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The first Star Wars novelisation, by Alan Dean Foster. Read it years before I would ever see the movie. |
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Ya know, the novelization of the Iron Man film isn't bad. Done by Peter David, of all people. As you might expect, lots of details that aren't in the movie. |
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Resisting urge to make a joke about 'Mike Sterling's closet.' Sorry, it's just there, too obvious. |
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I own photonovelizations of The Jerk and the pilot of Mork & Mindy. My closet and yours should hang out some time. |
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I read a lot of novelizations as a kid, including Back to the Future and The Goonies. Can't believe George Gipe is dead, or that I still remember his name so vividly. |
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I used to get a lot of these through classroom book orders back when I was still of an age when teachers did that routinely. I remember really enjoying the novelization for SpaceCamp. |
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Bill D has mentioned my favourite thing with adaptations, which was where they had whole alternate plots or endings that didn’t make it into the final movie. |
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Also, I had a ton of the Doctor Who novelizations that Target (not the store) published in the 80s. Back then, that was the only way you could ever be exposed to certain lost stories (most of Troughton's run, for instance), and the only way to "see" other stories if you were impatient. My PBS station liked to run them in order (except for the rare occasion when they got new ones), so if you wanted a Peter Davison story and there were still mid-Hartnell, you had a long wait ahead. |
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I too had the Goonies, Back to the Future, and Howard the Duck books! I think I read the Goonies book several times. i still remember the spooky sequence (cut from the film) where they have to take a raft across the underground lake. Also had the Star Wars novelizations and the India Jones. |
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I've got Buckaroo Banzai, which is a great novelization. Alan Dean Foster's Aliens is pretty good, too, because it includes all the deleted scenes. |
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I have the novelization of Return of the Jedi, with illustrations from the actual storyboards inside. It's pretty beat up now from so many readings as a kid. I remember thinking it was cool becasue you got to see what the characters were thinking while doing whatever they did. |
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I have E.T., Dark Star, Alien(s)(3), (A.D. Foster wrote a lot of that stuff, huh?), Star Wars (all three), Jaws... Iknow I have more of them, but I can't find'em. The oddest one is Quick Change, but that may have been a book first. |
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My copy of Wild Cards 1 was the one with the Truman cover. Funny thing- I've loaned that book out to at least a dozen people, none of which are even remotely interested in that sort of fandom. Guess it just looked interesting! |
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I quite enjoyed the novelization of The Abyss (especially since, at the time, it was the only way to get the full story that wouldn't come out until the "Special Edition" years later). |
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As for the Wild Cards sleeves, those Bolland ones (It IS Bolland, right?) are really nice. Almost makes me want to read the books, which the Truman ones most certainly didn't. |
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I bought the first four Wild Cards books in hard cover a few months ago for a dollar each. I'm not incredibly fond of the series but there are individual stories in each that are worth it (okay, except in that third one where they just smooshed all the stories together to try to make it more like a novel). |
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Being hugely impressed with Maggin's original novels LAST SON OF KRYPTON and MIRACLE MONDAY (not adaptations, but released as tie-ins with the first two movies, with the usual photo cover and photo gallery that adaptations get) I was stupidly quick to grab the book that came out when SUPERMAN III did. You can guess how that turned out... |
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I own far too many of these novelizations myself, but there are two that fascinated the coming-of-age me to the point of reading them into coverlessness: |
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I had a lot of novelizations, from as far back as the James Blish Trek adaptations and Space: 1999 novels through such mid-1980s classics as Temple of Doom and Gremlins. |
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Also, I recall reading a few WildCards books and liking them. Didn't a couple of comics writers contribute? I seem to recall a story in one book by Chris Claremont ... |
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Oh, yeah. The Blish Treks. I grew up on those back in the day when living in Sweden meant that you had gotten to see a total of seven episodes of Star Trek. We recorded the sound onto cassette and listened to them over and over - when some of them came out as photonovels, we could match them up quite nicely. |
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I had a couple of Hammer Horror Omnibus editions back in the early 70s with adaptations of 6(?) different movies in total(Rasputin, The Reptile, The Gorgon, The Curse of Frankenstein,Dracula,Prince of Darkness, Plague of the Zombies...) which I loved. |
