It’s a truism that cinematic adaptations often pale besides their literary counterparts. An obvious counterexample is Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner but, off the top of my head, I can’t think of more. For those who’ve only seen the film, it’s well worth reading the Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to see just how different it is, but to explain some elements of the screen version you’d have to gloss over otherwise.

Read the book to discover why the Blade Runner owl is artificial

A wonderful thing about a book is that everyone’s idea of it is unique. The reader converts the printed word from the page into a world of their own imagination. How I see the Imperial Palace on Melania in my head, is different from any readers of the Johnny Mackintosh books. Perhaps that’s why film adaptations so often disappoint, as the Director is competing with thousands of movies that have already run within a reader’s head.

There’s no film I can remember that’s disappointed me more that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, directed by David Yates with a screenplay by Steve Kloves. As someone who loves the stories so deeply, it horrifies me that this pairing were also asked to make the double film of the final book. While I think the quality of film-making in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince isn’t terrible (though it is weak), what I can’t fathom were the drastic, totally unnecessary changes to the plot that were introduced, diverting from Rowling’s marvellous story architecture and characterization.

[spoiler alert]

Yates and Kloves think they know better than JK Rowling

With a long book, why introduce a mad scene where Bellatrix Lestrange destroys The Burrow? Where will they hold the wedding in the next film, or has that been scrapped too?

A more important example was the death of Dumbledore. In the book, Harry is powerless to act, hidden under the invisibility cloak with Dumbledore’s body-bind curse on him. He would do anything to fight to save his pseudo-grandfather figure, and knows all too well the Hogwarts Headmaster is dead when the curse lifts. If the film, Harry is hiding in the background, and chooses simply to watch and not act, perhaps due to some bizarre element of cowardice that Yates and Kloves wanted to introduce into Harry’s character. There are numerous other examples and a lot concerning Dumbledore’s relationship with Harry: in the books, our hero is kept in the dark and has o puzzle things out for himself; according to this film, Harry is Dumbledore’s confidant.

When I write the Johnny Mackintosh books, I confess I sometimes have a secret nod to possible future film adaptations. I know a fair amount about film theory and structure, and sometimes I’ll be particularly proud of a passage because I know how well it would translate onto the big screen. I see the same in Jo Rowling’s writing at times, where she’s gone a little out of her way to write a beautiful, cinematic scene for her directors, knowing how much it would enhance the film. Yates completely ignored this. There are two such scenes in the Half-Blood Prince: the great battle within Hogwarts, as the DA battle the Death Eaters within the castle, and then the set-piece of Dumbledore’s funeral. How could these be missing? It means the film doesn’t even have a proper climax. And it’s given a terrible plot problem for the final film when Voldy has to break into Dumbledore’s tomb.

If you haven’t gathered I feel very strongly about this, then you should. I do wonder why Rowling would have allowed it to happen when she famously controlled the earlier films so tightly. One of my friends did suggest that, by the time Kloves was writing the screenplay, he had all seven books at his disposal so, for the first time she could step back and trust the filmmakers. What a mistake that was.

However, the reason I thought I’d write this piece was having recently seen the movie of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Now I know many people describe the Percy Jackson books as “Harry Potter lite” and I can understand that. This is the only Percy Jackson book I’ve read and I have to say I rather enjoyed it. The idea was better than the writing, but it was a fun story, lacking a little in dramatic tension (I never felt Percy wasn’t going to get out of his scrapes pretty easily) and Percy didn’t seem to have any qualms or regrets about killing anything. But I like it enough to reread it almost at once.

A rare scene in Percy Jackson, staying fairly true to the book

Then I saw the movie. It’s as if the Director (Christopher Columbus) had read a completely different book from me (and everybody else) and had no qualms whatsoever about changing almost the entire narrative. I was left really nonplussed by the whole experience and really felt for die-hard fans of the series, as they must have wondered what on earth they were watching.

