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I Read Movies 2025 Novelization Round Up

Posted in Blog Series, books, movies, podcast with tags book review, books, writing, podcast, movie novelization, I Read Movies, fiction, reading on January 28, 2026 by Paxton

One more trip around the sun and here we are again at my previous year round up articles. As usual, I’m starting with my novelization podcast, I Read Movies. Which, coincidentally, just hit 100 episodes with this month’s episode. 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. Every month on IRM I read a movie novelization and then I talk about the differences between the movie and the novelization. It’s really interesting to see the differences between the two because many times the movie novelization is written from a different version of the script. The most recent 100th episode doesn’t cover a novelization, but the 1975 draft of the Superman the Movie script that was written by none other than The Godfather’s Mario Puzo.

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

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 talk about 2025 real quick. I covered 13 novelizations this past year. I did two for Halloween in October. I finished out one of the movie franchises I had been covering. One of the novelizations I covered was a Holy Grail of mine that I had been hoping I’d get to cover on the show since I started it back in 2017. And one of the episodes was a previously released episode from my first podcast, Nerd Lunch, that I added to the CFC/IRM feed.

In this round up article I take a look at all of the novelizations 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. Let’s see if I have 5 novelizations I can say were my “favorites” this year.

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…

The Net (1995) by Leonore Fleischer – The Net is a small cyber thriller from the mid 90s starring Sandra Bullock. An earlier, lesser known role; she had already been in Speed, Demolition Man, and While You Were Sleeping. But I love it. I’m not sure when I first saw it. I love 90s cyber thrillers, and this one is a fun one. The book is a good one too, it’s written by the Godmother of novelization authors; Leonore Fleischer. I really need to cover her more often on the show. If you haven’t seen this movie, check it out.

Mission Impossible (1996) by Peter Barsocchini – The very first Mission Impossible movie. If only we’d known what this little movie just started back in 1996. Surprisingly, this was the only entry in the franchise to get a novelization. I covered it in early May right before I went to go see the most recent entry in the franchise. This book was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed the background it gave on a lot of the characters. I loved this movie originally, I started not liking it for a few years, but I’m back around to very much enjoying it.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) by David Morrell – I was very eager to cover this one. The first movie was adapted from an existing novel, but Rambo 2 and 3 were wholly new creations. And the script for Part 2 was originally written by James Cameron. And this novelization was written by the original author who created Rambo, David Morrell. I found all of that interesting and was very much looking forward to this book. And it delivered. Lots of fun and lots of backstory and action.

Spider-man 3 by Peter David – I finally get to finish out the Sam Raimi Spider-man novelizations. Spider-man 3 as a movie was much maligned. Rightly so, it has a giant web full of problems. But Peter David always has fun with his subject matter, especially if it’s a comic book subject. Check out his Iron Man novelization that I covered, or the book I covered after this, 2005’s Fantastic Four. Peter David always brings his A-game, and I won’t say he “fixed” the movie for me, but he did make it more entertaining.

Midnight Madness (1980) by Tom Wright – And last but CERTAINLY not least. The coup de grace. My own personal white whale of a novelization I was never sure I’d ever be able to do on the show. Midnight Madness. For years this was going to be my 100th episode. An early Disney/Buena Vista scavenger hunt style movie featuring David Naughton, Stephen Furst, and the very first movie appearance of Michael J Fox! I love this movie with my whole heart, and I really enjoyed reading this book and digging into the story and going over all the places they went to in early 80s Los Angeles.

So those were my favorite novelizations I covered on IRM in 2025. Let’s take a look at a few stats for I Read Movies.

Over the course of the show I’ve covered nearly 120 books and novelizations (includes regular episodes as well as appendix and other special episodes). I don’t officially number the episodes, but as I mentioned, Midnight Madness in December was the 99th episode. And if you look now, you should see that IRM episode 100 is out there right now!

