Movie ties-ins. Love ’em? Hate ’em?

Today is the release of the final episode of Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery.  We held off watching it until we could binge.  We started last week and squeezed in three episodes before work bore down on us and we had to give up our evenings to getting stuff done.

I’m looking forward to going back to the series, not least of all so I don’t have to keep ducking any discussion about the show for fear of spoilers.  I already know of one major development just because I half-scanned a headline before I could click away from the page.

On the other hand, I’m currently reading through all the Star Wars movie tie-in books, and I’m having a blast with those, even though my reading time has reduced to minutes a day.

Movie Tie-ins have come a long way since I first read one.  The first one I read was very nearly my last — and it was George Lucas’ Star Wars — as it was called then.  We know it now as A New Hope.  Shortly after that, I read Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and learned that tie-ins were basically the screenplay converted to prose, with very, very little introspection or the inner thoughts of the characters.  For me, this is the most interesting part of reading stories rather than watching them, so I was bitterly disappointed.

I avoided all tie-ins from that point forward until I saw the so-called movie-tie-in for James Cameron’s The Abyss.  It was written by Orson Scott Card, which was why I paused long enough to look at it.  (I love his Ender’s Game series.)   And the introduction to the novel says that both Cameron and Card wanted to do more than just a prose rendition of the script.

That book remains one of my favourites of all time.  It’s a brilliant weaving of film script and classy character introspection and development.

But I still stayed away from tie-ins after that.  Too badly burned.

Recently, however, I saw a post (I honestly can’t remember where) which included the throw-away comment that tie-ins have grown up in the last few years and that Timothy Zahn showed the world what a gifted author can do with movie franchise properties.

Okay, I was interested enough to download his Admiral Thrawn series.  It’s still on my TBR pile, but in the meantime, I learned more about the cannon/legend issues with Star Wars books and tried to figure out where to start reading.

Then I had the brilliant thought that perhaps, if tie-ins have matured so well, the books for the movies might be worth dipping into.  At least I can skip the pages featuring Jar Jar Binks.  🙁

So that’s where my reading pile sits at the moment: The books for all the movies lined up waiting.

Do you have a favourite movie tie-in book?  What was so good about it?

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The first time I mentioned Destroyer of Worlds was Christmas Eve — it’s possible you missed the announcement in the fuss of Christmas.

This is a reminder that the book is available for pre-order.


The Empire is crumbling and humanity is on its knees.

The petulant, self-aware Array has retaliated.  It has destroyed a space station, home to a million people, and stranded Danny and her crew on the surface of the tidally locked Nijeliya II.  They must scratch for survival as best they can.

While Danny works to save the city and her people, her fury over the Array’s murder of her friends and loved ones stews deep inside.  She will have her revenge, no matter what the cost.

Only Nijeliya is a red star and notorious for throwing out superflares that can threaten the life of everything living thing.  Time is running out, not just for Danny and her crew, but for everyone in the galaxy.

Destroyer of Worlds is the fifth and final book in the Imperial Hammer space opera science fiction series by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.

The Imperial Hammer series:
1.0: Hammer and Crucible
1.1: An Average Night on Androkles
2.0: Star Forge
3.0: Long Live the Emperor
4.0: Severed
5.0: Destroyer of Worlds

Space Opera Science Fiction Novel

Destroyer of Worlds is released at the end of January.

Enjoy!

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