Amazon has brought on Elizabeth Sarnoff and Patrick Macmanus to write and executive produce Darkover, Deadline reports. The television adaptation of the Marion Zimmer Bradley sci-fi series has been set up at Amazon since last November.
Sarnoff and Macmanus are a fascinating pair to bring onto the series. Macmanus most recently worked on Netflix’s Marco Polo show, so it’ll be cool to see him switch genres from historical epic to science-fiction. Sarnoff, on the other hand, has dipped her toes in multiple genres. She has worked on Lost, Deadwood, Alcatraz, Salem and The Leftovers. Sarnoff and Macmanus both worked together recently as executive producers on Netflix’s recent Marco Polo short, Marco Polo: One Hundred Eyes.
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series focuses on the fictional planet of Darkover, the only planet habitable by humans in a far away solar system. The books tell the history of the planet from its colonization and civilizations being developed, to wars breaking out between colonies and different groups.
Darkover has plenty of content to mine for a TV show, spanning 25 books. Details are light on what the television adaptation of the series will be like. It can really go in any number of directions considering that the chronology of the books differs from the order they were published in.
According to the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust’s (the group that holds her copyrights and administers her literary estate) website, there is no particular order to the books. Although, the site stresses that if one must read them in a certain order, to read them in the order they were published and not in chronological order. This is so that one can follow Bradley’s thought process and change in style over her career.