# Great novelisations of movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 20, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284 "2012-09-20T16:47:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/1 "2012-09-20T16:47:31Z")
Which novelisations of films are superior books in their own right? Meaning ones which are worth reading independent of the film. Summer of 42, perhaps better known than the movie. Love Story; the same as above. Revenge of the Sith; A truly excellent book. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/2 "2012-09-20T17:53:21Z")
_Fantastic Voyage_ by Isaac Asimov. Asimov straightened out all of the science errors from the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/3 "2012-09-20T19:08:22Z")
Arthur C. Clark’s 2001: A Space Odyssey sort-of counts; he and Kubrick were working on the novel and movie at about the same time, shooting notes and revisions back and forth. Almost more a collaborative effort than a straight-up novelization. Orson Scott Card’s novelization of The Abyss (written before the wingnuttery took hold) is generally well-regarded, though I haven’t read it myself. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/4 "2012-09-20T20:23:26Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![expectopatronum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/expectopatronum/32/173_2.png) [@expectopatronum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/expectopatronum)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/5 "2012-09-20T23:04:05Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Revenge of the Sith; A truly excellent book. haven’t read it, but i do remember reading the novelization of the phantom menace back in the day and being surprised that it was pretty good. i really like the book version of the movie spiderman (the first of the sam raimi series). it’s not great literature, by any stretch, but it’s a fun and funny read and full of in jokes for the reader. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/6 "2012-09-20T23:12:38Z")
\*One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest The Shining Carrie\* Actually, any King book is better than a King film, although _Misery_ was pretty good. _To Kill a Mockingbird_ _Shogun_ ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/7 "2012-09-20T23:16:04Z")
Alan Dean Foster’s Alien ---
**Author:** ![Rubixcube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Rubixcube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubixcube)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/8 "2012-09-20T23:29:58Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > \*One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest > > The Shining > > Carrie\* > > Actually, any King book is better than a King film, although _Misery_ was pretty good. > > _To Kill a Mockingbird_ > > _Shogun_ You’ve got it backwards, a novelization is when an author adapts something _into_ a novel. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/9 "2012-09-21T01:37:09Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Arthur C. Clark’s 2001: A Space Odyssey sort-of counts; he and Kubrick were working on the novel and movie at about the same time, shooting notes and revisions back and forth. Almost more a collaborative effort than a straight-up novelization. Something similar happened with the James Bond novel _Thunderball_. The novel was based on a film script that Ian Fleming had collaborated on. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/10 "2012-09-21T01:56:08Z")
_Highlander_ > [@Icerigger](#): > > Alan Dean Foster’s Alien +1 His work on the _Aliens_ novelisation was very good as well. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/11 "2012-09-21T02:13:13Z")
The novelization of Gremlins was one of my favorites. It touched on the origin of the Mogwai, past Gremlin outbreaks, back stories of characters. I read it several times as a kid. One aspect that stuck with me is it had an entire chapter that was just two words long: “Pete forgot.” (BTW he forgot to tell their science teacher not to feed the Mogwai he was studying after midnight). ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/12 "2012-09-21T02:28:43Z")
> [@Rubixcube](#): > > You’ve got it backwards, a novelization is when an author adapts something _into_ a novel. Yeah, that’s where I posted the NM, thinking of _Lord Jim_ as a film. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/13 "2012-09-21T02:52:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Something similar happened with the James Bond novel _Thunderball_. The novel was based on a film script that Ian Fleming had collaborated on. He helped change the novels to those…I am at a loss. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/14 "2012-09-21T02:58:40Z")