The same thing happened with Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, where the story was butchered, almost to the point of becoming unrecognizable, by the filmmakers, ruining everything that was good about the book.

Then, last night I saw the Alex Rider Stormbreaker film for the first time. Apologies to Anthony Horowitz, but I really loathed this book and couldn’t get on with the style of writing at all. Happily for Anthony, he’s done very well from it and certainly doesn’t need my endorsement. I don’t recall that much about the book, but watching the film I was pleasantly surprised and it’s interesting that Horowitz also wrote the screenplay. Here the director (Geoffrey Sax) seems to have gone for some sort of high-camp spoof (hence very comic) adaptation, which work well for what it was.

Peter Jackson's beautiful Minas Tirith

At the start of this blog entry, I commented that Blade Runner is a superb film and completely unlike the book. Is it fair, then, to criticize other movies that diverge from the books they’re based on, attempting to make films that standalone? Yes and no. I’ve not read The Lord of the Rings books since I was 14 or 15, but I devoured them up until that point and always considered them unfilmable. Then Peter Jackson directed one of the most beautiful cinema trilogies ever and fans of the book owe him an incredible debt. I always dreamy I’d see the beautiful city of Minas Tirith first hand and he made it possible.

What I think it comes down to is that, for a hugely popular book, the filmmakers have a responsibility to the fanbase to create something true to the original story. For something less well known, they’re free to take the essence of the story and use it as a basis to create some new work of art. It breaks my heart to say it, but I don’t think there’s any way I’ll watch the final two Harry Potter movies as they’ll just make me angry.

Nowadays, I can’t hear the words “Independence Day” without thinking of the epic movie, with mankind defeating alien invaders against all the odds. Some of the film is superbly written, including President Bill Pullman’s rousing speech outside Area 51 to his ragtag bunch of fighter pilots, tasked with bringing down an alien mother ship.

“In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join will join with others from around the world and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. ‘Mankind’ … that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore … Perhaps it’s fate tat today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom – not from tyranny, oppression or persecution, but from annihilation. We’re fighting for our right to live – to exist.  And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American hooliday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:

“We will not go quietly into the night.

“We will not vanish without a fight.

“We’re going to live on.

“We’re going to survive.

“Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!”

Just thinking about that scene brings a tear to my eye, and it’s especially relevant at the moment as I write the third Johnny Mackintosh book, provisionally entitled Johnny Mackintosh: Battle for Earth. And I know that any great rallying speeches had better hit the spot, just in case Hollywood comes calling for the movie rights.

Happy Fourth of July to all my American friends!

In the same way, perhaps the dreadful droning is intended to bring the Krun or the Andromedans or some other aliens down to Earth, visiting South Africa District 9 style, or maybe it’s just an alien conspiracy to send everyone in the world mad so they can more easily takeover. I digress…

The Johnny Mackintosh stories may be about space and aliens, but they’re also firmly rooted in football. Johnny himself lives and breathes footy, and I think it’s important he plays a match in every book. When he time travels in the first book, he even works out what day it is by seeing which football match is on the TV. I’m certain that, if the Spirit of London is home on Earth at the moment, he’ll be watching the games and becoming just as exasperated by the incessant vuvuzelas horns as I am. You could say, what Quidditch is to Harry Potter, football is to Johnny Mackintosh.

I played to a reasonable standard growing up, always captain of school and college and club teams. For me, the football in the books helps ground Johnny’s life on Earth, giving readers something they can relate to. Why does he get dropped from the school team? Why do they always seem to train on cold, wet evenings on exposed playing fields? And isn’t it really unfair Johnny has to run all the way back to the changing rooms to collect the half-time orange segments that no school football match would be without?

I worked really hard to make the description of the actual play within the books both realistic, and even useful for readers wanting to improve their play. But there’s another reason why football is in the books – it’s a lure to draw in the so-called “reluctant readers” into the wonders of the literary world. If people can read, relate to and be excited by my descriptions of playing for the school team, they’ll hopefully start to read other books too.

