New GORMENGHAST TV series greenlit at Showtime

Showtime has given a series order to Gormenghast, a fresh TV adaptation of Mervyn Peake's influential fantasy series.

Mervyn Peake's trilogy, consisting of Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950) and Titus Alone (1959), is one of the most critically-acclaimed fantasy works of all time and considered to be one of the most important works of the fantastic ever published. The first two books were previously adapted as a television mini-series starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Christopher Lee and Stephen Fry in 2000.

Toby Whithouse (Being Human, Doctor Who) is showrunning the new project, with Neil Gaiman (Good Omens, American Gods) as an executive producer. Akiva Goldsman (Fringe, Star Trek: Discovery, Amazon's Dark Tower project) is also a producer and may write for the show.

Neil Gaiman developing a GORMENGHAST TV series

Neil Gaiman is working on a new adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels for television. Fremantle Media, which produces Gaiman's American Gods for Starz, is set to produce the series and it is already meeting with possible showrunners and writers, as Gaiman's expanded role on American Gods Season 2 prevents him from taking a more direct hand in Gormenghast.

Also producing is Akiva Goldsman, who has worked as a writer and producer on Fringe and Star Trek: Discovery, but is best-known for writing the script for the movie A Beautiful Mind.

Mervyn Peake (1911-68) published two novels in the Gormenghast sequence whilst he was still alive: Titus Groan (1946) and Gormenghast (1950). The two books form a single story, recounting the birth and rise to adulthood of Titus Groan, heir to the vast, crumbling city-sized castle Gormenghast, whose inhabitants are mired in ritual and nostalgia. The kitchen boy Steerpike ruthlessly rises to power as well, orchestrating a web of murder, robberies and manipulations to gain fear and influence in the castle.

Peake wrote an additional short novel, Boy in Darkness (1956), although its relationship to the first two novels as ambiguous; he later confirmed that the book recounted a dark and sinister episode from the young Titus Groan's life. Peake started writing a third full novel in the series, exploring the strange, steampunk-esque world beyond Gormenghast Castle, but Parkinson's disease prevented him from making speedy progress. The book was published as Titus Alone in 1959, but Peake was unhappy with how the book was edited, with entire chapters cut. After Peake's death, the novel was restored to its original manuscript and reissued in 1970.

 Peake planned as many as ten Gormenghast novels, sketching out later titles including Titus Awakes and Gormenghast Revisited, and had written some experimental early material for Titus Awakes before his death. His wife Maeve wrote an experimental continuation of the novel, which ended in surrealist fashion with Titus arriving on the real-life island of Sark. This was published in 2011 as Titus Awakes: The Lost Book of Gormenghast, although it had a muted reception.

In 1999 the BBC produced a mini-series based on the first two Gormenghast books, starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Steerpike and (among others) Christopher Lee, Stephen Fry, Ian Richardson and Zoe Wanamaker. The TV series was well-received but budgetary and effects limitations meant that the true rambling strangeness of the castle could only be implied. There's also a board game based on the series.

Gormenghast is not an epic fantasy, instead a vast, rambling Gothic work of the imagination. However, it was influential on later fantasy authors: the huge, rambling castle is a clear influence on both the Hayholt of Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and Harrenhal and Winterfell in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 3

Seventeen years passed between the publication of The Hobbit and its much larger and longer sequel, The Lord of the Rings. However, this period was not without significant works of fantasy being published.

One of the more interesting fantasy works to emerge in the immediate post-Hobbit era was a series of short stories by the American author Fritz Leiber. Leiber, in collaboration with his friend Harry Otto Fischer, had created two characters loosely based on themselves, but also intended to subvert expectations of what fantasy characters could be. These characters were, of course, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The duo appeared in thirty-six short stories and a full-length novel, published between 1939 and 1988. Initially they appeared in magazines such as Unknown and Fantastic, but in 1968 the stories began to be packaged in omnibus editions, at which point their sales began to take off impressively.

