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Kesper North posted:For example, he was given an undisclosed sum by James Cameron because "Avatar" and the ecology of Pandora is just a somewhat loose adaptation of Foster's 1975 novel Midworld.
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Oct 15, 2023 02:42
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Looking at his bibliography and drat, you have to respect Alan Dean Fosters hustle when it comes to movie tie-ins. I assume it's just a flat fee, I wonder how lucrative it is? Edit: Found a fun interview quote:“I took it for two reasons,” says author Alan Dean Foster, about his decision to get into novelization writing, which has included everything from Star Wars: Episode IV to Terminator Salvation. “First, because I was a young writer and I needed to make a living. And because, as [a fan], I got to make my own director’s cut. I got to fix the science mistakes, I got to enlarge on the characters, if there was a scene I particularly liked, I got to do more of it, and I had an unlimited budget. So it was fun.” Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Oct 15, 2023 |
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Oct 15, 2023 11:37
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Deptfordx posted:Looking at his bibliography and drat, you have to respect Alan Dean Fosters hustle when it comes to movie tie-ins. ADF also wrote Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the very first Star Wars tie-in novel, in 1978. It's mostly forgettable, but it includes some romantic business for Luke and Leia that would get really awkward a couple years later.
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Oct 15, 2023 15:51
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I never really thought about this before but I guess before home video was common, a novelization was the only practical way to revisit the story of a movie you liked? Since then I'm not sure there's much of a point, unless like me you were a kid who wasn't allowed to watch any movies rated higher than PG but was allowed to check out whatever he wanted from the library...
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Oct 15, 2023 15:59
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TOOT BOOT posted:The concept of novelizing a movie based on a written story is weird.
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Oct 15, 2023 16:20
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Lex Talionis posted:I never really thought about this before but I guess before home video was common, a novelization was the only practical way to revisit the story of a movie you liked? The novel can also fix a garbage movie one might for some reason want to like. Case in point, the Episode III novel rules and is all the prequel Star Wars needs. (But Clone Wars is a hood cartoon.)
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Oct 15, 2023 16:33
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90s Cringe Rock posted:How many S.T.A.L.K.E.R. novels are there now? Mostly untranslated, iirc, which may be for the best. Around ~111 at the moment, apparently.
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Oct 15, 2023 16:33
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Deptfordx posted:Looking at his bibliography and drat, you have to respect Alan Dean Fosters hustle when it comes to movie tie-ins. No, authors get residuals for novelizations. Foster himself was just at the center of a lawsuit against Disney by the Science Fiction Writers of America because they decided to just stop paying residuals to novelization authors after they bought Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox. https://www.sfwa.org/2020/11/18/disney-must-pay/ There were other authors involved as well, and from memory a number of 90s Star Wars EU authors had just stopped being paid residuals by Disney after the Lucasfilm purchase.
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Oct 15, 2023 16:40
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Selachian posted:ADF also wrote Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the very first Star Wars tie-in novel, in 1978. It's mostly forgettable, but it includes some romantic business for Luke and Leia that would get really awkward a couple years later. I'm old enough to have read it as a kid between Star wars and Empire coming out.
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Oct 15, 2023 17:17
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I was confused about why anyone could be confused about whether or not Alan Dean Foster wrote non-adaptation material, since that was where I remembered encountering him. Then I realized I was thinking of Craig Shaw Gardener.
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Oct 15, 2023 17:20
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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJCJE/ Artemis by Andy Weir - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y55SB48/
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Oct 15, 2023 17:22
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If you like cyberpunk at all, Snow Crash is one of the places it starts. Excellent worldbuilding, funny, inspired way way too many tech guys. Stephenson cannot write an ending for sour owl jowls, so be warned.
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Oct 15, 2023 17:25
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Snow Crash rules.
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Oct 15, 2023 18:06
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Arsenic Lupin posted:If you like cyberpunk at all, Snow Crash is one of the places it starts. Excellent worldbuilding, funny, inspired way way too many tech guys. Stephenson cannot write an ending for sour owl jowls, so be warned. Snow Crash is a reaction to the point of parody of cyberpunk, so it’s hard to say that’s where it starts. Go back about 15-20 years or so from Snow Crash, possibly more depending on where you draw the line. That said, yes, Snow Crash is great.