When I was growing up, as well as watching The Tomorrow People I devoured books and comics – of the latter I remember Tiger and Scorcher and its pure football off-shoot, Roy of the Rovers. There were great stories, say about “Billy’s Boots”, that carelessly seemed to get lost at the start of every week, only to be salvaged just in time for young Billy to return to form and score the winning goal. Of course there was also the nonfiction Shoot!, including its classic weekly, “You are the ref” quiz.

Now, with the World Cup upon us, it’s a great time to use football to get kids (and we should remember girls are into football almost as much as boys nowadays) into reading. I hope that the Johnny Mackintosh stories will be one way of doing this, but of course there are other books out there that have football-related themes, so I thought I’d survey them here in case other titles catch your eye.

As a rule, the football-only titles are for younger readers (probably ages around 7-9). As the readership rises, the books still have football, but are about other things as well.

Big Football – Rob Childs’ series (Big Win/Big Fix/Big Freeze/Big Mathc/Big Prize/etc) follows Danebridge School Captain Chris Weston’s footballing adventures.

Death Penalty – a murder mystery set in a Championship football club, by Dennis Hamley and Charles Fenoughty.

Exposure – I had the pleasure of hearing Mal Peet talk about this at the Cheltenham Literature Festival one year. Otello, a glamorous South American footballer (together with WAG wife Desmerelda) becomes embroiled in a scandal with Shakespearian parallels.

Football Academy – a series for younger readers than the Johnny Mackintosh books, Tom Palmer’s stories follow the fortunes the boys trying to get into Premier League “United’s” academy.

Jamie Johnson – a series by Dan Freedman that sees Jamie graduate from the school team to become a professional footballer.

Girls FC – you can follow the Lornton Ladies Under 11 team in Helena Pielchaty’s series, offering a female perspective on the beautiful game (training in a tiara anyone?)

Hot Prospect - young Roddy Jones tries out for a football academy known as Stadium School in an adventure by Cindy Jefferies and Seb Goffe.

Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London – when Johnny’s abducted by aliens on the day of the County Cup Final, you might think he misses it, especially with all the adventures that follow afterwards. But, if you travel through time, anything’s possible, and he still gets to line up for Castle Dudbury Comprehensive against the posh boys of Colchester Grammar in the big match, with its thrilling conclusion.

Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze – he always thought he was one of the school team’s best players, but Johnny’s been dropped from the school team and is shunned by his teammates. Why it’s happened is a mystery, especially when Johnny’s the set-piece specialist. Watching from the sidelines, it looks as though Castle Dudbury are going out of the cup, but when injuries strike, Johnny has twenty minutes to try to save the day – that’s if his teammates will even pass him the ball.

Keeper – a football story with a South American and supernatural theme, by author Mal Peet (who’s also written Tamar and The Penalty). Thanks to Rhodesy the Bear for the recommendation.

Soccer Squad – this nearly didn’t make the cut, simply for using the “S” word. It’s “football” guys! Bali Rai’s stories are about a local youth club’s football team.

The Penalty – another Mal Peet story that doubles as a South American supernatural  thriller.

TJ -  did spending too much time penning his own football stories mean that Theo Walcott devoted too little to his training and was left behind? I hope not. Aimed at a younger readership than my Johnny Mackintosh stories, TJ and the Hat-Trick and TJ and the Penalty both published in April 2010, with the title character bearing an uncanny resemblance to the young Gunner.

If you have other football-related fiction for children or young adults, please leave a comment and I’ll update the master list.

Schoolboy Theo Walcott

Readers of the Johnny Mackintosh books will know I’m a football fan, and I went to Germany for the bitterly disappointing tournament. It was the maddest of possible selections – Michael Owen dragged his injured body off the pitch in the group stages, never to return and we were bereft. Back in those days, when Rooney collected the ball in midfield and ran at the opposition, he was as frighteningly good as Messi, but he hadn’t played as a striker before and, however talented he is, didn’t know the role. When it came to the crunch, not even Sven believed in his Walcott gamble. When the team needed a spark of inspiration, young Theo remained an embarrassed spectator on the bench.