Do we have to stick to movies? _Peter Pan_, originally written as a stage play, and then novelized by its author. _The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy_, originally a radio show, and then a series of novels. Red Dwarf. After Grant and Naylor’s partnership broke up, they each wrote novels, in different continuities to each other and the TV show. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/15 "2012-09-21T09:22:43Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Do we have to stick to movies? > > _Peter Pan_, originally written as a stage play, and then novelized by its author. > > _The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy_, originally a radio show, and then a series of novels. > > Red Dwarf. After Grant and Naylor’s partnership broke up, they each wrote novels, in different continuities to each other and the TV show. Sure. Good examples. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/16 "2012-09-21T09:25:36Z")
> [@expectopatronum](#): > > haven’t read it, but i do remember reading the novelization of the phantom menace back in the day and being surprised that it was pretty good. All of the prequel novelisations were very good, _Revenge of the Sith_ by Matthew Stover was a genuinely good book in its own right, not just as an extended version of the movie story. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/17 "2012-09-21T09:40:17Z")
_Conan the Barbarian_, novel by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, based on the script of the Schwartzenegger movie. Fleshes out a number of details that didn’t make the final cut of the movie. You remember the scene with young Conan and his father on the mountaintop? “This, you can trust.”? In the book, that speech is longer, more philosophical, and much more poetic. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/18 "2012-09-21T11:53:57Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > _Conan the Barbarian_, novel by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, based on the script of the Schwartzenegger movie. Fleshes out a number of details that didn’t make the final cut of the movie. You remember the scene with young Conan and his father on the mountaintop? “This, you can trust.”? In the book, that speech is longer, more philosophical, and much more poetic. I believe they were both finishing REH stories before the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/19 "2012-09-21T12:25:17Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > Alan Dean Foster’s Alien > [@Battle\_Pope](#): > > His work on the _Aliens_ novelisation was very good as well. Didn’t he also write the original “Star Wars” novelization? My contribution to the thread… “Poltergeist II”. Ha ha, no wait. Hear me out. OK, it was a mediocre novelization based on a cheesy sequel, but buried in the middle of the book was this little gem of a sentence: > [@](#): > > The gifts of the Gods often come with instructions in madness. I read the book after the movie came out, and I still remember that line to this day. I’ve been dying to work it into an actual conversation ever since. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/20 "2012-09-21T12:38:28Z")
Orson Scott Card’s novelization of _The Abyss_ has been mentioned – Cameron had previously complauinned about earlier novelizations of his work (mostly, I thinki, by Alan Dean Foster), and swore it wouldn’t happen again. Card w3as brought on board as they wer making the film, went down in the tank where the underwsatter scenes were being filmed in a diving suit, and came up with backstories for the characters that impressed Cameron so much, they wrere handed out to the cast nd incorporated into the film. In an introduction, Cameron says it is NOT a “novelization”, but an integral part of the film-making. Certainly I’m not familiar with another case where a literary interpretation by someone not involved in the porioginal screenplay so affected the production. Asimov’s _Fantastic Voyage_ has been mentioned. It’s been in xconstant print longer than any other novelization I know of, and Asimov eventually re-interpreted it as _Fantastic Voyage II_, which isn’t really a sequel. W.J. Stuart’s (really Philip MacDonald’s ) novelization of **Forbidden Planet** is very interesting, because it re-interprets the film, and in an interesting way. An animkal is hit by one of the vehicles, for instance, and when Doc Ostrow performs an autopsy he finds the inside an unworkable collection of tissue, which suggests a very different origion for the animals on Altair IV, instead of Morbius’ explanation that they were captured on Earth and brought there by the Krel. Each chapter is narrated by a different character. It’s well worth a read. It has been publioshed numerous times, to my surprise. I have a copy of the original Bantam paperback and the later Paperback Library imprint, but it’s been published more than once in hardcover. The Sherlock Holmes-meets-Jack the Ripper movie **A Study in Terror** was turned into a novel by “Ellery Queen” and an uncredited Paul W. Fairman. It looks as if the Queen parets really _were_ written by Dannay and Lee (the real “Ellery Queen”) and not fobbed off on some other writer, as I understand sometimes happened with Queen productions. The movie details were changed for the novel, as in the Forbidden Planet case. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284.md?page=2)