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Oct 15, 2023 18:06
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Kestral posted:Snow Crash is a reaction to the point of parody of cyberpunk, so it’s hard to say that’s where it starts. Go back about 15-20 years or so from Snow Crash, possibly more depending on where you draw the line. I always thought Neuromancer was considered the first, but reading the Wikipedia article it sounds like the term was first used in 1980, four years before Gibson wrote Neuromancer. However it also says quote:About that time in 1984, William Gibson's novel Neuromancer was published, delivering a glimpse of a future encompassed by what became an archetype of cyberpunk "virtual reality", with the human mind being fed light-based worldscapes through a computer interface. Some, perhaps ironically including Bethke himself, argued at the time that the writers whose style Gibson's books epitomized should be called "Neuromantics", a pun on the name of the novel plus "New Romantics", a term used for a New Wave pop music movement that had just occurred in Britain, but this term did not catch on. Bethke later paraphrased Michael Swanwick's argument for the term: "the movement writers should properly be termed neuromantics, since so much of what they were doing was clearly imitating Neuromancer".
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Oct 15, 2023 18:33
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Strategic Tea posted:I absolutely love Mortal Engines! I read the book after watching the film, I really liked the film but struggled with the book. I usually enjoy the book better so have no idea whats going on here.
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Oct 15, 2023 18:38
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I like Snow Crash because it really nailed how loving stupid the future would be.
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Oct 15, 2023 18:55
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Awkward Davies posted:I always thought Neuromancer was considered the first, but reading the Wikipedia article it sounds like the term was first used in 1980, four years before Gibson wrote Neuromancer. I was under that impression for the longest time too, and in fairness Neuromancer is the thing that defined the genre. The pre-Neuromancer cyberpunk stuff is often pretty rough, but it can be fascinating reading. Neuromancer's influence was so powerful that elements of the genre were completely occluded by it and are now essentially lost.
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Oct 15, 2023 18:59
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At a minimum, Rudy Rucker predates William Gibson.
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Oct 15, 2023 19:03
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Awkward Davies posted:I always thought Neuromancer was considered the first, but reading the Wikipedia article it sounds like the term was first used in 1980, four years before Gibson wrote Neuromancer. Bethke’s Head Crash (which was him satirizing the genre ~15 years after he named it) is a fun read.
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Oct 15, 2023 19:57
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Haystack posted:I like Snow Crash because it really nailed how loving stupid the future would be. aside from the sex scene I mean, that's hosed up still
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Oct 15, 2023 20:57
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Kestral posted:Snow Crash is a reaction to the point of parody of cyberpunk, so it’s hard to say that’s where it starts. Go back about 15-20 years or so from Snow Crash, possibly more depending on where you draw the line. Yeah this. I remember hearing people in the early 2000s refer to it as "post-cyberpunk". It is still great.
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Oct 15, 2023 20:59
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Kestral posted:Snow Crash is a reaction to the point of parody of cyberpunk, so it’s hard to say that’s where it starts. Go back about 15-20 years or so from Snow Crash, possibly more depending on where you draw the line. You're quite right. 