Peter David continues his domination of the “authors I’ve covered” list. David is now at 7 books (Spider-man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-man 3, Fantastic Four, Return of Swamp Thing, Iron Man, Batman Forever). And I definitely have several more to cover from him in the future. Next in the author rankings is Craig Shaw Gardner with 5 books. After Gardner, like last year, it’s still a three way tie at 4 books each; Alan Dean Foster, BB Hiller, and Glen A Larson. After this there is another four way tie of authors with 3 books on the show (James Kahn, Jeffrey Cooper, Robert Tine, and William Kotzwinkle). And rounding out the list are a plethora of authors with 1 and 2 books that I’ve covered on the show.

So that was I Read Movies in 2025. I thought this was a really strong year, capped by one of my favorite episodes EVER on the show. And as usual I had a lot of fun putting it together.

Coming up next for IRM is going to be a special “State of IRM” episode where I talk a bit about the show, and I get around to answering all of those questions that listeners sent me last year. That’s going to be a fun one. I have the schedule for the next few years laid out, and there are some good ones I’m excited about. Can’t wait to talk to you guys about it.

I Read Movies 2024 Novelization Round Up

Posted in Blog Series, books, movies, podcast with tags I Read Movies, movie novelization, podcast on January 17, 2025 by Paxton

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.

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 banner
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 novel
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.

Terminator novelization
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!

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I Read Movies 2023 Novelization Round Up

Posted in Blog Series, books, movies, podcast with tags I Read Movies, movie novelization, podcast on January 30, 2024 by Paxton

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*

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.

I Read Movies’ 2022 Year End Round up

Posted in Blog Series, Book Report, books, movies, pop culture with tags Book Report, books, I Read Movies, Movie Novelizations, movies, podcast, reviews, Year End Books on January 9, 2023 by Paxton

As you probably know, I host a movie novelization podcast called I Read Movies. Every month I read a movie novelization and then on the podcast I talk about the differences between the movie and the novelization. A few years ago, I decided to add a year end round up for I Read Movies to my other “year end” lists. It’s been fun and some of you seem to like it. So here I go again.

2022 was a good year for I Read Movies. It switched over to the Cult Film Club podcast network. It also got its own online home on the CFC website where you can browse previous episodes of the show.

I’m really liking how this online database is shaping up, I hope you guys like it too.

So, in 2022, I covered 12 novelizations for I Read Movies. I’m very happy with the group of novelizations I picked this year. I kind of love all 12 of these books for different reasons, but I took a few moments, really looked inward at myself and all I hold dear, and came up with at least 5 of the novelizations that were my favorites this year and why they were my favorites. I say “at least 5”, because I may cheat and include an extra or two. We’ll see.

So let’s see which novelizations I most enjoyed covering on the show in 2022!

FYI, I decided to use the photoshopped IRM episode images for these entries instead of just the covers from movienovelizations.com. They are so much fun to make and I’ve been trying to figure out a way to showcase them more. I’ll link each entry to the IRM show page on CFC.com.

This is list in the order of show release.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace by BB Hiller – The very first episode of the year. Cult Film Club covered this movie back in episode 31. I go back and forth on this movie. Sometimes I think it’s terrible, and sometimes I find it so bad it’s charming. My hope was that the BB Hiller novelization would shed some light on things, like Superman’s Great Wall constructing eye beams, and why he gets radiation poisoning from Nuclear Man. The book didn’t answer everything, and it’s a tad shorter than I’d like, but it has several deleted scenes from the movie, including the scenes with the first Nuclear Man, and it keeps the somewhat weird zany tone.

Batman and Robin by Michael Jan Friedman – This novelization was the only one of the original four (Batman 89, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin) that I didn’t read during the original release of the movie. And right up to when I did it for the show, it was still the only one I hadn’t already read. To be honest, I don’t love the movie, so I had never really intended to actually cover it on IRM. Then I was on the Authorized novelizations podcast talking about the movie and the novelization and realized there’s a lot of fun stuff to mine in that book. So after I recorded with Authorized, I decided to do this book. I still don’t really love the movie, but the book was a lot of fun.

