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When you get a series on television or a film that passes beyond the mere essence of a one off production it tends to cause spin offs and merchandise for the fans to collect. A popular form for this is in the 'further adventures' type books which either fill in missing gaps or add to the series future.
This is true of many types of programme, but Sci-Fi has more than its fair share of these due to the nature of the fans themselves, who have the habit of collecting everything and anything to do with the series (much to the syndicate’s delight!). One drawback of this is that some fans are so obsessed with the vision of their heroes that they cannot accept any other view of what they would do in a given situation, making the writer’s job a minefield of situations and speeches, not to mention relationships.
For shows that have come to an end, such as Dr Who, Star Trek the Next Generation and Blake’s 7, the books can bring a new lease of life to the characters. Dr Who, for example, continues with the 8th Doctor’s travels where Paul McGann left off on the one TV movie which created the new Doctor. Blake’s 7’s ending was pretty final, so the authors have chosen to fill in ‘missing’ gaps between the series episodes, adding new worlds and new problems for the rogue crew to solve.
Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have their own series of written adventures, focusing on new situations or even furthering relationships that were started on screen. Several titles have focused on the history of the characters such as Spike and add to the rich history already portrayed in the series.
These books seem to be a way of making vast amounts of money, simply using characters and settings which have already been created before the author starts to write. Some may say it’s easy money as the hard work has already been done, others may argue that the fact that it is someone else’s creation just makes it harder for the author to write something good. Either way, it seems that the novels based on cult series and films are not going to stop and they will continue to be popular until the ideas that inspire or drive them have dried up, which does not seem likely.
So, do these novels live up to the series they are based on? Well, I think that it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I’ve read many Dr Who, X-files and Star Wars novels and some are better than others. While Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars books are a fantastic read (I’d recommend picking up Heir to the Empire, volume one of the three book cycle that follows on from the original movies), others have been very poor and almost unreadable. Goblins, an X-files based book, was nearly un-finishable for me, but Kate Orman’s Dr Who books were difficult to put down.
It may well depend on the reader and how they already see the characters, but there are always going to be good and bad examples of how to write the next adventures of a series. Then again, if you’re not into the series in the first place, then it wouldn’t matter how well it was written in the first place!
Does anyone else have experience of reading these tomes? What do you think to these kind of stories in general, are authors right to try and continue a story someone else has started?
This is true of many types of programme, but Sci-Fi has more than its fair share of these due to the nature of the fans themselves, who have the habit of collecting everything and anything to do with the series (much to the syndicate’s delight!). One drawback of this is that some fans are so obsessed with the vision of their heroes that they cannot accept any other view of what they would do in a given situation, making the writer’s job a minefield of situations and speeches, not to mention relationships.
For shows that have come to an end, such as Dr Who, Star Trek the Next Generation and Blake’s 7, the books can bring a new lease of life to the characters. Dr Who, for example, continues with the 8th Doctor’s travels where Paul McGann left off on the one TV movie which created the new Doctor. Blake’s 7’s ending was pretty final, so the authors have chosen to fill in ‘missing’ gaps between the series episodes, adding new worlds and new problems for the rogue crew to solve.
Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have their own series of written adventures, focusing on new situations or even furthering relationships that were started on screen. Several titles have focused on the history of the characters such as Spike and add to the rich history already portrayed in the series.
These books seem to be a way of making vast amounts of money, simply using characters and settings which have already been created before the author starts to write. Some may say it’s easy money as the hard work has already been done, others may argue that the fact that it is someone else’s creation just makes it harder for the author to write something good. Either way, it seems that the novels based on cult series and films are not going to stop and they will continue to be popular until the ideas that inspire or drive them have dried up, which does not seem likely.
So, do these novels live up to the series they are based on? Well, I think that it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I’ve read many Dr Who, X-files and Star Wars novels and some are better than others. While Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars books are a fantastic read (I’d recommend picking up Heir to the Empire, volume one of the three book cycle that follows on from the original movies), others have been very poor and almost unreadable. Goblins, an X-files based book, was nearly un-finishable for me, but Kate Orman’s Dr Who books were difficult to put down.
It may well depend on the reader and how they already see the characters, but there are always going to be good and bad examples of how to write the next adventures of a series. Then again, if you’re not into the series in the first place, then it wouldn’t matter how well it was written in the first place!
Does anyone else have experience of reading these tomes? What do you think to these kind of stories in general, are authors right to try and continue a story someone else has started?
