Tied Up in Telly
Somewhere in the Big Yellow Storage depot off the A12 at Gallows Corner are several boxes full of books that neither I nor inamac will ever read again. Oh, I tell a lie. There are two that I might...The Vampire Affair by David McDaniel (which petermorwood and I once spent half an hour late at night in the Adelphi quoting at each other to the bewilderment of everyone else present) and The Persauders by Frederick E Smith.
These are all tie-in novels. There are sometimes two sets of the things (when Ina and I both collected them, before we started sharing a flat in Acton, where the landlord was known as "slimy-jaws") and they are almost uniformly awful.
In the past, tie-in novels tended to be written before the series was aired - just after the acceptance of the first scripts, in fact. ("Look, this is what I was sent to work on!" Ken Bulmer wailed at us during one Weekend in the Country. "I can't help that it says that Bodie has fair hair." Neither we nor he knew at the time that Anthony Andrews had originally been cast in the role and the first three episodes subsequently refilmed when they realised the character dynamics didn't work...) Those scripts were often substantially re-written on set, leaving the writer of the tie-in to take the blame for the fact that the script he wasn't allowed to tamper with wasn't what was eventually broadcast. Sometimes those early scripts were the worst of the series too: the two UFO novelisations use, among other scripting failures, Close Up, Survival, and The Dalotek Affair.
In those days, you bought the novelisation (a word I am using as shorthand for 'novelisation and/or novellaisation and/or short-story-isation) of the film or the TV series to help you remember it. No videos. No DVDs. If you were rich and fanatical (like Bob Monkhouse, for instance) you might set up a camera and film from the TV screen. If you were poor and fanatical you might have a reel to reel sound recorder set up to tape the sound. If you were as fanatical as me you might do an 'actions script' to go with it during or just after broadcast, then do the novelisation yourself. (By gum, though, that teaches you how to get the voices right.)
However, that was only for the series you adored. For most series, you bought a tie-in novel, and then cursed it because it was badly written and nothing like the series or film you were trying to hold in your memory. Oh, sometimes you got something totally unexpected; only Ted Sturgeon could take the original film script of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and turn it into a philosophical study of man's relationship with God and the universe. Mind you, it bears little or no relationship to either the film (save for the co-incidence of character names and roles, and the basic plot of the Van Allen belts catching fire) or to the TV series which followed.
On the rare occasions that someone got it right, it was mainly because they were damn good writers in that genre (see The Persuaders, above) or because they were writing original fiction in a series they loved, see David McDaniel, also above. Yes, you did, very rarely, get original stories, but these tended to be American (the British studios went in mainly for novelising the scripts, though Anderson did allow John Theydon to write original - and by no means bad - Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet children's books) and tended also to be by writers who'd never seen the TV show and were writing from a 'Bible' and the screenplays. Occasionally, the writer was allowed to put stupidities right, as in James Blish's original Trek novelisations, where some of the wonky science and logic was quietly fixed. These are, actually, quite superior, particularly towards the end of the run, when he was allowed more space and, by then, knew the characters and setting as well as the fans. Unfortunately, these were usually the worst original scripts!
Original tie-ins continued to be rare (and some were even fanfic - The New Voyages and the Marshak and Culbreath Trek novels are a case in point... the latter plainly de-slashed K/S) until the videotape that, thankfully, killed the script-based type of tie-in novel. Oh, they still appear occasionally, but they don't sell that well.
So we now have the original tie-in novel as the norm, with Dr Who and BTVS leading the way. I've occasionally dipped into these, and never been particularly impressed, though I know that some - not generally the ones I dipped into - are very well thought of.
However, one thing that we have to remember is that tie in novels are not fanfic. Oh no they're not, even when written by writers who started in fandom and may well have written and still write fan fiction. A tie-in novel is about reproducing the series, which, particularly if it is still running, has to be left as found. There are few pieces of fan fiction do that. Also, fan fiction is about character and character relationships (not to mention porn), while tie-in books are about plot - as such they are, indeed, often closer to the series-as-broadcast than fan fiction. Sometimes, indeed, they improve on series-as-broadcast.
A case in point: though I do not normally read tie-in novels any more, I read the first three Torchwood tie-ins (reviewed at http://lil-shepherd.livejournal.com/37922.html and http://lil-shepherd.livejournal.com/51305.html) mainly because one was written by an old mate from Blake's Seven days, one was written by someone I knew vaguely and had shared panels with, and they were all pretty cheap in Tesco's. Also, at that point I really, really, really wanted to love Torchwood. RTD and Co had to keep hitting me with awfulness before I let go of any belief in it being any good. All three of the tie-ins were better than series-as-broadcast, mainly and above all because the characters acted with some amount of rationality...
Which brings me to the tie-in which started this train of thought: Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar by Stephen Saville. Well, if this had been written back in the 60s and 70s I would have been gobsmacked. The writer has plainly seen first season, and has been given the scripts for the first few episodes of season 2, during which it is set, so it is canon compliant. It is an adult book in that it contains lots of spectacular gore and much killing. There's also a rather good SF idea in there towards the end, too, though I don't actually think it would work... While there are no particular character insights, there are no spectacular goofs, either. He writes well about South America and about the military, showing that he has done his research (and possibly been there.) His own characters are, if not spectacularly interesting, no less or more so than the main characters, and the three SAS men who accompany Team Cutter are efficient, likeable and are as much heroes as the regular characters. In fact, the restraint Saville has to show when writing through the eyes of the regular characters is one of the drawbacks of the book and of this kind of writing in general. The other problem is that the attempts at humour fall rather flat - but humour is hard to write (which is why The Vampire Affair is so wonderful.) It's a short book (they all are) and, though Titan need a decent cover designer, the internal typeface is clean, the paper good quality, and the layout decent. While it will probably go into store to be sold, someday, with the rest of the tie-ins, I certainly don't regret reading it, and will pick up the next two when they arrive.