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Oct 15, 2023 21:32
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Has anyone read the full Machineries of Empire series? The first book is Ninefox Gambit. How is it? I've been curious about it for a sec, but I occasionally see some mixed reactions.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:34
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Haystack posted:I like Snow Crash because it really nailed how loving stupid the future would be. see also: southland tales. it feels like a documentary now.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:37
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Has anyone read the full Machineries of Empire series? The first book is Ninefox Gambit. How is it? I've been curious about it for a sec, but I occasionally see some mixed reactions. I enjoyed the first book, but dropped the second around 30% through. The author tried to portray the main character as a strategic genius, but its all space magic bullshit with no real rules, so it felt like a narcissist describing their hypothetical D&D game. The first book was carried forward on the audacity of the space magic bullshit tho.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:43
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All of SF is magic bullshit with no real rules. I read all of it and liked it, although it suffered from the magic bullshit getting explained and the explanations being kind of lame.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:46
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Yeah. I think Ninefox Gambit is still a pretty good read, but the other two are entirely skippable.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:50
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Has anyone read the full Machineries of Empire series? The first book is Ninefox Gambit. How is it? I've been curious about it for a sec, but I occasionally see some mixed reactions. I was generally positive on it but I don't think it really stuck the landing, and systematic torture is a major plot point.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:59
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Awkward Davies posted:I always thought Neuromancer was considered the first, but reading the Wikipedia article it sounds like the term was first used in 1980, four years before Gibson wrote Neuromancer. yeah, Tiptree Jnr, Bethke, Rudy Rucker, even Vinge did it first and Pat Cadigan, Sterling, Walter Jon Williams were contemporary. My comicbook friends were obsessed with Judge Dredd and 2000AD I was about 13 when I borrowed the mirror shades anthology from the library and that hooked me. it's probably the definitive short story collection of that first wave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorshades there was good stuff still being written in the 90s like Melissa Scott, Nancy Kress, Jack Womack, Effinger but it sort of petered out in the early 2000s
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Oct 15, 2023 22:36
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Oh cool, speaking of Ninefox Gambit, apparently Yoon Ha Lee wrote a tabletop RPG for the setting which is being released next week. That could be interesting to see.
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Oct 15, 2023 22:46
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StumblyWumbly posted:I enjoyed the first book, but dropped the second around 30% through. The author tried to portray the main character as a strategic genius, but its all space magic bullshit with no real rules, so it felt like a narcissist describing their hypothetical D&D game. I finished the series and regretted doing so, because I have the same feelings on it as you do. To expand on this for Hiro Protagonist, the whole thing that makes the setting weird and distinctive is that the technology for their space travel and warfare is based on adherence to a calendar system (and its associated festivals, sacrifices, etc.) and the use of battle formations that somehow channel the power created by the calendar. Conceptually it could work, it's got a lot of neat bits to it, but it's let down by the author's tendency to just let every problem be solvable by calendrical space-magic, because calendrical space magic always works in the way the plot needs it to work in order for the Special Genius to win. It never sold the premise for me, and I kept waiting for the payoff because people insisted the series got better as it went on. It didn't, at least to my mind, although it does have enough fun scenes per book that I was able to avoid DNFing the series. If I had to do it over again I would have spent my time elsewhere, however.
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Oct 15, 2023 22:46
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pseudorandom name posted:All of SF is magic bullshit with no real rules. On a tangent, this kinda sums up starwars for me.
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Oct 15, 2023 23:36
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Selachian posted:ADF also wrote Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the very first Star Wars tie-in novel, in 1978. It's mostly forgettable, but it includes some romantic business for Luke and Leia that would get really awkward a couple years later. It also had vader tanking a hit from a starship heavy cannon I think. Cursed Cocktails was good. Lil weird at the ending, but good.
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Oct 16, 2023 00:00
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Haystack posted:I like Snow Crash because it really nailed how loving stupid the future would be. It was a little on the nose in predicting the Hobby Lobby cuneiform obsession But I love a hot n ready pizza! (e. spoiler tags added because someone else did as well above but like it gives anything away, come on)
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Oct 16, 2023 00:33
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Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead is out, I had a good time like usual, but it's absolutely More KJ Parker and you'll probably know by now if you want more of that.
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Oct 16, 2023 01:06
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Given the mixed reception to Machineries of Empire, are there any recent space opera series that people would recommend? Or individual books, I'm not too picky.
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Oct 16, 2023 03:06
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Given the mixed reception to Machineries of Empire, are there any recent space opera series that people would recommend? Or individual books, I'm not too picky. I assume you’ve read Vinge and Iain M Banks? Does Becky Chambers count?
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Oct 16, 2023 03:26
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Given the mixed reception to Machineries of Empire, are there any recent space opera series that people would recommend? Or individual books, I'm not too picky.
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Oct 16, 2023 03:39
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Lex Talionis posted:I just started the third book of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture trilogy so I can't fully vouch for how it ends yet but the first two books were solid. I don't think it's gotten as much praise as his Children of Time trilogy and...well, to be honest it's not quite as good, but it hits the spot. It's sort of mid-career David Brin mixed with Star Wars with just a hint of the ol' Becky Chambers. Everything to do with Aklu the Unspeakable makes the whole series incredible 
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Oct 16, 2023 03:48
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