And while we're on the topic of crime-drama-shows... are you getting NCIS-Novels? In Germany, there are none and I'm asking myself, if that's just a German thing, or if the NCIS-Brand doesn't have novels?
Vonda N. McIntyre's Adaptations: Any notes or letters?
- Thread starter Tallguy
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With Alan Dean Foster I’ve only read his 2009 Trek novelizations (I do have his Logs), however I remember back in 2009 and 2013 I found both books read more like scripts and there was very little meat.
Of course it’ll be interesting to see how his 2009 Trek’s compare to his 1979 novelization of Disney’s “The Black Hole” that I just picked up the other day for $1 at a used bookstore.
Of course it’ll be interesting to see how his 2009 Trek’s compare to his 1979 novelization of Disney’s “The Black Hole” that I just picked up the other day for $1 at a used bookstore.
I'm going off of an eleven year old's memory from 45 years ago, but I liked that one a lot. He adds a fair amount of meat to the "science" of the movie. I was reading a lot about what we knew / thought of black holes at the time so I thought it made sense. But what did / do I know?
By all means, report back.
What's funny is that Saberhagen's "re-adaptation" of Dracula wasn't even the first time that happened to Stoker's work.Which, to be fair, hit the New York Times bestseller list, which led (rather hilariously) to Saberhagen being billed on the covers of his original Dracula novels as "New York Times Bestselling Author of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA."
Aside from that one time Tor accidentally billed him as the bestselling author of "Bram STROKER's Dracula," which made it sound like he'd novelized the porn version.
I swear, that wasn't my fault!
In the mid-70's the BBC produced what is considered by many the most faithful adaptation of Dracula starring Louis Jordan. And then this adaptation was novelized by Gerald Savory.
And it's recently been discovered that whomever translated Stoker's book into Icelandic way back when basically rewrote the whole story . . . .
Well one thing I can say is I keep thinking that it’s a modern reprint since for $1 it’s in real good shape and the paper/cardboard feels like it just came off the press within the last month. And the paper seems to be high quality non-acidic paper, since most MMPB paperbacks of the era I’ve seen were printed on acidic paper that’s turned brown and that even leeched into the cardboard of the cover and changed its malleability and shine. However it doesn’t have a barcode anywhere in or outside the book (although there is an ISBN on the spine) and it’s got a few coupons for other Ballantine books with extra shipping costing 35 cents per book.
I was reading the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture while I was wasting the the midnight showing. I went to the bookstore on the way to the cinema.
Speaking of Vonda, I just got word that her final novel has finally found a publisher. From a Clarion West newsletter:
We are thrilled to announce that Vonda N. McIntyre’s final novel, THE CURVE OF THE WORLD, will be published by Aqueduct Press.
Vonda's warm, feminist voice brings to life an alternate history of the ancient world. Minoan ship captain Iakinthu journeys from the Mediterranean Sea to the northwest coast of North America, traversing the globe to return her adoptive son to his birth home. Along the way they brave pirates and treacherous royals, and discover that trust can be built between unlikely allies.
We are thrilled to announce that Vonda N. McIntyre’s final novel, THE CURVE OF THE WORLD, will be published by Aqueduct Press.
Vonda's warm, feminist voice brings to life an alternate history of the ancient world. Minoan ship captain Iakinthu journeys from the Mediterranean Sea to the northwest coast of North America, traversing the globe to return her adoptive son to his birth home. Along the way they brave pirates and treacherous royals, and discover that trust can be built between unlikely allies.
I had been on the search (mostly checking my eBay saved search daily) for a long time for the print hardcover version of this. I finally managed to get one for $31.35 (including tax and shipping) in October 2022. Then, not long after that, they released an ebook version (which I eventually bought as well).
I loved reading it. Not only was it interesting reading about his experiences writing the novelizations that I have read before, it also made me want to hunt down and read some of the ones that I haven’t (even for films that I probably normally wouldn’t seek out the novel version for).
As for the cost of the (first edition) hardcover, I believe that’s because it was a limited press run thing. So, there aren’t a lot of copies out there.
— David Young
That's fantastic news. Thanks to the estate, I had the good fortune to read The Curve of the World when I was writing my essay on Vonda for the Star Trek tie-ins book. It's an incredible novel, and it's so good to know that it's going to be out there at last.
Yes indeed. The first few times I went searching for it, I found some versions with horrendous prices, but a few days later a cheap version popped up. The initial limited print-run was hampered by Covid lockdowns, I believe.
The Director Should've Shot You by Ian McLean, on Flickr
For those who are ADF fans: "The Director Should've Shot You: Memoirs of the Film Trade" by Alan Dean Foster (Centipede Press, 2021), has chapters on his Ballantine "Star Trek Log" series of TAS adaptations plus his novelisations of the first two Kelvinverse Trek movies.
I was thrilled that ADF's TAS chapter was all-new material, not just a reprint of the five-part serialised essay in his 1996 trade paperback reprints of the "Logs".
