novelization written years after the episode

[Extrocomp]

Most novelizations come out during the same month as the film. Some come out a few months before the film. Novelizations of TV episodes, on the other hand, sometimes come out years after the film was released. Examples include James Blish's novelizations of Star Trek TOS, Alan Dean Foster's novelizations of Star Trek TAS, the various Doctor Who novelizations (which sometimes came out more than 10 years after the episode) and the novelization of Battlestar Galactica The Miniseries by Jeffrey Carver.

Does anyone know of any other examples on novelizations that were written years after the episode or movie was first shown?

Do you think all novelizations should be released this way, so that they are more consistent with the film? Does it even make sense to market the novelization to people who have very recently seen the film?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The novelization of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians came out forty years, give or take, after the film came out.

 

[Greg Cox]

The novelization of the Merlin miniseries (the Sam Neill one, not the new BBC show) came out several months after the tv series aired. And back in the eighties there was a series of old Universal Monster movie novelizations by "Carl Dreadstone."

But that's hardly the prefered scenario. Publishers are always going to want to publish the novelizations before the show or movie, when it's still fresh and exciting, rather than later on when it's old news. The whole point of publishing a novelization is to take advantage of all the hype and publicity surrounding a new show.

 

[OmahaStar]

Ok, Greg, now I'm curious. Why is "Carl Dreadstone" in quotes?

 

[TerriO]

^I'm going to take a WAG at it being a pen-name, OS. Universal movie monsters...."Carl Dreadstone"....smells pseudonymous to me.

The novelization of Atlantis's "Rising" came out at least a year after it aired, IIRC.

To second Greg's comment, a good reason to have the novelization come out in the same month (at least) as the movie? Think about what's usually on the cover of novelizations: the movie poster. Get a novelization out in the stores the same month as the movie, and you've got all of this free advertising for the film sitting there staring readers in the face. And you get to make money off it if they go ahead and buy the book, too.

Novelizations that far after the fact? KRAD did the Resident Evil novelization for the first movie when the second was in production. That was just a case of it not being done the first time around. That's the only other one I know of that was done after the film/miniseries was released.

 

[Defcon]

Ok, Greg, now I'm curious. Why is "Carl Dreadstone" in quotes?

According to a little google search it's an alias for Ramsey Campbell.

 

[Ood Sigma]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Dominion War (Books 2 and 4) novelized the first 6 episodes of DS9's 6th season, but as I recall, was published at the same time the latter half of the 7th season was airing.

 

[Mike Farley]

Not a novelization but IDW is finally doing a comic adaptation of TWOK, 27 years later.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Not quite on topic, but I had the novelisation of TWOK in the house as a kid, then a few years later found a TWOK 'photo-novelisation' in a bargain bin in a shop. Not sure if the latter was printed up years later or had just been lying about in a warehouse for years and years.

 

[Greg Cox]

Not a novelization but IDW is finally doing a comic adaptation of TWOK, 27 years later.

That's got to be some kind of record!

Not that KHAN doesn't deserve it, of course!

 

[diankra]

For novelisations written years after tx, then Doctor Who is the elephant in the room, and they could take a lot more than 10 years.

Three Doctor Who novelisations were published in 1964/65, based on stories which were about a year old.
In 1973, they were reprinted and sold well enough to launch a follow-up range, which mostly focused on stories from the last few years, but included a couple of titles each year which were adapted from older stories - up to 10 years old by that point.
That pattern held until the mid-1980s, when a cut back in the number of new stories produced meant that Target Books focused in on the still un-novelised stories from the 1960s... and, wherever possible, got the original script-writer to do the book, even if it meant dragging them out of retirement! So that meant that nearly 20 novelisations where done by the original script writers 20 years after the episodes were made.
And to finish off... there were a handful of Doctor Who stories which couldn't be novelized until copyright disuputes were resolved. In five cases (three scripts by Douglas Adams and two Dalek stories by Eric Saward) that remains the case, so if they were now to be novelised, it'd be 25 to 30 years since the original transmission before the book came out.
In two other cases, The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks, the problems were sorted out in 1993, and the novelisations were released 27 years after the original transmissions in 1966 and 1967.


There was also a range of Outer Limits novelistions in the late 1990s, and without checking ISTR that they were a mix of new series and old series episodes.

 

[Mike Farley]

^ Not quite on topic, but I had the novelisation of TWOK in the house as a kid, then a few years later found a TWOK 'photo-novelisation' in a bargain bin in a shop. Not sure if the latter was printed up years later or had just been lying about in a warehouse for years and years.

The TWOK photonovel came out at the time of the movie's release.

 

[Steve Roby]

^ Not quite on topic, but I had the novelisation of TWOK in the house as a kid, then a few years later found a TWOK 'photo-novelisation' in a bargain bin in a shop. Not sure if the latter was printed up years later or had just been lying about in a warehouse for years and years.

The TWOK photonovel came out at the time of the movie's release.

Yep. There are easy ways to check that sort of thing out. If you still have the book, look at the copyright page. Or check a website that has information on all the Star Trek books published so far, and a few dozen that haven't been published. (Looks meaningfully at signature.)

A couple of Space: 1999 episodes that for some reason or other weren't novelized in the 1970s books were finally novelized a few years back, but those were aimed strictly at a small, core fanbase. You won't find them in stores. There aren't too many other examples, because people are generally most interested in a novelization at the time the TV episode is aired or the movie is released. Wait too long, and most of the audience has moved on to something else.

 

[Extrocomp]

Space 1999 has a fanbase?

 

[Broccoli]

The novelization of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians came out forty years, give or take, after the film came out.

Which is near impossible to find.

 

[OmahaStar]

The novelization of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians came out forty years, give or take, after the film came out.

Which is near impossible to find.

Uh, not really. It took me all of 12 seconds to find this, which has 20 copies available for as cheap as two dollars.

http://www.amazon.com/Santa-Claus-Conquers-Martians-Book/dp/1596091630/

 

[Mike Farley]

Space 1999 has a fanbase?

There's three of 'em.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but there is a novel of The Wicker Man, which I think came out many years after the movie. My understanding is that the movie was based on an original script.

 

[Steve Roby]

Space 1999 has a fanbase?

If the original Battlestar Galactica can have a fanbase, anything can have a fanbase.

I know it's partly because I was young when I got into the show, but I do think Space: 1999 has some worth. The first season, at least, has excellent special effects for its time, some of the best music ever composed for a science fiction TV series, great set and spacecraft design....

As an adult decades later it helps to look at it as a show that's as much horror as it is science fiction, and to apply the "mysterious unknown force" factor to some of the oddities in the same way Who fans can talk about wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff and time wars. But I can still enjoy a lot of the first season episodes. It's a product of the post-2001: A Space Odyssey era rather than the post-Star Wars era, and for me, at least, that makes it that much more interesting.

 

[Heeroyuy]

I think some anime has been adapted into manga and/novels years after the fact. Tomino's Gundam novels, for instance, and Brian Daley's Robotech stuff. Neon Genesis Evangelion has been adapted into manga years after the TV series (and with a mostly different continuity), and I think the first Tenchi Muyo movie was loosely adapted into manga as well.


Although it's a comic book, the STAR WARS comic Jedi Vs. Sith was adapted into the first Darth Bane novel nearly a decade later.


Funny thing about the WHO novels is that some were reprinted with the Wrong Doctor on them, mainly Tom Baker as he was super popular. What's also funny is that the illustrations inside clearly show Hartnell. Then there's the weird case of the French covers, which show a hybrid Troughton/Baker.