Spider-Man by Peter David – I’m a big fan of Peter David. Throughout the years I have read the vast majority of his novelization output. And a good bit of his novels. I had read all three of these Spider-Man novelizations by the time I did this on IRM. I remember there being a lot of Easter Eggs pointing to other heroes in the Marvel Universe. This show was a lot of fun to do because I attempted to do the JK Simmons “J Jonah Jameson” voice. Regardless of the success of that, I enjoyed attempting it. This is a great novelization, if you like this first movie, you will love the novelization.

Blade by Mel Odom – I’ve owned the Blade novelization for years. I didn’t get it when the movie was out, I got it many years later, but before even IRM was a gleam in my eye. And I’d never read it. So digging into it for IRM was a lot of fun. There’s a lot of good stuff in this one. It makes me sad that Blade II is the only book in the series that did *not* get a novelization. Blade Trinity did. And I own it. I’d like to do it for the show, but I’m not sure I want to even read it. It’s a big one. Nearly 400 pages. I know when watching Blade Trinity recently the one thing I didn’t say was, “You know what, this movie should be longer.”

Return of the Living Dead by John Russo – 2022’s Halloween episode, voted on by you listeners! I love this movie. I discovered this movie during the 80s home video boom. I had this one-sheet in my bedroom for years. My dad and I were such frequent renters at our local video store that they pretty much gave us first choice on posters when they came down from the wall. I’ve since lost it, and believe me, this is the one poster from my childhood that I regret not holding onto. This novelization is really good and evokes the feeling of the movie; grungy and punk. Underground. Dirty. It’s a great adaptation of the movie. If you can find a copy, read it.

Home Alone by Todd Strasser and Home Alone 2 by AL Singer – The last episode of the season. Both original Home Alone movies. I’m not going to lie, I love both of these movies so I was very excited to cover both of these novelizations this past December. The booby traps and physical harm that happen to Harry and Marv don’t come across as bone crunching as it does in the movie, but they were both still a lot of fun to read.

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

Over the course of the show I’ve covered just over 70 books and novelizations. That includes the 64 episodes of the main show, as well as the Apendix 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 last year, 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.

The rankings 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).

Third place is a four way tie between James Kahn, Jeffrey Cooper, Glen A Larson, and Peter David, with three titles each. Then there are a bunch of authors where I’ve covered only one or two titles. Will any new ones emerge next year to join this list? Since I know what the book list is for next year, I’m going to say…yes, there is some movement in the rankings next year. Stay tuned!

So, that’s my I Read Movies 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 in 2023. I’m going to do something different with this year’s book selection. Normally I just pick the books I want to cover and that I think will make an interesting show. However, this year, I used a different method for picking the books, and it’s something I got from my other podcast, Crestwood House. You’ll hear all about it in I Read Movies’ first show of the year soon enough. And in that show I’ll be covering Adventures in Babysitting by Elizabeth Faucher. That should be a lot of fun.

I Read Movies’ 2021 Year End Round up

Posted in Blog Series, Book Report, books, movies, pop culture with tags Book Report, books, I Read Movies, Movie Novelizations, movies, podcast, reviews, Year End Books on January 10, 2022 by Paxton

As you probably know, I host a movie novelization podcast called I Read Movies. Every month I read a movie novelization and then on the podcast I talk about the differences between the movie and the novelization. Last year, I decided to add to my usual “Best of” lists a year end round up for I Read Movies where I listed out my favorite novelizations that I covered on the show. So, this year, I’m doing it again.

