More and more books are finding their way onto series screens, with over a hundred planned adaptations currently listed by the Rotten Tomatoes rating platform for the US alone. So it makes sense to finally radically reduce the pile of books at home and finally read all the exciting books - before they are filmed.
The series adaptation of the dystopian novel DIE GABE or. in the original English THE POWER by Naomi Alderman is the best opportunity to start with it and grab the book first:
Different medium, different experience
Because we bring what we're reading to life in our own imaginations, our relationship with the characters and their experiences feels that little bit more personal than when we're following someone else's interpretation on the series screen.
Even with THE POWER, that makes a big difference, because Naomi Alderman's writing style is much more sober, gritty, and biting than the often very optimistic and upbeat series version. If you liked THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Naomi Alderman's mentor Margaret Atwood, you'll enjoy reading THE POWER as well.
There is more to the Story
The series does away with a central element of the book, at least in the first season: THE POWER is a book within a book, framed by two exchanges of letters. These exchanges of letters make readers question the events depicted and even their own worldview. Thus THE POWER becomes a very multilayered novel, which tells by far not so straightforward of a simple power reversal between the sexes, as it shows the series.
No waiting until the 2nd season
The series THE POWER deals only about a third of the book and focuses in the first season still very much on the teenage protagonists*. The book accompanies the characters but over a period of ten years and dives every now and then in decisive moments in their lives.
If you want to know after the cliffhanger in the first season so absolutely how it goes on and how the characters still develop, then you can experience that in the book already times and thus bridge the waiting time.
In our podcast SEHR SEHR SERIEN, SERIENCAMP program director Gerhard Maier and Vanessa Schneider ("Skip Intro") talk about the series "The Power". Can you tune in at Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, Deezer, Overcast and Buzzsprout.
And in this blog article, we've summarized for you why book adaptations are so popular right now for series producers around the world.