Following her death in January, Ursula K. Le Guin’s iconic sci-fi works are being brought back into the limelight. The most recent to join the roster of live-action features coming our way is Nine Lives.
Her classic 1960’s novelette is being adapted by Siri Rodnes at the helm as director, as well as co-writer alongside Tom Basden. Basden is best known for his work as the creator of Gap Year, as well as his writing on Netflix’s Fresh Meat. The production credits will go to Josephine Rose and Gavin Humphries.
Nine Lives features the tale of two miners, Alvaro Guillen Martin and Owen Pugh, as they anticipate a major change on their outpost on a remote planet. Ten clones arrive as the highly anticipated new staff and proceed to aid in the story’s depiction of existential themes and self-ideological reflections. The ever prevalent themes present in the short tale use technology as a means to explore complex motifs, marking a standout reason as to why Le Guin’s work is so widely revered.
The novelette was originally published in an issue of Playboy back in 1969, and since then Le Guin herself has gone on record to note the sexist pretense of that publication. Instead of using her real and obviously feminine name, the magazine opted to use her initials to hide the fact that a woman wrote the piece. Ursula K. Le Guin’s work was published under the name U.K. Le Guin, and in the years proceeding that event she was openly vocal about the blatantly prejudiced treatment she was met with. Regardless, the story was an absolute success and went on to be nominated for a Nebula Award that very same year.
Casting for the live-action adaptation of Nine Lives is underway, so it should only be a matter of time before more news about the classic sci-fi tale surfaces.
