Alternate George RR Martins?

Let me explain myself. Many of the superstar, household name authors (Stephen King, Michael Crichton, John Grisham, etc) rose to the top of their profession relatively quickly, and managed to stay in the public eye for decades. George RR Martin, meanwhile, was never quite obscure - he's had a healthy career both as an author and a screenwriter for a while - but was only catapulted into literary superstardom relatively late into his career, largely due to the success of Game of Thrones.

So, who are some other authors, particularly authors of genre fiction, who could have plausibly made that transition? That is, an OTL author with a decent-to-impressive body of work stretching out over a long period of time, who could have joined the ranks of the Kings and Rowlings of the world based on a successful adaptation of one of their works. Maybe Robert Jordan, in a world where a Wheel of Time movie was produced around the time of the LOTR movies?

(Also, I'm not talking about posthumous notoriety of the sort that Lovecraft has received - this needs to happen within the author's lifetime, preferably during some late stage of their actual career.)
 
Superstars are rare.

There are some very popular writers who didn't get started until later in life. Eric Flint of "1632" fame only got started as a writer around age 50.

David Weber is quite successful, but he might have gone superstar with an Honor Harrington series of movies or tv show.

Zelazny is a demi-god of the SF genre, but not a household name. If HBO could have done something ASOIAF like with his Amber series in say the 80s he could have gotten bigger.

Michael Moorcock if Elric got made into a show?
 
It is very, very hard to become a household name with a successful adaptation. Fight Club didn't turn Chuck Palahniuk into a household name. Neither did Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone for Dennis Lehane or High Fidelity and About a Boy for Nick Hornby. Martin is an exceptional case.
 
Robert Jordan's wheel of time was talked about for a tv adaption for years but the rights was sold cheap early in his writing to a company that never did anything with it.
 
Michael Moorcock if Elric got made into a show?
Last news from Mike I heard about this was a few years back when a company, I think it is Mythology Pictures or something like, purchased the screen rights from Universal (who had kept the option in their pocket through most of the 2000's). Supposedly, a couple of the writers and producers from The Walking Dead were attached but I haven't heard any news in two or three years.

I think that with the MCU, DCEU, and other similar "universes" being so successful in mixed media formats that instead of just doing an Elric series (which, as much as I enjoy the character, I honestly don't know that a stand-alone Elric would draw all that big of a following from the general public) they should do a full Eternal Champion interconnected series, or better yet, do Michael Moorocock's Multiverse: Eternal Champion, Second Ether, Dreamlands, Gloriana, etc. That would really do his work justice because it would be able to show it all ties together and intertwines.

Robert Jordan's wheel of time was talked about for a tv adaption for years but the rights was sold cheap early in his writing to a company that never did anything with it.
Sony picked it up now and are looking at moving forward.

Another author I would like to put forward in Tad Williams. Not "old" per se, but he is already 30 years into his professional career isn't well known outside of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Genres. I think his Otherland tetralogy would make a fantastic film and/or tv series. Plus, I still hold the opinion that his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn "trilogy" (depending on whether you get the hardcover or the paperbacks)--now followed up with a new "Last King of Osten Ard" series in progress--is superior in just about every way to GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire.
 

Anderman

Donor
Superstars are rare.



David Weber is quite successful, but he might have gone superstar with an Honor Harrington series of movies or tv show.

There are rumors that somebody picked up the Honor Harrington rights for a tv show. But at last two attempts for a movie failed.
The last one was with Evergreen Studios.
 
Terry Pratchett was a fantasy writer who had a long and successful career before he died from Alzheimer's disease in March 2015
 
Terry Pratchett was a fantasy writer who had a long and successful career before he died from Alzheimer's disease in March 2015
I'm not sure Pterry counts - knight of the realm, international multi-million selling, front page news when he died. Maybe coulda been bigger is Mort had actually been a movie and trumped Bill and Ted for 'comedy with Death as a character' but he's one of the biggest authors of his generation. Plus he's got a cameo in David Flin's fine TL in this here site - how much more can you want.

For me, maybe Guy Gavriel Kay, who's written some of the finest fantasy books (although his early work contains some problematic themes, later books are magnificent)
 
Tolkien actually qualifies as another OTL precedent, I think. The Lord of the Rings did not become famous until 1965, a good decade after it was first published (and nearly three decades after The Hobbit). Then there was the subsequent Jackson adaptation, which ingrained him in the non-fantasy-reading public.
 
David Eddings was well known mid-80s with the Belgeriad.

Perhaps a longer lived Robert E.Howard lives to see Conan or Soloman Kane movies in the mid 50s

Personally, I don't think the fantasy had the standing as a genre until the 80s after the first wave of Dungeons and Dragons but probably after the "moral outrage" of the 80s declines. Would better D&D movies making Gary Gygax a household name qualify?

How about Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash or Diamond Age as a TV series?
 
I would argue that George RR Martin is still not a household name since most GoT watchers are unaware that

A) The show is based on a series of books
B) Who wrote the books

He is undoubtedly more famous now than he was but I would not put him in the JK Rowling or Stephen King league.
 
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