These are all tie-in novels. There are sometimes two sets of the things (when Ina and I both collected them, before we started sharing a flat in Acton, where the landlord was known as "slimy-jaws") and they are almost uniformly awful.
In the past, tie-in novels tended to be written before the series was aired - just after the acceptance of the first scripts, in fact. ("Look, this is what I was sent to work on!" Ken Bulmer wailed at us during one Weekend in the Country. "I can't help that it says that Bodie has fair hair." Neither we nor he knew at the time that Anthony Andrews had originally been cast in the role and the first three episodes subsequently refilmed when they realised the character dynamics didn't work...) Those scripts were often substantially re-written on set, leaving the writer of the tie-in to take the blame for the fact that the script he wasn't allowed to tamper with wasn't what was eventually broadcast. Sometimes those early scripts were the worst of the series too: the two UFO novelisations use, among other scripting failures, Close Up, Survival, and The Dalotek Affair.
In those days, you bought the novelisation (a word I am using as shorthand for 'novelisation and/or novellaisation and/or short-story-isation) of the film or the TV series to help you remember it. No videos. No DVDs. If you were rich and fanatical (like Bob Monkhouse, for instance) you might set up a camera and film from the TV screen. If you were poor and fanatical you might have a reel to reel sound recorder set up to tape the sound. If you were as fanatical as me you might do an 'actions script' to go with it during or just after broadcast, then do the novelisation yourself. (By gum, though, that teaches you how to get the voices right.)
However, that was only for the series you adored. For most series, you bought a tie-in novel, and then cursed it because it was badly written and nothing like the series or film you were trying to hold in your memory. Oh, sometimes you got something totally unexpected; only Ted Sturgeon could take the original film script of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and turn it into a philosophical study of man's relationship with God and the universe. Mind you, it bears little or no relationship to either the film (save for the co-incidence of character names and roles, and the basic plot of the Van Allen belts catching fire) or to the TV series which followed.
On the rare occasions that someone got it right, it was mainly because they were damn good writers in that genre (see The Persuaders, above) or because they were writing original fiction in a series they loved, see David McDaniel, also above. Yes, you did, very rarely, get original stories, but these tended to be American (the British studios went in mainly for novelising the scripts, though Anderson did allow John Theydon to write original - and by no means bad - Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet children's books) and tended also to be by writers who'd never seen the TV show and were writing from a 'Bible' and the screenplays. Occasionally, the writer was allowed to put stupidities right, as in James Blish's original Trek novelisations, where some of the wonky science and logic was quietly fixed. These are, actually, quite superior, particularly towards the end of the run, when he was allowed more space and, by then, knew the characters and setting as well as the fans. Unfortunately, these were usually the worst original scripts!
Original tie-ins continued to be rare (and some were even fanfic - The New Voyages and the Marshak and Culbreath Trek novels are a case in point... the latter plainly de-slashed K/S) until the videotape that, thankfully, killed the script-based type of tie-in novel. Oh, they still appear occasionally, but they don't sell that well.
So we now have the original tie-in novel as the norm, with Dr Who and BTVS leading the way. I've occasionally dipped into these, and never been particularly impressed, though I know that some - not generally the ones I dipped into - are very well thought of.
However, one thing that we have to remember is that tie in novels are not fanfic. Oh no they're not, even when written by writers who started in fandom and may well have written and still write fan fiction. A tie-in novel is about reproducing the series, which, particularly if it is still running, has to be left as found. There are few pieces of fan fiction do that. Also, fan fiction is about character and character relationships (not to mention porn), while tie-in books are about plot - as such they are, indeed, often closer to the series-as-broadcast than fan fiction. Sometimes, indeed, they improve on series-as-broadcast.
A case in point: though I do not normally read tie-in novels any more, I read the first three Torchwood tie-ins (reviewed at http://lil-shepherd.livejournal.com/37922.html and http://lil-shepherd.livejournal.com/51305.html) mainly because one was written by an old mate from Blake's Seven days, one was written by someone I knew vaguely and had shared panels with, and they were all pretty cheap in Tesco's. Also, at that point I really, really, really wanted to love Torchwood. RTD and Co had to keep hitting me with awfulness before I let go of any belief in it being any good. All three of the tie-ins were better than series-as-broadcast, mainly and above all because the characters acted with some amount of rationality...
Which brings me to the tie-in which started this train of thought: Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar by Stephen Saville. Well, if this had been written back in the 60s and 70s I would have been gobsmacked. The writer has plainly seen first season, and has been given the scripts for the first few episodes of season 2, during which it is set, so it is canon compliant. It is an adult book in that it contains lots of spectacular gore and much killing. There's also a rather good SF idea in there towards the end, too, though I don't actually think it would work... While there are no particular character insights, there are no spectacular goofs, either. He writes well about South America and about the military, showing that he has done his research (and possibly been there.) His own characters are, if not spectacularly interesting, no less or more so than the main characters, and the three SAS men who accompany Team Cutter are efficient, likeable and are as much heroes as the regular characters. In fact, the restraint Saville has to show when writing through the eyes of the regular characters is one of the drawbacks of the book and of this kind of writing in general. The other problem is that the attempts at humour fall rather flat - but humour is hard to write (which is why The Vampire Affair is so wonderful.) It's a short book (they all are) and, though Titan need a decent cover designer, the internal typeface is clean, the paper good quality, and the layout decent. While it will probably go into store to be sold, someday, with the rest of the tie-ins, I certainly don't regret reading it, and will pick up the next two when they arrive.