Leiber is, lamentably, not a household name but his influence was huge. Both Gary Gygax (the creator of Dungeons and Dragons) and Terry Pratchett read his stories whilst younger and found them hugely influential. Gygax even later licensed Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser's world of Newhon as an official D&D campaign world, whilst Pratchett's first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, is as much an affectionate satire of Leiber specifically as it is of fantasy as a whole. In particular, before taking it in its own direction in later books, the city of Ankh-Morpork in the earlier novels can be seen as a direct riff on Lankhmar, the most notable settlement of Newhon. Indeed, Lankhmar can be seen as perhaps the first archetypal fantasy city, a place of narrow alleys, raucous inns and rooftop chases.

There was another author engaged in a spot of worldbuilding and subcreation closer to home as well. In 1938 C.S. Lewis published Out of the Silent Planet, a science fiction novel borne out of a conversation with his close friend, J.R.R. Tolkien. The two authors had agreed to write a series of complementary stories about space travel and time travel; Tolkien's story, The Lost Road (about the downfall of Numenor), was never completed as he prioritised work on The Lord of the Rings, but he did make use of the material he created for it for backstory to the new novel. Lewis not only finished his book but published two sequels (Perelandra and That Hideous Strength), creating the Space Trilogy. When looking for a new writing project, Lewis recalled an experience in 1939, at the outset of the Second World War, when his family home had to host three girls sent out of London in fear of bombing. Lewis used this as the seed to write a fantasy series set in a fictional world called Narnia.

The Chronicles of Narnia spanned seven fairly short novels, published between 1949 and 1956. The land of Narnia was described in some detail and Lewis used the fantastical setting to explore Christian themes of sacrifice and redemption. The series was critically acclaimed upon release, bringing Lewis fame and fortune that (for a time) eclipsed that of his friend Tolkien. However, Tolkien himself was cool on the series, in part because he couldn't help the suspicion that Lewis had modelled Narnia on Middle-earth and been inspired by the still-gestating Lord of the Rings, which he had been reading to his writing friends as work progressed (in particular, he was irritated by Lewis using the name "Numinor", despite it apparently being used as an affectionate nod at Tolkien).

As well as its worldbuilding and religious themes, Narnia was notable for its non-sequential, non-linear storytelling. Each book was self-contained, but jumped around in time and space, with some of the later books being prequels and interquels and the primary cast of characters changing with each novel, both ideas used in later fantasy series to keep things fresh for the author.

The other major key work of this period was written by another English author and illustrator: Mervyn Peake. In 1946 he published Titus Groan, a novel about the inhabitants of a colossal, crumbling castle called Gormenghast. The novel was dense and complex, but featured at its core a villainous point-of-view character called Steerpike, who was determined to bring down the ruling Groan family and take power himself. The story was too big for one volume and Peake continued the story in Gormenghast (1950), which concluded Steerpike's story rather definitively. Peake planned to continue the series, at one point considering no less than ten volumes set in the same world. He started writing a third book, Titus Alone, and made plans for two more (tentatively entitled Titus Awake and Gormenghast Revisited), but died at the tragically early age of 57. Titus Alone was published in 1959, but in rather butchered form. A proper edition was released in 1970, whilst Peake's widow wrote her own version of Titus Awakes that was eventually published in 2011.

The Gormenghast Trilogy is best-known for its setting, an ancient edifice of crumbling stone whose physical disrepair matches the declining state of the family that rules it. It is certainly not an epic fantasy, being more reminiscent of Gothic drama. However, the idea of impossible, vast castles - the Big Dumb Objects of epic fantasy - would live on in later works: the Hayholt of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and Winterfell and Harrenhal (among others) in A Song of Ice and Fire owe some of their inspiration to Peake's work.

Back in the United States another author decided to start writing a series of short stories while at sea as part of the Merchant Marine. His name was Jack Vance, and starting in the early 1940s he began penning stories set in an unimaginably distant future when the Earth is dying and the sun is about to go out. Despite the alleged SF backdrop, Vance populated his far future setting with rogues, thieves and wizards. Although not epic fantasy as such - The Dying Earth (1950) and its three sequels instead creating a subgenre of their own - many of the touchstones of epic fantasy can be found in this series. There's the vigorously scientific approach to magic, giving the fantastic a set of reliable rules and limitations. These proved so strong that Gary Gygax later lifted them wholesale for his Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game. There was also the use of post-apocalyptic Earth as the setting for the story. Many later epic fantasies, from Shannara to The Wheel of Time to the recent Shattered Sea, would do the same thing. There's also the impact Vance had on later writers, most notably Gygax and Pratchett but also George R.R. Martin (Vance is Martin's favourite author). In 1983 Vance himself penned a more traditional epic fantasy, The Lyonesse Trilogy, one of the all-time finest works of the genre.

