Guilty Pleasure - Story You Enjoy Regardless Of Reputation
Jun 7, 2019 6:14:23 GMT
constonks, whiskeybrewer, and 1 more like this
Post by glutamodo on Jun 7, 2019 6:14:23 GMT
Okay, when this thread floats to the top of recent unread posts I try to think about what my likes might line up with this metric. I just like the things I like, I don't care what other people think so it's hard to step back and see.
But one of my favorite authors does come to mind - one Alan Dean Foster. Since he's written many motion picture novelizations, he's often come under fire for "selling out"... by people who don't' know that his writing career began with his own characters, on his own terms (The Tar-Aiym Krang, anyone?) that kicked off more than a series, a whole Galaxy of inter-twined stories) And in the late 70s, due to the transfer of reviving Star Trek from a small screen project to the Big Screen, one of Alan's stories was selected as base of that first ST movie, but I think not much of his original story was there by the end of the project.
Anyway, I've read the (Commonwealth) Icerigger, Pip and Flinx, and other such novels many times. Foster kind of boxed himself in when he early on wrote a further novel (BLOODHYPE) that tied into that continuity in such a way that he didn't plan to plot ahead for. He later wrote many books to fill the spaces between them, but refused to totally ignore that stepping stone along the way. Good Show, Alan.
But I digress. I was wanting to talk about Alan's Novelizations...
There are many out there that think ADF's movie novelizations are hackwork, and others that say they are among the best. Doing them is rather hard, because the writer has to work off of scripts from various phasing in the revision cycle. Movie scripts often morph during production but no one bothers to tell the "hack writer" novelization author about it. James Cameron was loudly critical of novelizations after the ADF's book of "ALIENS" came out... I think he was rather blind to the hard facts behind how such books are created. And if he had any vitriol towards ADF, it was misplaced. But really, he had to know about it, because on his next film he decided to collaborate with the novelizer - this time, one Orson Scott Card... for THE ABYSS. OSC wrote character histories, which I guess the cast got access to read to perhaps help flesh our their performances. And the final book is one of the better books as how it reflects the film as the result of this collaboration. But that's totally rare.
So, my guilty pleasure is not one book but instead. really, many of the movie novelizations by one Alan Dean Foster. He did his darn best to try to overcome the drawbacks inherent in this genre.
But one of my favorite authors does come to mind - one Alan Dean Foster. Since he's written many motion picture novelizations, he's often come under fire for "selling out"... by people who don't' know that his writing career began with his own characters, on his own terms (The Tar-Aiym Krang, anyone?) that kicked off more than a series, a whole Galaxy of inter-twined stories) And in the late 70s, due to the transfer of reviving Star Trek from a small screen project to the Big Screen, one of Alan's stories was selected as base of that first ST movie, but I think not much of his original story was there by the end of the project.
Anyway, I've read the (Commonwealth) Icerigger, Pip and Flinx, and other such novels many times. Foster kind of boxed himself in when he early on wrote a further novel (BLOODHYPE) that tied into that continuity in such a way that he didn't plan to plot ahead for. He later wrote many books to fill the spaces between them, but refused to totally ignore that stepping stone along the way. Good Show, Alan.
But I digress. I was wanting to talk about Alan's Novelizations...
There are many out there that think ADF's movie novelizations are hackwork, and others that say they are among the best. Doing them is rather hard, because the writer has to work off of scripts from various phasing in the revision cycle. Movie scripts often morph during production but no one bothers to tell the "hack writer" novelization author about it. James Cameron was loudly critical of novelizations after the ADF's book of "ALIENS" came out... I think he was rather blind to the hard facts behind how such books are created. And if he had any vitriol towards ADF, it was misplaced. But really, he had to know about it, because on his next film he decided to collaborate with the novelizer - this time, one Orson Scott Card... for THE ABYSS. OSC wrote character histories, which I guess the cast got access to read to perhaps help flesh our their performances. And the final book is one of the better books as how it reflects the film as the result of this collaboration. But that's totally rare.
So, my guilty pleasure is not one book but instead. really, many of the movie novelizations by one Alan Dean Foster. He did his darn best to try to overcome the drawbacks inherent in this genre.