired on Netflix and became very successful. It tells the story of a group of young urban explorers, who walk into a mysterious skyscraper, in search of their father. To their surprise and horror, they find themselves trapped in the building, which functions as a kind of inter-dimensional trap, journeying between parallel worlds.
The Building revisits the theme of inter-dimensional travel, a theme which Gaiman’s late close friend, author Terry Pratchett also explored in a series of books called The Long Earth, which he wrote with science fiction author Stephen Baxter. In fact, by some pretty weird coincidence, Gaiman himself is not new to the subject, having written his own similarly themed books series called Interworld, with Michael Reaves. Who knows, perhaps in one of those worlds Pratchett didn’t die at such a young age, and who knows just how many books he would have written by now.
In one of those parallel realities the group of unwilling inter-dimensional explorers find themselves in a world in which Ronald Reagan hasn’t been elected President of the United States and the Soviet Union attacked the country with a nuclear bomb. The group of friends is forced to stick together and avoid being caught separately in order to prevent anyone from being stranded on one of the parallel Earths. And while they try to unveil the mysteries behind The Building, they only seem to be moving further and further away from home.
Who built the building and why? How does such a way of life effect the people who travel with it from one world to the next? And most important of all, how can the group return to their own reality? Can they?
So, another series about parallel worlds? Sliders with a twist? I can’t say the concept sounds all that appealing, in my honest opinion. Then again, all we have to do is wait. All the possible options are open. We only need to hope that in our reality, the series rocks!
