The use of images of the dead to communicate was a major and IMO unwelcome change, adding a feel of tawdry theatrics to how the Overlords arrived and interacted with humans. Their interactions with Stormgren pushed this even further with the enticement of a dead lover, turning their dealings with humans into something bluntly manipulative. The book Overlords were never that blatant or crass.

Several other deviations from the book (the manner of Stormgren's alien abduction, the drug dealer's death, the infant's curing) made the Overlords far more sensationalist and flashily dramatic than they ever were in the book. In the book they were very minimalist, very understated - making displays of non-action a far more ominous message than force ever could. Clarke knew best on this point - less is sometimes more when trying to depict mystery and suspicion. SyFy instead decided to pander to their baser audience, with unnecessary flash cribbed from low brow invasion fair like Independence Day.

Stormgren was changed from a learned and experienced statesman to a flustered everyman. While this did add depth to a somewhat two dimensional book character, it also diminished the character's thoughtful skepticism of and debates with the Overlords and the actions he took accordingly. In the book his character was humanity's intellectual and emotional rival to the Overlords unmatchable power and wisdom, the show lost all that in its ineffective attempt to make the character relatable (the weak performance of the actor didn't help either).

Wainwright was changed from a fanatical but basically peaceful cynic into a power hungry villain. An Irish tinted cross of Dr. No and Jay Jonah Jameson, as much of a cardboard cutout caricature as that description sounds. The book character didn't have much depth either, and basically faded to obscurity as his movement failed to take hold (and more fanatical movements imploded), but he wasn't totally ridiculous and made a reasonable representative for an expected skeptics social movement.

Which leads to the abduction of Stormgren. In the book the execution was cold war spy drama in its intricacy, Wainwright had no involvement in it, and the abductors were only after intelligence on the Overlords. In fact in their intent to resist they had some ideological common ground with Stormgren, and their talks were his inspiration the latter attempt of espionage on Karellan. The TV series reduces the abduction to a simple kidnapping (where were the secret service guards you KNOW would be on site?), the abductors to murdering terrorists too stupid to realize killing Stormgren would only make him a martyr.

And the show's depiction of Stormgren's attempt to expose Karellan lost all of the subtle power of the book. In the book his inspiration to try was a result of his discussions and debates with his freedom movement abductors. The method he used to spy on the Overlords requiring far more planning, collaboration, and technical effort than just whipping out a digital camera. Even more importantly, Karellan's allowance of a glimpse was both an act of farewell compassion for his human friend's curiosity and an act of defiance to his own bindings of servitude.

The timeline of when the Overlords revealed themselves was significantly shortened - from 50 years to 15. This leaves the character of Stormgren alive in act two of the story, a potentially major story shift depending on how the show progresses. It also makes it harder to believe humanity would get past the shock effect of Karellan's appearance, and I've some fears of how SyFy might instead play that up (the alterations of the Overlords appearance to make them look even more satanic and human like already pushes the issue). The staging of the reveal was also slightly changed, for the much worse - in the book Karellan did not request a line of children to be present on his arrival, he simply asked a random pair of them from a crowd of spectators to come up to greet him. The show changed a seemingly spontaneous act of friendship (all the more ominous for its manipulative subtlety) into a banal and transparent performance.

The one bright spot of change is in the character of Milo (Jan in the book) Rodricks to an inner city kid with a razor sharp mind. In the book the character was one of the few given any depth, but even then it was mostly just the depth of motivation - motivation to reveal the Overlords' home planet, motivation to stow away to get there, motivation to document the final end of Earth. WHO Jan/Milo Rodricks was as a person was only marginally touched, mostly through action (Clarke's main weakness as an author was his characters notoriously lacked depth). The show, although again stumbling by having the Overlords directly intervene in Rodricks' fate, gives a welcome expansion to his persona and drive. I'm just not certain other changes (like shortening the timeline of the Overlords' reveal, just to get Rodricks into act one) make how Rodricks was changed worth it.

Overall I don't think the show is, so far, a travesty of the source material, but it definitely does more to diminish it than to do it justice. Mainly in the ill-conceived decision that what the story needed for a screen adaption was the addition of action and violence and shock. None of that was needed or welcome. The one area the story could have been significantly improved - adding dimension and humanity to the main characters - was the area the show mostly neglected.

In the book there was no Stormgren travel illness (or anyone else having ill effects of Overlord pod travel), no Stormgren sterility (certainly not by design), no subsequent Karellan visits to him, or camp out of pilgrims at his house, or Overlord toys left with him (or anyone else). In fact, there was just plain no Stormgren at all in the second act of the book. I had worries about what the show would do leaving this character alive in the second act, and the show pretty much worked it to as banal an effect as they could.

In the book there was no Christian faith child counselor character, or anyone else remotely resembling one, or any cross destruction or any desecration of religious icons, or any other attempt to give the story a major The Exorcist like spin.

There was no scene even remotely close to Karellan being shot, or dying, or even being threatened, or him delivering suicide inducing messages of faith destruction.

In the book the Overlords were not directly involved in any human modification, or impregnation, or intrusive monitoring. They merely waited for humanity to change of its own evolution, accelerating that change only by removing the impediments of famine, war, and disease.

Jennifer was not a trigger of change in humanity's children, just one of many evolutionary changed natural births. Nor were there scattered incidents of sinister psychic children causing discord and destruction like something out of The Omen (the actions of the mass collective of group mind children in the book came much latter, and of a much different tone).

Milo (Jan) was not a biologist, nor was he the primary person to conjecture the premonition angle on why humans recognized the Overlords' physical appearance, nor someone who figured out the Overlords alphabet (their language was never really brought up in the book). Further, the idea that the Overlords would have an alphabet based on a view of Earth's constellations is ludicrous.

The show (so far) has marginalized New Athens from an important and idyllic island of intellectuals intent on preserving human creativity to a barely mentioned anarchist collective with a crime problem.

In the book the Overlords were not driving human interest in psychic phenomena, nor in any way facilitating or encouraging it, just observing it with a mild historical curiosity. They certainly did not deliver any cosmic portal opening Ouija boards (the magnitude that this part was so wrong, in book accuracy and story quality, is staggering).

Which leads to the Ouija party itself, which was so twisted from the book as to almost be unrecognizable. Rupert Boyce was a socialite and collector of paranormal texts, not an Overlord collaborator or subverter. His social gathering was nothing more than a pop culture party, just a gathering of interesting and famous people. Karellan was not present, instead it was another Overlord (Rashaverak), there not by party invite but because he was doing extended research of the contents of Boyce's library. The Overlord's interactions with the party goers was congenial social mingling and strictly passive, with no condescending or patronizing speech on the futility of human science, or ominous looming over a group of silent and intimidated guests, or forced direction of anyone's behavior. There was no Milo (Jan) outburst questioning the Overlord's motives, or any other grand standing accusation scene directed at the Overlords during the party. The Ouija board session was mostly spontaneous after party game event, prompted by Rupert's occult fascination, with many entertained participants. It was not a sinister and covert act with a single captive participant in an Overlord induced trance. In fact the Overlord was merely an observer of the session, neither suggesting nor enticing it, a mildly surprised witness to an outcome he may have been an unwitting catalyst to. Said outcome being far more subtle in nature in the book than the show - there was no unborn infant awakening alien portals, no light show effects, no demonic Overlord incantations. The sole dramatic effect was Ruth fainting, after the Ouija board revealed a cryptic answer to Milo's (Jan's) question of where the Overlords' home world was.