OT: Non-Trek Tie Ins discussion thread

[Defcon]

Cool.

Let me clarify. That statement was just meant that I personally won't post about it for now, since it is too vast a field to post about when your knowledge about it is limited. If anyone else more knowledgeable wants to post about it, it is fair game as far as I'm concerned. I plan to include them in the upcoming books list, but especially with Doctor Who (of which I actually have read quite a bit by now) it is kind of difficult with tons of reprints and spin-offs to weed out the important new releases.

So @Thrawn, if you want to post about Star Wars please do so, it just broadens the discussion.

ETA:

I know the Griffiths are writing an Arrow novel that's a sequel to their Flash one, although I don't know if that's actually the March one or not.

Green Arrow appears in the first The Flash book, so I think they might be a crossover story.

I will include them as authors for now and also the title A Generation of Vipers, since they have this in the bio of their twitter account:

Authors of [...]ARROW: A GENERATION OF VIPERS[...]

 

[Jinn]

Let me clarify. That statement was just meant that I personally won't post about it for now, since it is too vast a field to post about when your knowledge about it is limited.

Ups, my bad

 

[Defcon]

Ups, my bad

No worries, I probably wasn't clear enough in my original statement.

 

[James Swallow]

So is the lack of tie ins for the original NCIS due to Bellisario's rule against tie ins? I don't remember the details, but I remember somebody saying Bellisario refused to allow tie ins to his shows after he was unhappy with some Quantum Leap books.

Really? I never heard that. I do have the two JAG tie-ins that were written.

 

[Christopher]

So is the lack of tie ins for the original NCIS due to Bellisario's rule against tie ins? I don't remember the details, but I remember somebody saying Bellisario refused to allow tie ins to his shows after he was unhappy with some Quantum Leap books.

I wonder if those were the Ashley McConnell novels. I actually thought they handled the series' core concepts more intelligently than the show itself did.

 

[Defcon]

I have updated the upcoming books list and included what I could find about Star Wars and Doctor Who (and three Class novels which I found when searching for Doctor Who). Changes since last version of the list are in red.

___________

And since this update added some more October releases:

Doctor Who: The American Adventures
by Justin Richards

Blurb:
Travel through time and space with the Twelfth Doctor in these six brand new adventures, set in a host of locations across the US and eras from throughout US history.

An invisible spacecraft turns up at the Battle of New Orleans, an alien presence is detected at the 1944 D-Day landings, and ghosts take over New York's subway tunnels as they're being dug in the early 1900s...

Filled with mystery, excitement and the Doctor's trademark wit, these timeywimey stories will delight any Doctor Who fan.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Class: The Stone House
by A.K. Benedict

Blurb:
A gripping new tie-in to the BBC's Doctor Who YA spin-off, created by Patrick Ness

One of three thrilling tie-in novels for Class, the new BBC Three series created and written by bestselling author Patrick Ness.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Class: Joyride
by Guy Adams

Blurb:
A gripping new tie-in to the BBC's Doctor Who YA spin-off, created by Patrick Ness

One of three thrilling tie-in novels for Class, the new BBC Three series created and written by bestselling author Patrick Ness.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Class: What She Does Next Will Astound You
by James Goss

Blurb:
A gripping new tie-in to the BBC's Doctor Who YA spin-off, created by Patrick Ness

One of three thrilling tie-in novels for Class, the new BBC Three series created and written by bestselling author Patrick Ness.

 

[Greg Cox]

Just to celebrate, the second LIBRARIANS book is finished and approved. Yippee!

 

[JD]

Congrats.

 

[Defcon]

There have been some announcements regarding Star Wars tie-ins at the NYCC:

http://www.starwars.com/news/rogue-one-and-star-wars-40th-publishing-programs-revealed

 

[JD]

Star Wars: Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston and The Librarians and The Lost Lamp by Greg Cox both came out on Tuesday.

