Foster, Alan Dean- The Black Hole

[ray gower]

Rescued from the secondhand book shop, it is another, "The story is all ready. Now write it."

I don't know why authors choose to try and write books from TV and film scripts, it must stiffle the imagination terribly and Alan Foster has written more than his share, over ten for Star Trek and Pocket Books alone.

It rather puts anything he writes of his own free will, he has several, low on the reading list, simply because of the ghastly rules set by the film producers.
That said, this adaption of the Disney film is actually quite good. Somewhat better than the film itself in fact. Obviously Disney allowed him to be free with the descriptions and didn't demand that the characters only thought company thoughts.

Which all means that everything is logically and sensibly laid out. It is possible to understand why characters are doing what they are doing, even the actions of Reinhardt, the mad professor of the research ship Cygnus, poised on the brink of destruction.

Not Heinlein quality writing, or action packed Doc Smith. But an acceptable afternoons read when you need to switch off.

 

[BAYLOR]

Even though the film plays fast and lose with science of Black holes, Its a pretty good film. As the novelization , I thought Foster did a pretty good job.

 

[zaltys13]

Foster has written some really good novelisation's, Alien being the best I think, it really added to the depth of the story, as did Alien 3, which contained plot elements completely excised from the film. Aliens was okay, it had the stuff that was reinstated for the directors cut but removed much of the sweary gung-ho dialogue which I enjoyed. Another good one was The Thing, the novelisation of John Carpenter's 1982 version, again he peppered the story with little extra's that added to my enjoyment.

Alan Dean foster also wrote Splinter Of The Mind's Eye, this was a direct sequel to the film Star Wars the novelisation of which Foster ghost wrote for George Lucas. If Star Wars had bombed at the box office Lucas envisaged this as a low budget sequel, and the world of pop culture would be a very different place.

As to why authors do novelisation's, I imagine it pays the bills and is a pretty quick process.

 

[Frost Giant]

As to why authors do novelisation's, I imagine it pays the bills and is a pretty quick process.

BINGO.

Foster expanded on a few things, the ending in particular. I still have that old, battered paperback somewhere. A person can even go further than a novelization, there were comic books based on The Black Hole as well.

Alan Dean foster also wrote Splinter Of The Mind's Eye

I thought of the exact same book when reading the first post. Splinter had some good aspects to it, I thought.

 

[zaltys13]

Splinter Of The Mind's Eye, was certainly interesting, especially from a cultural perspective. Below is Foster on why he chose not to write the novelisation for Alien: Resurrection, after writing the novelisation for Alien 3. This is a direct quote from the Wiki:

"A novelization of the film was authored by Alan Dean Foster. His adaptation includes many scenes that were cut from the final film, some of which later reappeared in the Assembly Cut. Foster wanted his adaptation to differ from the film's script, which he disliked, but Walter Hill declared he should not alter the storyline. Foster later commented: "So out went my carefully constructed motivations for all the principal prisoners, my preserving the life of Newt (her killing in the film is an obscenity) and much else. Embittered by this experience, that's why I turned down Alien: Resurrection."

This is really interesting stuff, Fosters characterisations in the aforementioned novelisation's where very good and added to the story but I can certainly see why Walter Hill would not want him to stray to far from the path of the film itself, Newt's death may be "obscene" to Foster, but that's the story mate, live with it.

I can't comment on his other work, I haven't read any, but based on the novelisation's I've read he seams a perceptive and intelligent writer.

 

[BAYLOR]

The film had one the coolest looking spaceship of all time The Cygnus .