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Books or movies? It's a tough one in many respects. Because, let's face it, there are a lot of damn fine movies out there. The thing with movies, though, is that they can only show us what's happening - yeah, okay, we can hear too. With a book, though, you are able to get into the character's thoughts and understand where he, or her, is coming from in a way that is just not possible with a movie. Memories, thoughts, smells, we get it all from the book so much easier.

Because of this, what might work very well in a book may be hard to transcribe onto film. Last year I read Stephen King's Dreamcatcher. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not long after finishing reading it I saw it was available to buy on DVD. Naturally, I bought it. I did wonder how the sequences would be handled that occurred in the mind of one of the characters. He was hiding out, in his mind, from an alien that had possessed his body; desperately trying to hide certain thoughts and memories from it. How this was depicted in the book, though surreal to say the least, made perfect sense. On DVD it just didn't work for me at all. Most things didn't work for me. It was a big disappointment.

Perhaps the reason that there are often such differences between books and films is that it is so hard to make some of the book's ideas work that the directors simply have to work around them and change some things completely.

Got to say it, my vote does go with the book every time.

Learn more about this author, Steve Calvert.
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