By the way, “I, Robot” was a travesty. This year’s “Moon,” which I believe was an original screenplay was very good… went to a tiny theater in Brooklyn to see it. As far as adaptations are concerned “2001,” “Bladerunner,” and the original soviet film “Solaris” were all great though they differed significantly from the novels (“Bladerunner” was based on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” by Philip K. Dick, but then you already knew that). They are simply different mediums; you’ll need a screenwriter that can capture the spirit of the book while taking certain liberties with the details to make it more cinematic.

Of course, some people just want to have the use of the fans of the book while caring nothing for its content. I refer to I, Robot as ‘based on a title by Isaac Asimov’, and similarly for Starship Troopers.

Another fine example is the first Dungeons and Dragons movie – written and produced by people who had never played the game. At least they didn’t have modern players magically transported to a fantasy world, but they might as well have.

Mind you, this didn’t result in a production (the various things that have been produced have nothing to do with that script) and so you’re right, in that the studios who did produce the films didn’t really talk to le Guin.

“Many years ago Michael Powell and I wrote a script, combining the first two books, which was brief, lively, and perfectly true to the spirit of the books” said le Guin -
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Interview-Castagno.html

http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/MichaelPowell.html from Powell’s angle:
“I began to rough out a script on the Ursula Le Guin trilogy. Having done a few sequences, I summoned up courage and sent them to her. She was delighted with them. I said, “In that case, let’s do the script together.” “We have done it so by correspondence. We have only met twice, once in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon where she lives. It’s been a most happy collaboration and it’s still going on.”

Powell died nearly 20 years ago, so obviously it’s not still going on now…

Eventually something came out – the title of this Locus article from Ursula le Guin is “Frankenstein’s Earthsea”!
http://www.locusmag.com/2005/Issues/01LeGuin.html

One of the reasons scifi fares so badly in Hollywood (with the exception of a few “boldly” ones) is that it costs so much to realize what good scifi writers like yourself dream up. Sets, special effects and make up cost millions, so it’s somewhat understandable, albeit annoying, that producers are apprehensive about scifi.

In radio it costs about the same to create scifi as it does to create a murder mystery.