Fun Your Favourite Books & Authors!

ant-mac

Member: Rank 9
Just off of the top of my head...

John Wyndham

Arthur C Clarke

George Orwell

Ian Fleming

Elleston Trevor

Douglas Adams

Philip K Dick

Harlan Ellison

Stephen King

Dan Brown

Mario Puzo

John Gardner

Damon Knight

Robert Silverberg

Theodore Sturgeon

Robert Bloch

Michael Crichton

Alex Garland

Isaac Asimov

Fritz Leiber

Harry Harrison

Clifford D Simak

Larry Niven

Agatha Christie

Pierre Boulle
 

ant-mac

Member: Rank 9
His books have real inventiveness and characters that flow with the zeitgeist of the mid-century era, which I love.
I love science fiction - and some other genres - from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in particular. I don't mind some later works, but it's not what I'm most passionate about.
 

Carol

Member: Rank 5
Lots of love for HG Wells - WAR OF THE WORLDS not only, for me, inspired the best ever concept album not by Rick Wakeman, but the best ever sequel - Willy Rushton's W.G. GRACE'S LAST CASE. No where near as famous as something so funny, rude and clever ought to be. Dr Grace and Dr Watson team up to prevent the return of the martians - Dr Jekyll, Queen Victoria and Oscar Wilde also get involved... ha! modernise that, I dare you Tom Cruise!

Oh yes, book I was made to read, etc - Jane Austen''s Persuasion was a comic revelation, but I will never forgive Wordsworth for the ruddy Prelude.
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
There were several books that I was made to read in school that ended up becoming major factors in who I became, and which I loved. All Quiet on the Western Front was a book that I might not have otherwise picked up, but it engrossed me. It's nice to see war from the perspective of the enemy, and give them a human face (much to the chagrin of world leaders). Night was another book that hit me hard, as I had read about the Holocaust, but not from a personal recount. And, of course, Animal Farm is an amazing book.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10



Once they were sometimes the only way to re-experience a movie, barring television showings....

But in this day and age, is there any point to them anymore?

Should we bid farewell to the novelisations?

It's not as if any classic literature came from their ranks....

Or did it?



 
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filmfan95

Member: Rank 3
Novelizations are actually kind of cool, because often times they will be based on an earlier draft of the screenplay than the one used for the final movie, so one can find out what was originally going to be different in a movie. For instance, in the novelization of Back to the Future, Marty actually hides the Delorean inside the garage of what will be his house in the future, rather than behind a billboard. And he actually has the push the Delorean all the way to Doc Brown's house in order to fully convince him that he's telling the truth about being a time traveler. I actually thought these differences were pretty interesting.

In the novelization of The Karate Kid, the scene where Daniel visits the arcade with his girlfriend comes directly before the day when he finds out that Miyagi has been teaching him karate all along, whereas this scene comes much earlier in the final movie. Also, the beginning scene of Karate Kid 2, where Miyagi beats up the evil karate teacher, was originally intended to be the ending of the first film, and the novelization includes it. These are things that I never would have found out had I never read the novelizations.

What does get kind of annoying is when there are novelizations of movies that are already based on books. I thought the whole point of a novelization was so that people had a book version of a story that they could read. And if the movie is already based on a book, why can't people just read that one? I only advocate books based on movies based on books if the movie is different enough from the original book that it becomes a different story.

All in all, I think novelizations of movies still have quite a bit of merit among collectors.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
When the Alien 3 novelisation came out it had wildly differing passages to the film in the theatres. All very baffling at the time, but now we know just what interference and reshooting went on and we have now seen a lot of those novelised scenes, but it was a fascinating read at the time.
 

Gavin

Member: Rank 6
VIP
Novelisations can be a a bit of both really. The best ones allow you to delve further into the minds of the characters and understand things that are sometimes left a bit vague in the finished film (usually because of time constraints). The novelisation of The Abyss was an excellent example of this with the author using the first three chapters to provide a childhood view of the three main characters, providing significant insight into their later actions.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10








It's all those adventures that your heroes never really had, but you spent your hard-earned bucks on them anyway.

How valid are these efforts?

Or is it all just one big money-making scam?


And what of the continuity foul-ups that result from these efforts?


Also, what of when a studio can declare all your favourite spin off novels non-canon?


When is enough enough?

And have you given up on them?


 
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