Great point, Herb. Philip K. Dick isn't the easiest or most accessible of writers to adapt for the screen (given the psychological intricacies and extended philosophical/theological riffs and ruminations of his admittedly sometimes “far-out, man!” schizophrenic imagination) but directors as diverse as Steven Spielberg, Paul Verhoeven, Richard Linklater and George Nolfi have managed to give us the films Minority Report, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and The Adjustment Bureau. And then there is Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, which is in a class of its own.

Ian Banks has given directors an embarrassment of  riches from which to select that is every bit as richly variegated, intellectually stimulating and emotionally involving as Dick. In his own manner, of course. But for some reason his novels have been overlooked by Hollywood and the European studios to date and that is a shame. (A film treatment based on his Culture universe has been “in development” for years now but no further news has been forth-coming.)

For those of you curious about Banks’ Culture universe click here; it’s as concise and pretty an enticement/synopsis as you’re likely to read anywhere:

http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/01/iain-m-banks-culture-novels-star-wars-for-adults  

@Herb: I agree with you that Banks' work is inherently far more filmable than PKD's. (And I would think has a broader and deeper demographic appeal than Horse-lover Fats'. —PKD's literary alter-ego.) Which was my point, expressed in solidarity with your sentiments.

Re: The movie Blader Runner vs. the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—you put your finger on the weakest part of the film, whose ending even actor Harrison Ford commented "felt like it belonged in a different movie."

But I feel about this particular novel vs. film comparison the same way I do about pitting Stephen King's The Shining against Kubrick's: both versions are absolute masterpieces and triumphs of their respective forms; both show the weaknesses and strengths inherent in two very different arts. This is Banks' thread and I don't want to belabor the point overlong but I would argue thus: Even that sun-shiny "happy ending" tacked (with seeming thoughtlessness) onto the end of Blade Runner packs an emotional wallop given all that has come before: We know (or strongly suspect) that both Deckard and his girlfriend are replicants, living tragically truncated lives. As are we all, really—the circle comes round and closes with a bite: Humans are biological machines (as wince-inducing as that sounds) no less than replicants, with finite lives every bit as circumscribed, deterministic and foreshortened (in many instances) as the androids in Ridley Scott’s film. We are moved to pity (in the ancient Greek tragedians’ sense) as we make that connection, and find ourselves (at least I did) weeping at the ephemeral transitoriness of whatever stolen moments of love, joy, grace, peace and beauty Deckard and his replicant girlfriend are able to experience before the "green, green grass covers all."