Author Habits That Annoy You

[Greg Cox]

@Greg Cox, did you put together the Tor edition of Matheson's Bid Time Return / Somewhere in Time?

I handled our original trade paperback edition, along with most of our Matheson reprints back in the day. I also assembled several new Matheson collections and edited four of his later novels: Seven Steps to Midnight, Now You See It, Hunted Past Reason, and Other Kingdoms.

And, yes, I made the call to publish it as Somewhere in Time, not Bid Time Return, since the movie title had long ago eclipsed the original book title at that point. Ditto for publishing The Shrinking Man as The Incredible Shrinking Man, since the movie title was much better known.

With Richard's permission, of course.

 

[XCV330]

Interesting. I've always wondered why a living author would allow a competitive novelization if the original novel was still under copyright.

Boy, Fleming must have really not liked that story -- or maybe he just didn't need to worry about royalties anymore.

The Spy Who Loved Me was just a short story. And it never would have made an actual bond movie. Bond is hardly in it, at all. Kind of like Quantum of Solace, and Octopussy stories: Fleming seems to have put Bond in there to get the story sold or included in an anthology.

 

[Stevil2001]

I handled our original trade paperback edition, along with most of our Matheson reprints back in the day. I also assembled several new Matheson collections and edited four of his later novels: Seven Steps to Midnight, Now You See It, Hunted Past Reason, and Other Kingdoms.

And, yes, I made the call to publish it as Somewhere in Time, not Bid Time Return, since the movie title had long ago eclipsed the original book title at that point. Ditto for publishing The Shrinking Man as The Incredible Shrinking Man, since the movie title was much better known.

With Richard's permission, of course.

Neat! I have the MMPB Tor edition from 2008, which doesn't have any movie branding but does mention it on the back cover. And the whole reason I own it is I found it in an airport bookstore after my flight was delayed and thought, "Hey, I liked that movie..." so your plan worked.

 

[Steve Roby]

I will point out that Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey is a novelization. The movie was based on several short stories (one of which, "The Sentinel," I've read; it was in something like my 7th or 8th grade reader, as I recall, and also in a "making of" book), and the novel and screenplay were developed concurrently.

One of the must-read books for 2001 fans is The Lost Worlds of 2001, which has material from various drafts of the story. Looks like it's been out of print for rather a while, though. I bought the American Signet paperback in the mid-'70s. It was easier to find then.

(Speaking of 2001, one of the questions it left unanswered was, "if the zero-gravity toilet uses 'dalkron eliminators,' what exactly is 'dalkron'?")

Nothing, it's been eliminated.

 

[Greg Cox]

Speaking of movie tie-in editions, I do recall one (hypothetical) instance that gave me pause.

At the time, Universal was talking about remaking The Incredible Shrinking Man -- as a comedy vehicle for Eddie Murphy.

This worried me. The book, as great as it is, is not remotely funny, so hyping the proposed comedy version on the cover of the original novel bordered on false advertising. On the other hand, as noted, it would be professional malpractice not to try and capitalize on the big new movie -- for both Richard's and Tor's sake.

I actually asked Richard for his thoughts on the matter, just in case the situation arose.

As I recall, he sighed wearily and said something like, "Do what you have to do, Greg."

Thankfully, the Eddie Murphy movie never got escaped Developmental Hell, so I was spared this dilemma.

(Richard later managed to get the film rights to his book back from Universal. Hence, the new, non-comedic remake in France.)