This time around, England sailed through qualification; Capello said all the right things about not taking injured players, only selecting players in form and not picking people who weren’t playing for his clubs. The horror of the vuvuzelas hadn’t then begun, so we can’t blame them for Fabio’s madness, but at the eleventh hour he too went barking mad and performed a volte face on his stated position.

Heskey flaunting the flag of St George?

Inexplicably, into the squad came Jamie Carragher, a man who retired from international football years ago and has had a simply terribly season for mid-table Liverpool. Into the squad came Ledley King, a man permanently injured. We also have Emile Ivanhoe Heskey, who may have the coolest middle name of any England player, but can’t get in the Aston Villa team (as well as not being able to score a goal). Finally, from nowhere we have Shaun Wright Phillips, far down the pecking order at Manchester City behind the sadly discarded Adam Johnson.

The best English centreback this serason has been Michael Dawson. He received a belated call up to the squad with Ferdinand’s sad loss, but should have been on the plane ahead of King or Carragher. Even now, he’s uncapped, and time is running out to play him.

Heskey is big and powerful, but can’t score; Crouch is big but lightweight, but scores lots. Sadly (and it’s not their fault), as soon as either goes onto the teamsheet, England play hoofball. The only way to progress in the World Cup is to keep the ball and to move it quickly from man to man, creating openings. Every punt to Heskey or Crouch is a 50:50 ball which, if we lose it, means we spend several minutes and lots of energy winning the ball back, only to punt it forward again. By all means take Crouch because he is different and does score, but only play him as a last resort  if we need a goal in the final half-hour of a game.

Fabio was probably right not to take Walcott, but Wright Phillips offers nothing better. The balance of the squad would have worked better with his Manchester City teammate Adam Johnson, much preferred by their club manager, Roberto Mancini.

I do think Barry will be fine, and will benefit from the rest (he looked jaded all through the second half of last season), so at least I agree with the manager there. However, with all the passengers now in South Africa, we’re down the bare bones of a winning squad.

Psycho - penalty miss

In Italia 90, after a dreadful opening, player power dictated a change of formation and method. Into the side came the incomparable Mark Wright as sweeper, and the team didn’t look back until first Stuart Pearce and then Chris Waddle fluffed their lines (rumour has it Waddle’s penalty went into orbit, he ballooned it so high). The pundits are now saying we have to change our formation for the later stages, but that’s too late if we’re to get used to it and learn to play incisive keepball on the ground. We’ve got to start now and hopefully the players will demand it if Capello himself can’t see it.

How Waddle's penalty went into orbit

Other than the keeper, the team for England versus Algeria picks itself:

GK: James/Hart/Green

RB: Johnson (could be the star of the tournament)

LB: A Cole

CD: Dawson

CD: Terry

CM: Barry

CM: Lampard

RM: Lennon

LM: J Cole

In the hole: Gerrard

CF: Rooney

I hope Signore Capello is reading this, or it could be a very miserable next month.

Set in the City, where it’s always raining, flood waters are steadily on the rise. Battered boats rescued from scrapyards serve as makeshift buses for the tower blocks, around which the waters are rumoured to have been diverted from the city centre. In that centre, the wealthy are ferried to the opera in gondolas. While all the inhabitants of the city are struggling not to drown in their various problems, their President Bliss tries to deflect attention to far away, pursuing a Blair-like war against the unfortunate inhabitants of a  poor distant country. Neither his cabinet nor the general population has any enthusiasm for the crusade, but somehow Bliss is able to continue with the war (for the sake of peace, naturally).