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When you get a series on television or a film that passes beyond the mere essence of a one off production it tends to cause spin offs and merchandise for the fans to collect. A popular form for this is in the 'further adventures' type books which either fill in missing gaps or add to the series future.
This is true of many types of programme, but Sci-Fi has more than its fair share of these due to the nature of the fans themselves, who have the habit of collecting everything and anything to do with the series (much to the syndicate’s delight!). One drawback of this is that some fans are so obsessed with the vision of their heroes that they cannot accept any other view of what they would do in a given situation, making the writer’s job a minefield of situations and speeches, not to mention relationships.
For shows that have come to an end, such as Dr Who, Star Trek the Next Generation and Blake’s 7, the books can bring a new lease of life to the characters. Dr Who, for example, continues with the 8th Doctor’s travels where Paul McGann left off on the one TV movie which created the new Doctor. Blake’s 7’s ending was pretty final, so the authors have chosen to fill in ‘missing’ gaps between the series episodes, adding new worlds and new problems for the rogue crew to solve.
Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have their own series of written adventures, focusing on new situations or even furthering relationships that were started on screen. Several titles have focused on the history of the characters such as Spike and add to the rich history already portrayed in the series.
These books seem to be a way of making vast amounts of money, simply using characters and settings which have already been created before the author starts to write. Some may say it’s easy money as the hard work has already been done, others may argue that the fact that it is someone else’s creation just makes it harder for the author to write something good. Either way, it seems that the novels based on cult series and films are not going to stop and they will continue to be popular until the ideas that inspire or drive them have dried up, which does not seem likely.
So, do these novels live up to the series they are based on? Well, I think that it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I’ve read many Dr Who, X-files and Star Wars novels and some are better than others. While Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars books are a fantastic read (I’d recommend picking up Heir to the Empire, volume one of the three book cycle that follows on from the original movies), others have been very poor and almost unreadable. Goblins, an X-files based book, was nearly un-finishable for me, but Kate Orman’s Dr Who books were difficult to put down.
It may well depend on the reader and how they already see the characters, but there are always going to be good and bad examples of how to write the next adventures of a series. Then again, if you’re not into the series in the first place, then it wouldn’t matter how well it was written in the first place!
Does anyone else have experience of reading these tomes? What do you think to these kind of stories in general, are authors right to try and continue a story someone else has started?
This is true of many types of programme, but Sci-Fi has more than its fair share of these due to the nature of the fans themselves, who have the habit of collecting everything and anything to do with the series (much to the syndicate’s delight!). One drawback of this is that some fans are so obsessed with the vision of their heroes that they cannot accept any other view of what they would do in a given situation, making the writer’s job a minefield of situations and speeches, not to mention relationships.
For shows that have come to an end, such as Dr Who, Star Trek the Next Generation and Blake’s 7, the books can bring a new lease of life to the characters. Dr Who, for example, continues with the 8th Doctor’s travels where Paul McGann left off on the one TV movie which created the new Doctor. Blake’s 7’s ending was pretty final, so the authors have chosen to fill in ‘missing’ gaps between the series episodes, adding new worlds and new problems for the rogue crew to solve.
Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have their own series of written adventures, focusing on new situations or even furthering relationships that were started on screen. Several titles have focused on the history of the characters such as Spike and add to the rich history already portrayed in the series.
These books seem to be a way of making vast amounts of money, simply using characters and settings which have already been created before the author starts to write. Some may say it’s easy money as the hard work has already been done, others may argue that the fact that it is someone else’s creation just makes it harder for the author to write something good. Either way, it seems that the novels based on cult series and films are not going to stop and they will continue to be popular until the ideas that inspire or drive them have dried up, which does not seem likely.
So, do these novels live up to the series they are based on? Well, I think that it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I’ve read many Dr Who, X-files and Star Wars novels and some are better than others. While Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars books are a fantastic read (I’d recommend picking up Heir to the Empire, volume one of the three book cycle that follows on from the original movies), others have been very poor and almost unreadable. Goblins, an X-files based book, was nearly un-finishable for me, but Kate Orman’s Dr Who books were difficult to put down.
It may well depend on the reader and how they already see the characters, but there are always going to be good and bad examples of how to write the next adventures of a series. Then again, if you’re not into the series in the first place, then it wouldn’t matter how well it was written in the first place!
Does anyone else have experience of reading these tomes? What do you think to these kind of stories in general, are authors right to try and continue a story someone else has started?