THE BOOK OF MALACHI TV Series in the Works
Mike Sprague
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Little Island Productions (Amazon’s big-budget The Wheel Of Time series) have snagged the TV rights to T. C. Farren’s sci-fi thriller novel The Book of Malachi.
The story follows Malachi, a mute thirty-year-old man who receives an extraordinary job offer. In exchange for six months as a warden on a top-secret organ-farming project, Raizier Pharmaceuticals will graft him a new tongue. Malachi finds himself on an oil rig among warlords and mass murderers but the book ponders whether the prisoner-donors deserve their fate.
Producer Suzan Harrison says: “The Book of Malachi is an intense and beautifully written story that explores themes of race, disability, and sexuality. T.C Farren has created an extraordinary world, and we’re thrilled to bring it to the screen.”
Farren added: “People who read the book often say they’ve just watched a movie. I felt the same way writing it. It is wonderful that Little Island Productions are going to make this materialize.”
Here’s a lengthy rundown on the book via Amazon: Malachi is the survivor of a brutal attack by genocidaires on his school: he has seen loved ones slaughtered and his tongue has been cut out. Malachi cannot speak, but he is far from dumb, though he keeps himself to himself, tamping down the traumatic memories as he performs mind-numbing work on the production line in a chicken-packing factory. But then an agent for a powerful pharmaceutical company comes looking for a suitable candidate for a mysterious job, and he is offered what he can’t refuse: not just handsome financial reward, but also a new tongue – and hope. Hope soon turns to horror as he is flown out to an old oil rig off the African coast and discovers that he is to be carer and jail-keeper in a highly secretive organ farming operation. His captive charges, he is assured, are all criminals – evil people deserving of death row. They would die anyway. At least now the last days of their lives are useful to those in greater need. Like Malachi himself. But are the prisoner-donors all as bad as Frasier Pharmaceuticals say – Malachi is banned from communicating with them, but no one knows that he can read and write, and whispers reach his ears. The stories of the desperate will not be silenced – not even his own. Covertly he comes to know them, even the ones he fears, and as his own memories gain force, he must make a choice – if he wants to try to save one, he must save them all. And risk everything himself. Malachi may have no tongue, but his is a voice you will never forget – sharply ironic, vividly descriptive and leavened with humour, every sense sharpened by his loss of speech. He is a compelling guide through the twists and turns of a terrible dilemma, in this darkly suspenseful but ultimately redemptive high-concept thriller.
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