As well as the rain, I was thinking of this particular novel because I was travelling home from the launch of Maggie’s latest book,  My Animal Life. I’m not sure the Al Saqi bookshop on Westbourne Grove has ever been so crowded. Three of us were there because we’d all had the privilege of meeting Maggie a year earlier, and sharing a writing month with her at Hawthornden Castle as the finishing touches were put to this memoir (I was beginning Johnny Mackintosh: Battle for Earth). It’s a wonderful thing to see a physical book when you were also able to watch it in the late stages of development in the womb. It’s also great to meet fellow writers and on the night I chatted with several I’d not met before.

Maggie spent a little time in conversation with Colin Grant, another author as well as BBC World Service Broadcaster, talking particularly about the candour of her new book, and what had led her to write about herself rather than her characters. Maggie’s a very deep thinker. She puts a lot of science in her books, she’s often tackled difficult themes (check out The White Family), and she comes across as very honest and full of love. While Colin asked her about “sex”, she ended their conversation saying the greatest taboo in writing is “love”. As the place was bursting at the seams, concerned for her audience, it wasn’t long before she stood to read to us from My Animal Life.

I had a very religious upbringing and, although I know now that we’re from all the same stuff as the other creatures on the planet, I still often think of people as separate from animals. That’s strange because my philosophy is very anti the rationalist/logical school that’s dominated so much of our thinking since the Greeks. Intellectually, I believe we’re social creatures, rarely motivated by logic precisely because of our animal nature (if you force me to argue rationally). There’s nothing dirty or disappointing about calling ourselves “animals” – it’s what we are and we should embrace that. Maggie certainly does that, but it doesn’t stop her wondering about some of the great mysteries of life. Some questions she opens the new book with, saying she wants to explore, are:

“Can I save my belief in the the soul from my love of science?

Why do we need art? Why are we driven to make it?

How do we forgive ourselves? And our parents?”

I know the book’s going to be wise, funny, honest and interesting. I’m sure there’ll be something in it for writers everywhere. But I know I’m lucky to have met Maggie and I’ve benefited from spending time with he, so I’d urge everyone to do the same by reading her new memoir.

Readers of Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze will know that brother and sister pairing, Erin and Zeta, fly a solar sailing ship called the Falling Star. Within our solar system, the Sun’s solar wind wouldn’t be strong enough on it’s own to propel a ship, so we’ll need lasers to force it along. However, within Erin and Zeta’s home system of Alnitak there’s an unusually strong solar wind, which is probably why they developed such a vessel.

I’ve sent a message into space, as have Johnny and Clara. They’ll be launched on a DVD carried by the spacecraft – why don’t you join us?

The yellow dots in the middle are my optic nerves. You can see the dominant colour is green (a little like Johnny Mackintosh), but I have darker, brown areas while Johnny has silver flecks. I love the detail, that these look like the landscapes of strange alien worlds. The strange black lines on the right eye, like death spikes of an Andromedan Star Destroyer, are my overlong eyelashes.

The talk was very much a tribute to Carl Sagan and I was pleased to give Chandra a namecheck as well. I enjoyed it – hope you all do too.

For one week only, until the BBC’s iPlayer moves on, you can listen to this afternoon’s interview. It’s between 2:37:25 and 2:42:30.

On Tuesday I’m heading over to Science Oxford to give a talk on Starstuff and Supergiants, which will be a bit of a science of Johnny Mackintosh sort of thing. I came up with the title ages ago, with no plan of what I was going to say on the subject. I thought I’d have months to prepare – where does the time go?

Happily, it’s kind of all sorted and I’m hoping to make it as fun as I can and also inspiring. It’s the first time in my life people are paying to see me (the princely sum of £3), so I’m desperate to give everyone their money’s worth, and a bit more besides. It will be great (if scary) if the place is full.  Science Oxford is

1-5 London Place
Oxford
OX4 1BD

This is part of the wider Oxford Science Festival that runs to the 21st March. If you can’t be there in person, I have a dreadful feeling this might be webcast at some point. Just off to buy props…