Purely FYI for those interested - I see that, as of today (March 14), the ADF book is currently $2.99 in Kindle format.
(Edited to fix bad link. Look to the top right of the product page, as the option is a bit hidden - under "$.00 for Kindle Unlimited" it says "or $2.99 to buy")
(Edited to fix bad link. Look to the top right of the product page, as the option is a bit hidden - under "$.00 for Kindle Unlimited" it says "or $2.99 to buy")
I'm coming a little late to this conversation, mainly where it turns toward Alan Dean Foster's memoir about writing all those classic novelizations of movies and television stories of which I have fond memories. i could ramble on and on about the nostalgia factor.
I'll just stick with a general thank you for mention of it being brought up in this topic, I can't express how glad I am to have learned about it. I was happy to find that the book seems fairly compartmentalized, and I felt like I could jump ahead to his chapters about specific novelizations I was most interested in reading about. So I had a nice time over a couple days jumping around, forward and backward, throughout the book. Very enjoyable to revisit his novelization works from a behind-the-scenes perspective. And the chapter about the Star Trek Logs was a particular joy, a nicely lengthy chapter, with good details about what was going on in his mind.
Without going to deep into critique, it does make me wonder, given what Judy-Lynn del Rey says to him, that he didn't use the source material as more of a springboard than he did; she says to him something like, "Make of them what you can," particularly when she asks him to switch gears and adapt single 20-minute episodes into single novel-length books.
Off the top of my head, any Log entry that Kirk records as exposition is brimming with potential for expansion. Major examples of the top of my head are the introduction to "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth", rewatching the episode the mechanics of how the situation started felt like a great opportunity for expansion to ease the Enterprise crew into the situation. There are other expansion opportunities that I would have thought would be interesting, such as in "The Counter-Clock Incident"...there's a good flashback to Robert April at the beginning of the Enterprise's life; but I thought there was also opportunity to include scenes of receiving the April's in the transporter room and getting a sense of Kirk's reaction to Robert April in the moment of that kind of scene playing out, whether he's meeting Robert April for the first time or not.
Mostly Foster sticks with the starting point of an approximately 60-page novella adaptation on average. With the one-episode-to-one-book adaptations, he still sticks with that and transitions into what happens next, with maybe the tenth volume innovating beyond that format. Judy-Lynn's words to him seemed like an invitation to innovate more, although Foster does say he fell into a panic, and maybe the panic made it a little difficult to innovate at first.
This got a little long-winded, but I've enjoyed reading the memoir, and I too have found myself wanting to revisit Alan Dean Foster's works, not just the novelizations, but also some of his original fiction, such as Spellsinger and Pip and Flinx Adventures. Out of nostalgia I've drawn the old Star Trek Log series close again.
And I wanted to say thank you to posters on here who drew my attention to the existence of this book. It's already one of the more exciting books I've gotten hold of this year.
I'll just stick with a general thank you for mention of it being brought up in this topic, I can't express how glad I am to have learned about it. I was happy to find that the book seems fairly compartmentalized, and I felt like I could jump ahead to his chapters about specific novelizations I was most interested in reading about. So I had a nice time over a couple days jumping around, forward and backward, throughout the book. Very enjoyable to revisit his novelization works from a behind-the-scenes perspective. And the chapter about the Star Trek Logs was a particular joy, a nicely lengthy chapter, with good details about what was going on in his mind.
Without going to deep into critique, it does make me wonder, given what Judy-Lynn del Rey says to him, that he didn't use the source material as more of a springboard than he did; she says to him something like, "Make of them what you can," particularly when she asks him to switch gears and adapt single 20-minute episodes into single novel-length books.
Off the top of my head, any Log entry that Kirk records as exposition is brimming with potential for expansion. Major examples of the top of my head are the introduction to "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth", rewatching the episode the mechanics of how the situation started felt like a great opportunity for expansion to ease the Enterprise crew into the situation. There are other expansion opportunities that I would have thought would be interesting, such as in "The Counter-Clock Incident"...there's a good flashback to Robert April at the beginning of the Enterprise's life; but I thought there was also opportunity to include scenes of receiving the April's in the transporter room and getting a sense of Kirk's reaction to Robert April in the moment of that kind of scene playing out, whether he's meeting Robert April for the first time or not.
Mostly Foster sticks with the starting point of an approximately 60-page novella adaptation on average. With the one-episode-to-one-book adaptations, he still sticks with that and transitions into what happens next, with maybe the tenth volume innovating beyond that format. Judy-Lynn's words to him seemed like an invitation to innovate more, although Foster does say he fell into a panic, and maybe the panic made it a little difficult to innovate at first.
This got a little long-winded, but I've enjoyed reading the memoir, and I too have found myself wanting to revisit Alan Dean Foster's works, not just the novelizations, but also some of his original fiction, such as Spellsinger and Pip and Flinx Adventures. Out of nostalgia I've drawn the old Star Trek Log series close again.
And I wanted to say thank you to posters on here who drew my attention to the existence of this book. It's already one of the more exciting books I've gotten hold of this year.
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