Throughout all of this time J.R.R. Tolkein had been busy at home in Oxford, writing, re-writing, editing and re-editing The Lord of the Rings. The impact it would have when finally published is something the author, and the SFF world, was not expecting.

So, there's a GORMENGHAST board game

That's pretty much it. Someone's taken Mervyn Peake's ornate, ultra-dense gothic fantasy and turned it into a board game.

Is it any good? No idea. But it does make me think that the days of the Book of the New Sun tactical miniatures game can't be far off.

Gormenghast

The birth of Titus Groan, heir to the vast castle of Gormenghast, is a time of great joy and happiness for the inhabitants. However, it also marks the beginnings of the rise to power of Steerpike, an ambitious boy from the kitchens who uses his ruthless schemes to secure a position of power and influence. As Titus grows to manhood, increasingly doubtful of his place in a castle steeped in tradition and ritual, so Steerpike's ambition, power and greed grows as well.

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy is one of the defining and most important works of the modern fantasy genre, a densely-written work of tremendous atmosphere and power. On a surface read it is also quite unfilmable, with much of the action in the book motivated by conflicts that are internalised within the characters and much of the storyline and characters being too offbeat, weird or surreal to be commercially viable.

This is probably why only the BBC - a public-service broadcaster which cares little about commercial success but has access to large budgets - could have even attempted a faithful adaptation of the series to television. This four-episode mini-series covers the first two books of the series, Titus Groan and Gormenghast. The third book, Titus Alone, was not attempted due to its significant budgetary requirements, time constraints and it being far too strange even by the standards of the rest of the trilogy.

To bring the books to the screen, the BBC spent a considerable amount of money. Filmed in 1999 and broadcast the following year, the serial has certainly dated (particularly the sections where greenscreen was obviously used) in respect to its composite work, but otherwise has held up well in terms of production values. The sets are highly impressive (especially when the castle is flooded during a downpour) and the costumes are superb. The effects work (by itself) is decent, although the matte paintings and CGI versions of the castle proved controversial amongst fans of the books. The BBC version of Gormenghast is arguably much more colourful than Peake's grey, crumbling ruin, with the TV version taking more overt inspiration from China's Forbidden City (Peake spent most of his first eleven years in China, where his parents were missionaries).

The casting is mostly excellent, with what feels like every British actor and comic of note at the time recruited for the project. Ian Richardson plays the increasingly befuddled Earl of Gormenghast, whilst Celia Imrie - better known for her comic roles - plays his wife, the cold, austere and commanding Lady Gertrude with a steely presence. The series features a very early appearance by Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Henry VIII in The Tudors) as Steerpike in a performance which veers between the convincingly conniving and threatening to painful over-acting at times (especially towards the end of the mini-series). Dominating the cast with his presence, gravitas and of course voice is Christopher Lee as Mr. Flay, the Earl's manservant who falls into disgrace and then appoints himself Steerpike's nemesis. Richard Griffiths is also notable as the head cook, Swelter, whose feud with Flay dominates the first half of the serial. Zoe Wanamaker and Lynsey Baxter also do great work as the isolated and confused Groan sisters, Cora and Clarice. Particularly impressive is Neve McIntosh as Fuschia, who plays a difficult character with conviction and succeeds in making her likable, despite her many moments of selfishness. Stephen Fry makes for a splendid Professor Bellgrove, and the mini-series is notable for one of the last appearances of the legendary Spike Milligan before his passing. Less successful is Andrew Robertson as the grown-up Titus, who lacks charisma and suffers the most from his internal conflicts not being readily accessible to the viewer.

