New book on movie tie-ins: LIGHT INTO INK [S.M.Guariento]

[smguariento]

Hi guys.

My name’s Steve Guariento, and I’m a sometime writer and longtime lurker round these parts. Paperbacks, pulp or otherwise, have been a staple part of my diet for over 40 years. Recently hitting my half-century, I found myself looking back to the very first kind of paperbacks I recall collecting: the Books of the Film, otherwise known as novelizations, movie tie-ins or photoplay editions. Scanning these boards, I see there’s a few like-minded souls posting here – enough, I hope, to be interested in my new book, LIGHT INTO INK: A Critical Survey of 50 Film Novelizations (Ideogram Press 2019, 480pp).

LIGHT INTO INK seeks to explore the enduring appeal of movie tie-ins through 50 in-depth “case studies” (including titles as diverse as Taxi Driver, Liquid Sky, Monte Carlo or Bust and Suspiria). While the chief focus is on science fiction, horror and fantasy titles – the speculative genres tend to lend themselves more readily to prose expansion, I find – the book also covers comedies, westerns, thrillers and midnight movies. The roster covers titles from the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy and France. (See postscript for full title listing.)

As I explain in the book, the novelization’s chief appeal for me lies not in its slavish adherence to the film source, but in its many divergences. In science fiction terms, a novelization represents an “alternative history”, or “counterfactual” – taking events and situations we know happened one way, but presenting them in quite another. Good novelizations – and yes, there are such things – can reinvent the film narrative in sometimes startling new ways, presenting an entirely new interpretation of the film’s characters and events. (Some examples, such as Michael Robson’s Holocaust 2000, take the notion of reinvention to near-heretical extremes.) Reading such adaptations sets up a rival “reality” in the filmgoer’s mind, one which often contradicts our memories of the film itself – creating a rather pleasing dissonance effect, as the imagination attempts to reconcile the two competing versions.

My interest in the subject reaches back to the early 1970s. I was around six or seven years old when I was introduced to Target’s Doctor Who range, and I was pretty much hooked from the start. The idea that a TV show, or film, could be captured within the compact form of a paperback intrigued me – so much so that a few years later, aged eleven, I tried my hand at writing novelizations myself... (A few excerpts of these can be found on my website. Proceed with caution.) But with the arrival of home video in the early 1980s, the desire to preserve my favourite films and shows on paper seemed suddenly less urgent. When the originals were readily available on tape, there seemed little need to record them in prose. My career as a novelizer ended almost overnight. But a trace fascination for novelization remained. Over time, the focus of my interest sharpened. I no longer wanted to write the Book of the Film. But the Book of the Books of the Film? Now there was an idea with promise...

LIGHT INTO INK is available exclusively from Amazon in a choice of two distinct editions: a DeLuxe Edition (white cover, £39.99) with colour interior, and a Midnight Edition (black cover, £14.99) offering the same illustrations in glorious monochrome. In addition to the array of jacket art and film posters, LIGHT INTO INK presents extensive extracts from the novels themselves – including some translated into English for the very first time. For novelization buffs, I trust the book will prove consistently diverting.

Well, that’s enough from me. Thanks for reading.

Steve.

PS. For the few who may be interested, here’s a full rundown of the 50 titles covered:

1: Of Changelings, Antichrists and Devils (Incarnate) – Children of the Damned by A.V. Sellwood (1964)/Bedazzled by Michael J. Bird (1968)/The Omen by David Seltzer (1976)/Holocaust 2000 by Michael J. Robson (1978).
2: Better Than the Film – Moon Zero Two by John Burke (1969)/The Incredible Melting Man by Phil Smith (1978)/Capricorn One by Bernard L. Ross (1978).
3: This is the End – Part 1: Armageddon GB – The Day the Earth Caught Fire by Barry Wells (1961)/Survivors by Terry Nation (1976). Part 2: Armageddon USA – Conquest of the Planet of the Apes by John Jakes (1974)/Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero & Susanna Sparrow (1978). Part 3: Armageddon Down Under – The Last Wave by Petru Popescu (1978)/Mad Max by Terry Hayes (1979)/Mad Max 2 by Carl Ruhen (1981)/Mad Max 2 by Philippe Manoeuvre (1983).
4: Scritti Spaghetti: Italian Genre Cinema – Part 1: The Man With No Name – A Fistful of Dollars by Frank Chandler (1972)/For a Few Dollars More by Joe Millard (1967)/The Good, the Bad & the Ugly by Joe Millard (1967). Part 2: Two Films by Elio Petri – The 10th Victim by Robert Sheckley (1965)/A Quiet Place in the Country (1969). Part 3: Thrilling all’italiana – The Laughing Woman by Hadrian Keene (1970)/The Cat O’Nine Tails by Paul J. Gillette (1971)/Il gatto a nove code by Nanni Balestrini (1975)/The Case of the Bloody Iris by Michael Hudson (2015)/Suspiria by Nicola Lombardi (1997).
5: Cult Filmmakers 1 – John Carpenter – Dark Star by Alan Dean Foster (1974)/Eyes of Laura Mars by H.B. Gilmour (1978)/Halloween by Curtis Richards (1979)/Halloween II by Jack Martin (1981)/Halloween III – Season of the Witch by Jack Martin (1982)/The Fog by Dennis Etchison (1980)/Escape from New York by Mike McQuay (1981)/The Thing by Alan Dean Foster (1982).
6: Cult Filmmakers 2 – David Cronenberg – Rabid by Richard Lewis (1977)/The Brood by Richard Starks (1979)/Scanners by Leon Whiteson (1980)/Scanners II – The New Order by Professor Janus Kimball (1991)/Videodrome by Jack Martin (1983)/eXistenZ by John Luther Novak (1999).
7: Dangerous Visions – X by Eunice Sudak (1963)/Performance by William Hughes (1970)/Zardoz by John Boorman & Bill Stair (1974)/Phase IV by Barry N. Malzberg (1973)/Sorcerer by John Minahan (1977)/Harlequin by Keith Hetherington (1980).
8: Ne plus ultra; or, That’s How It’s Done – Forbidden Planet by W.J. Stuart (1956)/Monte Carlo or Bust by E.W. Hildick (1969)/Taxi Driver by Richard Elman (1976)/Quatermass by Nigel Kneale (1979)/Liquid Sky: The Novel by Anne Carlisle (1987).

[jamesdoig]

Sounds like a must-read book - and great to see a lot of Australian content, Harlequin, The Last Wave, Mad Max etc.

[smguariento]

Thanks James. It was always important to me, right from the start, that the "international experience" of the tie-in should have some coverage in the book. It doesn't hurt that the Aussie titles are highly interesting in their own right, especially Petru Popescu's excellent The Last Wave - one of the best examples of the form, in my view.

[dem]

"Must-read" for sure, and the sample pages on the site are gorgeous: SMGuariento.com.
I'm getting "this year's Paperbacks from Hell" vibes.

[jamesdoig]

Sept 14, 2019 9:24:47 GMT smguariento said:

It doesn't hurt that the Aussie titles are highly interesting in their own right, especially Petru Popescu's excellent The Last Wave - one of the best examples of the form, in my view.

Yes, it's a fine novel I reckon - he gets that cosmic feel in the same way that Seltzer does with The Omen. When he was in Canberra the other month ST Joshi said Peter Weir must have read HP Lovecraft - he thought there was a clear influence.

[helrunar]

I'd love to read the novelization of The Last Wave if it is well done. A couple of summers ago, I spent several weeks tinkering at a longish review of the film for a rather obscure UK publication. I personally feel the imagery is quite different from that found in the work of Lovecraft, particularly as the story develops and the white protagonist's rapprochement with aboriginal people and culture enters deeper layers of revelation.

I wish you all the best with your project.

cheers, H.

[smguariento]

Sept 14, 2019 16:34:19 GMT dem said:

"Must-read" for sure, and the sample pages on the site are gorgeous: SMGuariento.com.
I'm getting "this year's Paperbacks from Hell" vibes.


Thanks for that additional plug! If not for my own technical incompetence, I might have added some pics to my original post...

[smguariento]

Sept 15, 2019 2:46:53 GMT helrunar said:

I'd love to read the novelization of The Last Wave if it is well done. A couple of summers ago, I spent several weeks tinkering at a longish review of the film for a rather obscure UK publication. I personally feel the imagery is quite different from that found in the work of Lovecraft, particularly as the story develops and the white protagonist's rapprochement with aboriginal people and culture enters deeper layers of revelation.

I wish you all the best with your project.

cheers, H.

