[Note: This interview is done in conjunction with Daniel Abraham, writer on The Hard Call]
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/Wild-Cards-Martin-Comic-100324.html
I was re-reading Dreamsongs and you mention in the "Siren Song of Hollywood" piece that you had had some of your works optioned even before The Armageddon Rag was optioned by Philip DeGuerre. Is there a list anywhere of which works those were?
No, not really. I remember some, though...
"Nightflyers" was optioned and actually filmed, of course.
"Sandkings" was optioned a bunch of times before it was finally done for television on THE OUTER LIMITS. The first time, it was optioned by the old character actor Elisha Cook, Jr, who wanted to play Simon Kress himself.
FEVRE DREAM was optioned once by Oprah's company, Harpo Productions, but they never did anything with it. Later on, Katherine Bigelow was interested in the book, though I don't recall that she actually bought an option.
"Remembering Melody" was optioned and filmed, as an episode of THE HITCHIKER. One of HBO's first original series.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE optioned "Portraits of His Children." Phil had a policy against allowing prose writers to adapt their own stories and books, so Alan Brennert was set to do the script, but CBS decided the story was too downbeat and killed it. It was under option for all of three days, as I recall, but I still got to keep the option money. Made like a thousand dollars a day there...
There were others I've forgotten, I'm sure.