So, I have some good news to share! AMC has ordered a primetime animated series, Pantheon, based on an interconnected series of short stories by me. Craig Silverstein and the writers have been so amazing to work with. The writers room may be one of the most fascinating storytelling innovations.
AMC has given a two-season order for Pantheon, a one-hour, animated series based on a series of short stories by Ken Liu about uploaded intelligence, reports Deadline.
The network began developing the series back in 2018, setting up a writers room to begin writing a series of scrips and a short animated presentation. The series is being run by Craig Silverstein, who’s produced and written for shows like AMC’s TURN: Washington’s Spies, Nikita, Terra Nova, and others. Deadline notes that the series is “described as a fresh take on graphic realism done in a traditional 2D way, using modern tools.” The series will at least run for two seasons (Deadline says that it’s “envisioned as an ongoing series”) of eight episodes.
The show will follow a young woman named Maddie, “a bullied teen who receives mysterious help from someone online,” who turns out to be her dead father David, who has uploaded his consciousness into the cloud, and whose existence marks a potential turning point for the human race.
— Andrew Liptak for Tor.com
You can listen to one of the stories behind Pantheon, “Staying Behind” as narrated by the inimitable @levarburton in the latest episode of LeVar Burton Reads. The story was originally published by Clarkesworld.
You can read the series of short stories that became the basis for Pantheon in my latest collection, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories.