Those who have read Jo Graham’s Calpurnian Wars sagas have undoubtedly sussed out that, besides their remarkable novelistic attributes, they would also make a rousing TV series: planets that are tidally locked or circle two suns; echoes from Bronze and Iron Age myths; societies with customs that arose from both planetary specifics and genetic drift; astrogators who link to their ships, becoming avatars with godlike powers, complex and shifting allegiances and alliances.
The Calpurnian Wars Hollywood pitch might be “Babylon 5 meets C. J. Cherryh’s Union/Alliance universe.” To sound a celebratory fanfare during the grayest days of the year, below is my dream cast for the first three titles in the series: Sounding Dark, Warlady, and, as a lagniappe, the upcoming Fortune’s Favor (launching in June 2023).
I chose performers for each story from a specific geographical area: Oceania/Pacific Rim for Sounding Dark, because of the strong sense of Polynesian-like journeys on giant catamarans; Hellás for Warlady, for its haunting Minoan/Spartan/Macedonian feel; and Maghreb for Fortune’s Favor, since it is an SFnal imagining of Hellenistic city-states around the Mediterranean.
Of course, the authors of all the titles I’ve dreamcast so far have their own sense of their protagonists, which they may decide to share with their readers. And who knows? Perhaps this may yet come to pass—and if it does, it will be interesting to compare the real-world outcome with my woolgathering.
Calpurnian Wars Dream Cast
In Two Stories
Bister: Rena Owen (Sounding Dark and Fortune’s Favor)
Boral: Mena Massoud (Warlady and Fortune’s Favor)
Sounding Dark
Griffin: Eric Bana
Adelita: Michele Yeoh
Tal: Dean O’Gorman
Navigator: Zoe Kravitz
Warlady
Sandrine: Martha Labiri
Jauffre: George Corraface
Leonie: Markella Yannatou
Khreesos: Giannis Stankoglou
Fortune’s Favor
Caralys: Dorra Zarrouk
Helios: Alexander Siddig
My starry-eyed castings of other Candlemark titles:
