Cavalcade of Awesome

Welcome back to the beginning of my year end round up articles. Usually in January and February I will write up my favorite books and comics I read, movies I watched, as well as a third round up article talking about the novelizations that I read for my podcast.

For those that don’t know, my novelization podcast is I Read Movies.  It can be found on the Cult Film Club podcast feed as well as the CFC website. If you haven’t listened yet, check it out.  And if you have, thank you very much, you are a true gentleperson and a scholar. Every month on IRM I read a movie novelization and then I talk about the differences between the movie and the novelization.  It’s so fun to see the differences between the two because many times the movie novelization is written from a different version of the script. Check out the podcast, I think you’ll like it.

If you want to check out a list of all of the episodes online, you can find the show at CultFilmClub.com/IReadMovies.

All the episodes are nicely displayed there in a bookshelf format with book covers.  Browse just like you do at the library!

So, let’s revisit 2024 real quick.  I covered 13 novelizations for I Read Movies, which was two more books than usual.  I covered 2 books in March, and I normally take the month of November off, but you guys got an extra episode in November.  And, spoiler alert, you will this year as well.  I have another new-ish episode to you that I’ll post in November.

So, now, let’s talk about this year.  Normally in this round up I’ll look at all 12 books I covered the previous year and pick my 5 favorites.  And then I’ll go over some stats involving the authors I’ve covered over the years.  Can I come up with my 5 favorite novelizations in 2023? *papers shuffling* Challenge accepted.

The images I use for each of the below entries are my photoshopped episode banners, assuming I made one, for that book.  I really enjoy doing them and I want to showcase them a bit more.  I’ll link each entry to the IRM show page on CFC.com. These favorites will be listed in the order they appeared on the show last year.

Let’s kick this off with…

Romancing the Stone (1984) by Joan Wilder – The novelization to Robert Zemekis’ hit romantic adventure was the first novelization I covered in 2024.  Accredited to the fictional writer played by Kathleen Turner, Joan Wilder.  The book is also written as if it’s a legit romantic adventure novel.  It’s a lot of fun, it has several scenes that aren’t in the movie, as well as a bunch of backstory for characters like Ralph and Ira, but especially Jack Colton.  Definitely worth the read if you like the movie.

Over the Top (1987) by Joel D Humphrey – Yes, the novelization of the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling movie made my list of top 5 for the year.  This book is exactly what you want in a novelization, particularly a Sylvester Stallone movie novelization from the 80s or 90s.  The novelization is clearly written from an earlier script, I’d venture to say it was the script right before Sly rewrote it to be more “Stallone-ian” (that’s a word, look it up).  The book is lighter on the arm wrestling, and heavier on the father-son bonding.  And Lincoln Hawk is clearly supposed to be of Native American descent.  It’s a really fun novelization to read.

Iron Man (2008) by Peter David – There were three adult novelizations for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Only three.  This one, Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man 2.  After Iron Man 2, Marvel backed off adult novelizations, and leaned hard into junior novelizations for the MCU, including even re-adapting these first three movies.  This was a really fun book.  Peter David knows what he’s doing.  He handles Tony Stark very well, and it’s action packed.

Spider-Man 2 – Peter David – Peter David may be the first author to show up twice in one of my IRM year end round ups. I don’t think I’ve covered any other author twice in one year–Oh, I take that back, I did it a couple times.  Now that I think about it, I did Craig Shaw Gardner twice in one year when I did Batman/Batman Returns, and again when I did Back to the Future II/Back to the Future III.  I also did Ed Naha twice in one year when I covered Robocop/Robocop II.  This doesn’t take away from Peter David.  Spider-Man 2 is my favorite of the Raimi movies and David expands a lot of the ideas in the movie.  This is a really great read.

Superman III (1983) by William Kotzwinkle – Sadly only the lesser of the four Chris Reeve Superman movies got novelizations. I covered Superman IV a few years ago, and this one completes the set.  I don’t love this movie, but I was very curious how the book would handle the complete mess of a story.  And William Kotzwinkle is an interesting writer, I have covered him previously for the ET the Extra Terrestrial novelization.  He certainly makes this book interesting.  Superman is super annoyed at humans and Earth.  He has several super violent thoughts towards Brad.  And Gus Gorman’s computer skills are treated as a kind of super power.  He literally has no understanding of what he’s doing.  He just does it.  The book is interesting, but it doesn’t make me like the movie any better.

The Terminator – Randall Frakes & Bill Wisher – It took me a while to find this novelization and I was super excited to cover it.  This was also one of the select few that had a completely separate book written by a different author over in the UK (horror writer Shaun Hutson).  The US version is my favorite, it’s longer, and it adds more to the overall story.  This is a great read.  And I’m really looking forward to the T2 novelization, which is written again by Randall Frakes (but no Bill Wisher even though he did work on the script).

So those were my favorite novelizations I covered on IRM in 2024.  Let’s take a look at a few stats for I Read Movies.

Over the course of the show I’ve covered over 100 books and novelizations (includes regular episodes as well as appendix and other special episodes). I don’t officially number the episodes, but The Terminator was the 87th regular episode of the show. How about an author breakdown?

Up to this year, IRM’s reigning champ of novelization authors has been Craig Shaw Gardner with 5 books (Back to the Future II, Back to the Future III, Batman 1989, Batman Returns, The Lost Boys). As of this year, Peter David finally caught him. David is now also at 5 books (Spider-man, Spider-Man 2, Return of Swamp Thing, Iron Man, Batman Forever).  And I definitely have several more to cover for him in the future, so there may be some movement again in the author rankings next year. However, will someone else reach 5 books, or will someone finally SURPASS 5 books on the show? You’ll have to wait and find out!

Next is a three way tie at 4 books. We have Alan Dean Foster (Star Wars ’77, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, The Last Starfighter, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), BB Hiller (Superman IV, and all 3 Karate Kid novelizations), and Glen A Larson with 4 of the Knight Rider novelizations that I’ve covered on the show.  After this there are a plethora of authors with 1 and 2 books that I’ve covered on the show.

So that was I Read Movies in 2024. I thought this was a really strong year, and I had a lot of fun putting it together. And knowing what the schedule is for 2025, I think it’s going to be another fun year. Please join me!

Another day, another dollar.  Another year, another….well, I don’t actually know where I was going with that.

Time for another year end round up of the books I covered on my movie novelization podcast, I Read Movies.  If you haven’t listened, check it out.  Every month I read a movie novelization and then I talk about the differences between the movie and the novelization.  I can’t believe it’s time to do this again.

If you want to check out a list of the episodes online, you can find the show at CultFilmClub.com/IReadMovies.  All the episodes are nicely displayed there in a bookshelf format with book covers.  Browse just like you do at the library!

So, 2023.  I covered 11 novelizations for I Read Movies this year. Well, technically, I did about 13, if you include the quick Karate Kid sequel novelizations I covered in the main Karate Kid show.  And all the books were connected in some way, as this year I picked books via the Daisy Chain Challenge.  For those that weren’t listening, the Daisy Chain Challenge meant that each book had to have some connection, however small, with the previous book.  It made picking books this year a fun challenge.

So, let me go through the list of novelizations I covered this year and see if I can come up with my 5 favorite books I covered in 2023. *papers shuffling*

The images I use for each of the below entries are my photoshopped episode banners, assuming I made one, for that book.  I really enjoy doing them and I want to showcase them a bit more.  I’ll link each entry to the IRM show page on CFC.com.

This list is in the order of show release.

The Saint by Burl Barer – I love this movie, plus the character has such as rich backstory due to The Saint being a popular adventure series back in the 30s. This movie did a great job modernizing him, and Val Kilmer pulls off another great role. I say modernizing the character, but when you watch this movie now it oozes the 90s. It’s delightful. Elizabeth Shue is so adorable and fun in this movie and she has great chemistry with Val. The villain, Tretiak, is all world. I love him. And it has a great soundtrack.  How this did not become a series of movies starring Val Kilmer is beyond me.