So the production values are good and the cast - mostly - excellent. How does the mini-series fare overall? Well, it's okay. It's not brilliant, mainly due to the jarring tonal shifts. The Gormenghast novels move between comedy, farce, surrealism, gothic grotesquerie and powerful drama with ease, sometimes within the same scene. The TV show is much less successful in handling these movements, with the writing not often being up to the job (the TV show's tendency to use un-Peake-like swearing to punctuate moments of drama or comedy is obvious and dull). The comic moments tend to descend into bad farce with ease, not helped by a miscast John Sessions as Dr. Prunesquallor (he does his best and is occasionally even effective, but most of the time irritates). The compression of two 400-page novels into just four hours also sees entire storylines handled badly. There simply isn't enough time to handle the storyline of Keda and her baby and it should really have been exorcised entirely rather than shrunk into a few, highly confusing scenes. Elsewhere, Bellgrove's romance with Prunesquallor's sister may be taken from the book but it does feel like a large and unnecessary divergence from the central matters of Steerpike and Titus, and perhaps should have been condensed (to give the Keda storyline more time, as it impacts on Titus much more directly).

At the same time, when the serial does work, it works brilliantly. The flooding of Gormenghast, a highly evocative scene in the novels and one that you'd assume would not be possible to depict on a TV budget, is actually successful. Christopher Lee is awesome every time he's on the screen, and Neve McIntosh's excellent performance as Fuschia gives her character's storyline even more pathos and tragedy than in the novel (heresy!). Jonathan Rhys Meyers also seems to raise his game when in scenes with either of them, or with Celia Imrie. Gertrude is a highly unpleasant character, but Imrie plays her with total conviction and her single-minded ruthlessness, which makes her unlikable for much of the serial, suddenly becomes rather admirable when she uses it to remorselessly hunt down Steerpike.

Ultimately, the BBC version of Gormenghast (***) is unable to capture the full power of Peake's novels (no adaptation ever could), though some of the author's genius is successfully captured in fleeting moments. The excellent casting, solid production values and those scenes which really work certainly make the series worth watching, although a strong degree of teeth-grinding patience may be necessary to make it through the less successful moments (and much of the first episode, which is all over the place in quality before it starts to settle down). The series is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.

Cover art for Mervyn Peake's TITUS AWAKES

The ability of authors to publish new books long after their deaths (in this case, forty-two years later) continues unabated in 2011, when the fourth Gormenghast novel is published. Courtesy of the usually-reliable Jussi at Westeros.org, here is the American cover:


Titus Awakes is the book that Peake had started work on just before his death. However, his worsening illness prevented much progress being made on on this book (or on the rewrites or editing for the third volume, Titus Alone), although the few extant pages have surfaced over the years as 'bonus material' in various editions of the existing trilogy. Last year it was revealed that Peake's widow had used the completed material for Titus Awakes and her own discussions with him as a springboard for writing her own conclusion to the series (apparently envisaged at one point as lasting as many as ten volumes) in the 1970s, but had chosen not to publish it. This is the book that is appearing in April 2011 from Overlook Press in the United States and July in the UK from Vintage.

Newly-discovered GORMENGHAST novel to be published

British writer and artist Mervyn Peake penned his three classic Gormenghast novels in the 1940s and 1950s. Often called a trilogy and frequently published in an omnibus labelled as such, the series was actually incomplete. At various times Peake spoke of a number of books chronicling the adventures of Titus Groan from birth to death, and sometimes hinted at ten volumes in total.


As it happened, Peake began to suffer from Parkinson's Disease and struggled to complete the third book, Titus Alone, and was unable to satisfactorily work on revisions and edits for the novel. It was published in a somewhat unsatisfying form in 1959, although later, more complete editions were eventually issued. Some of these also included the first few pages of the planned fourth novel, Titus Awakes, which Peake had started working on before his condition rendered him unable to write. Peake sketched an outline of the rest of the book in 1960 with suggestions on how it could continue. His wife Maeve then completed the rest of the book, but curiously appears to have made no move to having it published before Peake's death in 1968, or her own in 1983.

Peake's granddaughter Christian discovered the manuscript at the Peake family home, handwritten in brown ink in four exercise books. The Peake family are now making plans to have the book published.

The Gormenghast books are some of the most beloved and highly-praised in the history of fantasy, often cited as formative works of the modern genre alongside the likes of The Lord of the Rings. The first two books, Titus Groan (1946) and Gormenghast (1950) were also made into a successful BBC mini-series in 1999 starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Steerpike.