Thanks! Pick up a copy of The Last Wave, if you can - they're still pretty cheap on the second-hand market. Popescu (a novelist of note in his native Romania) brings a genuine mythic scope and complexity to the tale, and his use of language is very striking. The novel supplies the majestic ending which Weir considered "missing" from his final cut, due to a variety of production problems (including shooting restrictions and budget issues). Popescu's is a truly transcendent finale, taking us - as Weir had always planned - into the wave itself. Breathtaking stuff.

[cromagnonman]

Would it be inexcusably pernickety to observe that that Dirty Harry book on the top row isn't actually a novelisation but an original novel called THE LONG DEATH?

[smguariento]

No, not at all. Under the broad heading of "tie-ins" the book covers both novelizations and original spinoff novels, both of which expand on the filmic universe of their source. (But while spinoffs are mentioned in passing, along with other film-into-books forms like the photonovel and ciné-roman, the chief focus of LIGHT INTO INK is on the novelization proper.)

But glad to see you're on your toes!

[helrunar]

Thank you, Steve Guariento! I wish I had known about the book when I wrote my review. I interpreted the ending of the film as an ambivalent representation of the Richard Chamberlain character's mental breakdown and possible rebirth, due to his experience shown in the final reel of the movie.

If you're interested in Weir's films, I wonder if you have ever seen the long documentary about Picnic at Hanging Rock on youtube. It includes shots from a final sequence that showed the fate of the Rachel Roberts character. I wish that had been kept in the completed film. I know Weir went back years later and removed some scenes from it and then declared that his director's cut of it--I can't recall the details now.

Wishing you all the best,

Helrunar

[helrunar]

Two books I have spent time with are Dan "Marilyn" Ross's book of the 1970 film House of Dark Shadows, which followed the shooting script rather than the completed film and has numerous scenes, characters and events that were cut before shooting even began. And Robin Carlisle's novelization of the Vadim film Blood and Roses, which is the same type of case--written from the original screenplay and thus includes a lot that may never have been filmed, as well as a detailed description of a celebrated sequence that Vadim seems to have filmed but then eliminated from his final edit.

H.

[smguariento]

Sept 15, 2019 14:25:43 GMT helrunar said:

Thank you, Steve Guariento! I wish I had known about the book when I wrote my review. I interpreted the ending of the film as an ambivalent representation of the Richard Chamberlain character's mental breakdown and possible rebirth, due to his experience shown in the final reel of the movie.

If you're interested in Weir's films, I wonder if you have ever seen the long documentary about Picnic at Hanging Rock on youtube. It includes shots from a final sequence that showed the fate of the Rachel Roberts character. I wish that had been kept in the completed film. I know Weir went back years later and removed some scenes from it and then declared that his director's cut of it--I can't recall the details now.

Wishing you all the best,

Helrunar

That doc is presumably "A Dream Within a Dream", the 2-hour Making Of originally included in the film's Aussie DVD release (and ported over to the UK blu-ray). Exhaustive and mesmerising. IIRC, Weir's original cut of Picnic hewed closer to the source novel's macabre ending, pitching the tale more as a horror tale; sensibly (IMO) Weir opted to retain the all-important ambiguity by cutting the "ghost" ending. Fascinating to see it in the doc, though.

The scenes Weir trimmed for his later Director's Cut all relate to the single survivor they find on the Rock, and her difficulty in reassimilating herself back into society after her trauma. The U.K. DVD includes Weir's original Theatrical Cut on a second disc, but the quality is quite poor.

[smguariento]

Sept 15, 2019 14:32:37 GMT helrunar said:

Two books I have spent time with are Dan "Marilyn" Ross's book of the 1970 film House of Dark Shadows, which followed the shooting script rather than the completed film and has numerous scenes, characters and events that were cut before shooting even began. And Robin Carlisle's novelization of the Vadim film Blood and Roses, which is the same type of case--written from the original screenplay and thus includes a lot that may never have been filmed, as well as a detailed description of a celebrated sequence that Vadim seems to have filmed but then eliminated from his final edit.

H.

I mention Blood and Roses in passing in the book, and the sequence you refer to (involving a grotesque blob-like Thing never seen in the release cut). My original plan was to include a lengthy passage from it in LIGHT INTO INK, but alas space restrictions forced me to reconsider. There simply wasn't room for everything.

[dem]

A copy of the budget, b/w midnight edition arrived yesterday - now have to wait until early October before I can get properly stuck in! A crafty flick through tells me Light into Ink is exactly the multi-genre reference tool I hoped it would be from the ad - lengthy entries on each title, multiple cover-scan action and Richard Lewis is invariably a winning formula around here. Well done, Mr. Guariento!