The Jim Henson Company has recently started a series of tie-in books for The Dark Crystal. They started off by a Strange New Worlds like contest they called Author Quest to find a writer, and first released a collection of short stories from the contestants, much like SNW, followed by the first novel in a series by the contest's winner.
Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal: Author Quest featuring stories by Vinnie Chiappini, Greg Coles, J.M. Lee, and Ester Palmer
Jim Henson's Shadows of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Does anyone know if there will be any Scorpion tie-in novels? I would love to read them if there are.

 

[JD]

I haven't seen anything about any.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I guess to some extent, you don't want to steal story opportunities from the show itself. Tie-ins work best perhaps when they're telling a story that is too long or complicated for the show, or one that gets into a character's head, particularly "guest" characters, or when you know a lot about the character's back story and can make something up that won't conflict with the show's story, or something which happened in between episodes and that way you can imagine them as they were then if they've changed since.

 

[Christopher]

I guess to some extent, you don't want to steal story opportunities from the show itself.

That wouldn't happen in any case. The audience for the books is a tiny fraction of the audience for the shows -- maybe 1-2%, usually -- so no show would be likely to go "Oh, the books already used that idea, so we have to abandon it." Indeed, a number of Star Trek novels over the years have covered ground that was later covered by TV episodes -- sometimes episodes that came out between the writing and the release of the novel, so that the novel either had to be amended to acknowledge the episode or just ended up being obsolete as soon as it came out.

After all, the essence of story is not in what it's about, but how it's told. Two stories based on the same idea can be very different from each other in content and quality. So the fact that someone else did a similar idea before you doesn't mean you can't do it at all -- it just means you need to find a fresh angle on it.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I think that may be more of a problem today than it once was, though.

 

[Greg Cox]

This is where I tell my UNDERWORLD story again. The plot of the prequel movie, RISE OF THE LYCANS, completely contradicts the plot of my earlier UW prequel, BLOOD ENEMY. Did that stop me from writing the novelization of the RISE?

Nope. Which means I ended up writing two completely different versions of the same events.

Which, granted, did confuse some readers . . .

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

At least with Trek, you can always write it off as, "oh they both happened in other universes". They're already primed to accept such things. NCIS:LA and the like, not so much.

 

[Idran]

At least with Trek, you can always write it off as, "oh they both happened in other universes". They're already primed to accept such things. NCIS:LA and the like, not so much.

I don't know, I think it might be even easier with stuff like that; it's all in Tommy Westphall's head, after all.

(Edit: Because I wanted to doublecheck that NCIS:LA actually was linked into the TWU: St. Elsewhere > Cheers > Frasier > Caroline in the City > Friends > Mad About You > Dick Van Dyke Show > Danny Thomas Show > Make Room For Granddaddy > Here's Lucy > Mannix > Diagnosis: Murder > JAG > NCIS > NCIS:LA )

 

[Christopher]

At least with Trek, you can always write it off as, "oh they both happened in other universes". They're already primed to accept such things. NCIS:LA and the like, not so much.

Like I often say, if canon is history, tie-ins are historical fiction. They're ultimately just speculations about things that might have happened in a fictional universe. If the universe's canon goes in a different direction, then the stories can still be appreciated as conjectures.

 

[JD]

We've got a cover and release date for the novelization of War for the Planet of the Apes by our own @Greg Cox , and the prequel novel WftPotA: Revelations by Greg Keyes.
The novelization:

Description via Amazon: In War for the Planet of the Apes, the third chapter of the critically acclaimed blockbuster franchise, Caesar and his apes are forced into a deadly conflict with an army of humans led by a ruthless Colonel. After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. As the journey finally brings them face to face, Caesar and the Colonel are pitted against each other in an epic battle that will determine the fate of both their species and the future of the planet.
Release Date: July 18

Revelations

Description:
The exclusive story-told only in this novel-leading to the blockbuster scheduled for release July 14, 2017, following events begun in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and continuing in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. This official prequel will be plotted and written in close collaboration with the film team. The movie's stars include Andy Serkis as the ape Caesar, Judy Greer as Caesar's wife Cornelia, and Woody Harrelson as "the Colonel."
Release Date: June 6