Die Hard with a Vengeance by Deborah Chiel – This is the only Die Hard movie with an actual novelization. The first two movies were based on previous novels. And this one was a LOT of fun. Like the movie it uses New York as a character of its own, including some New York history added into the story. We even get a few mentions and callbacks to other movies in the book we don’t get in the movie. Plus, it has a whole alternate ending.  Like I said, a really good adaptation that also manages to completely crush my theory that Die Hard with a Vengeance is actually a prequel to Die Hard 2.  It still works with the movies, but this book actually calls back to events in Die Hard 2.

My Science Project by Mike McQuay – I love this movie.  It’s one of my favorites.  We covered it on Cult Film Club a while ago.  I was very excited to be able to do this book, but also anxious because it had a small-ish page count and I thought there wouldn’t be anything good for me to talk about.  But I was wrong, there was some good extra info and especially a few extra fun scenes with the parents of the main characters.  I was delighted I really enjoyed the novelization.

Jason X by Pat Cadigan – Okay, this was a novelization I had read previously.  About 10 years before I did the show.  This one is a hard one to find, I was lucky to get a copy swapping online.  It’s 400+ pages and it expands the movie pretty well.  The best thing it does is set up what’s going on in the future.  How we got there, what it looks like.  It also sets some context around the characters that discover Jason; who they are and why they are dressed like that.  It’s long for a slasher novelization, but it’s good.  The sequel that Cadigan wrote, The Experiment, which I also talked about, not good.  Very disappointed in it.

Demolition Man by Richard Osborne – I saw this movie in the theater.  I loved it.  I even read the novelization back when the movie came out.  So I was really excited to revisit both this movie and the novelization.  The novelization is really good.  It’s lots of fun, has a few extra character bits and scenes, particularly involving John Spartan’s daughter, which was cut out of the movie.  What I guess I discovered on this rewatch, is that I didn’t like Sly’s John Spartan very much.  He’s kind of a jerk.  Everyone else in this movie is great.  I still really like it.

So those were my favorite novelizations I covered on the show this past year.  Let’s take a look at a few overall stats for I Read Movies.

I didn’t mention this in the Demolition Man episode, but that was the 75th episode of I Read Movies.  Over the course of the show I’ve covered just about 90 books and novelizations. That includes the 75 episodes of the main show, as well as the Appendix special episodes, and any other special episodes I did for Nerd Lunch and Cult Film Club.  How about an author breakdown?

Currently, the author I’ve covered the most on I Read Movies and the reigning champion from the last few years is Craig Shaw Gardner.  I’ve covered five of his books including Batman 89, Batman Returns, The Lost Boys, Back to the Future Part II, and Back to the Future Part III.  It doesn’t look like anyone will surpass him next year either, but you never know.

The rankings below Gardner haven’t changed much since last year. In second place is still Alan Dean Foster with four books on the show (Star Wars ’77, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, The Last Starfighter, Star Wars: The Force Awakens).  But we do have a new entry in the 4 book club; BB Hiller now has 4 novelizations on the show with Superman IV, and all 3 Karate Kid novelizations.

Third place is still a four way tie between James Kahn, Jeffrey Cooper, Glen A Larson, and Peter David, with three titles each.  However, since I know the schedule next year, I see that there may be more movement between the 3 book and 4 book tiers!  We’ll just have to wait and see!  Stay tuned!

So, that’s my I Read Movies 2023 year end novelization round up.  Hope you enjoyed this past year of the podcast.  I believe I have a lot of good novelizations coming up this year.  You’ve heard the first one, Romancing the Stone.  That one was a lot of fun.  Next up after that?  Another Sylvester Stallone banger, Over the Top!!  I can’t wait.