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Worst novelization that I can remember owning (stuff like that was long ago culled from my limited shelf space) - some book that was based on a text-based adventure game by Craig Shaw Gardner (I only remember this because of the above mention of his name). |
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Gardner wrote the novelization of the Infocom game Wishbringer. The line was as bad as you could expect a novel based on a game to be but they do get a bit of attention since there are people who collect Infocom stuff. |
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In a used book I recently purchased, I found the original owner's receipt. It was from a university book store, dated 1972, and was for less than a buck. |
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They're owned by Borders now, and typically serve as the Mall Store version. Both of the Waldens in my town closed last year, though, which totally bites. |
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A couple of years ago, I found a novelization of Zardoz in a used book store, and I had to have it. |
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Derooftrouser, I didn't read the Batman novelization but that scene where they find Knox in Batman's cloak was in the comic adaptation. At the time I was too young to see the movie so I cherished that comic. |
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I am one of the three people who owns the novelization of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. |
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I also had a ton of the Doctor Who books when I was a kid; I loved them, but have no idea how they'd hold up now. They were mostly published by Target, but an earlier incarnation from a different publisher (?) had more realistic cover art and a totally badass Doctor Who logo apparently original to the books. That's, like, all I remember about them. |
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I remember reading the crap out of the novelizations of "V" and "V: The Final Battle". Both were better than the mini-series. |
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I don't think it's technically a novelization, but I have a heavily photo-illustrated book version of Animal House. It stuck pretty close to the movie, with a few diversions (like how Pinto got his nick name). |
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I went through the novelization phase myself. My favorite (I still have a favorite!) was Total Recall by Piers Anthony, of all people. Still have it up by his Xanth books. |
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I think the Doctor Who novels mentioned by Mike McGee were American reprints of the Target novelizations, published by Pinnacle Books. They had an original logo, and some snappy covers. |
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"The line was as bad as you could expect a novel based on a game to be but they do get a bit of attention since there are people who collect Infocom stuff." |
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Really enjoyed the Buckaroo Banzai novelization; didn't see the movie until years later and didn't much care for it. |
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Ellis Weiner??? That's got to be a pseudonym riff of Will Eisner... right? |
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I've got Marvel's adaptation of DUNE, in paperback book format (so it technically counts I think), with art by the great Billy the Sink. I also had copies of both books you scanned--they're probably still in a closet somewhere. My preference for movie novelizations, though, was those 8x12 sized picture books. I had all the Star Wars, Ghostbusters I & II, Superman, and even Supergirl. (Was there really a Supergirl movie? I know the book exists, but did they really make a Supergirl movie?) (I just checked IMDB, and it turns out it actually happened. 3.9 stars out of 10.) |
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thank you mike! promise i wont read it while im driving or something! |
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There was a used bookstore within bike distance from my house, so I'd haunt the shelves for quirky books...and I, too, went through that "novelization phase". |
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I still have some of those Dr Who books! I (snob) remember wanting the original versions rather than the American ones. |
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The Empire Strikes Back novelisation got me into trouble. I was 6 or 7, and borrowed it at the library, but unfortunately the cover showed Han and Leia passionately kissing. My delightful classmates ran off to tell the teacher I was reading a "dirty book" and it was confiscated! My mum got it back for me at the end of the day, but I spent the whole day on tenterhooks waiting to see if anyone escaped the Battle of Hoth! |
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I had a novelization of Star Wars at the time the film came out or just prior to it. |
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My favorite novelizations are the original 'Planet of the Apes' films. Hard to find, but worth it for a little more background info. I also have the Zardoz novelization, which is actually not that bad. As with the POTA books, lots of background info. |
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To this day, I still fondly remember that Howard the Duck novelization. |
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The only novelizations I ever picked up were Orson Scott Card's The Abyss and a variety of Peter David's Star Trek novels. Both were quite good. I'd like to read David's original Trek series one of these days. I had enough other books to keep me entertained that I didn't want to pick up adaptations by writers I knew nothing about. |
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