(Great book!) but I think a video game of that would be awful 
So true of a lot of books. And often movies of great books are bad. And games of great movies are often bad. And movies of great games... often bad. Hmm, I see a pattern!
I really feel like each medium is very unique, and that at best one can capture some of the "feel" of another work to a degree, or incorporate ideas. I'd never want to work on a "direct translation" of a move/book to a game, unless I had a
lot of latitude to really stray from the source material, but as with most creators I think you can find little bits and pieces of other works that have influenced me (in all media) in my own stuff.
I liked the Accidental Time Machine pretty well, too -- did you read that one? Same author. Camouflage, I think it was called, was also good by him.