September 2021 was a big year for I Read Movies. Not only was it IRM’s 4th birthday but September was the show’s 50th episode! Hard to believe I’ve done that many episodes. On the main podcast, I covered 12 novelizations in 2021. You can see the covers of the novelizations I covered above. I say, “on the main podcast”, because I did cover a few extra books on other podcasts. I did the 1995 Mortal Kombat novelization for Cult Film Club, as well as an Appendix episode on the original Stephen King novel, Running Man, that inspired the movie.

So that makes 13 novelizations covered by me in 2021. I’m very happy with the group of novelizations I picked this year (and you guys, you definitely helped me decide). Out of 13 novelizations, it would have been easy to pick nearly 10 as my favorites. But I really dug deep and narrowed it down to my five favorite novelizations.

So let’s see which novelizations I most enjoyed covering on the show in 2021!

FYI, most images and links are to movienovelizations.com.

Batman Forever (1995) by Peter David – I covered the first two Burton Batman movies back in 2019. So I continue the coverage of the 90s Batman movies with the third movie in the series. Like the previous two, I had read this novelization when it originally came out and remember loving it. So I was very excited to cover it for the show. And it is still very good. David manages to squeeze in lots of Batman easter eggs as well as lots of early story elements that did not make the movie. Like the giant bat. It’s definitely a fun read. I originally had no real intention to cover the final movie, Batman & Robin. I had read it several years ago and my memory was that it wasn’t very different. Well, I recently appeared on the Authorized Novelizations Podcast and we discussed Batman and Robin, so I read it for them, and I discovered I was wrong. There was lots to talk about. So, now, expect to see Michael Jan Friedman’s Batman & Robin novelization on IRM in 2022!

The A-Team (1983) by Glen A Larson – A few years ago I started trying to cover at least one TV novelization during the year. I covered two Knight Rider episodes the last two years. This year, I decided to do The A-Team. This novelizes the very first episode, Mexican Slayride. It’s a lot of fun and adds a lot of fun tidbits and scenes to the action of the show. On the other side of the coin, it also doesn’t add any context to things in the episode that aren’t great. Like Hannibal dressing up as a *very* stereotypical Chinese laundry owner, and the part of the show where Hannibal doesn’t help Amy when she’s accosted and nearly raped by two dudes coming out of a strip club. That being said, the book is a lot of fun and I think the show turned out to be a good one. 2022 will bring another TV novelization to the show, so stay tuned!

WarGames
Robocop (1987) by Ed Naha – Shawn had covered this in an article on movienovelizations.com. It sounded bonkers and could be a lot of fun. I mean, in it, Robocop gets a dog! And Murphy’s wife, who shows up in all the movies, actually moves to the moon in this book! They colonized the moon! So yes, I was excited to cover it, and the book delivered. It’s definitely a lot of fun. And actually, I had so much fun, I decided as soon as I finished it, that I wanted to cover the Robocop 2 novelization right after it. And so I did. And it was just as fun. This was a reallly fun 1-2 punch and the episodes I think show how much fun the books were to read.

Back to the Future Part II/Part III by Craig Shaw Gardner – For my first anniversary back in 2018, I covered the first Back to the Future novelization by George Gipe. That was a *lot* of fun because you could tell the book really followed the original version of the movie that had Eric Stoltz. A lot of the gags from the Michael J Fox version just weren’t there, like all of the “Coast Guard” and “life jacket” jokes from the movie. Plus the “Darth Vader from the Planet Vulcan” scene was extended. It was a lot of fun to do that episode. So for my big 50th episode I thought, it’s time to cover the sequels. So I did both in one episode. And while these books weren’t as bizarre and different as the first book, they had a lot of fun diversions in them. They even address one aspect of time travel I had always wondered about in the BTTF universe. When does a person from the future receive updated memories from a timeline change? Like Marty at the end of the first movie, will he receive all the memories from his childhood with a more loving and healthy version of his parents? Or will he always have that hole in his memory and when the family is reminicising he just has to play along? These books, at least a little bit, address that. And I appreciate that.

The Mummy 1999
The Mummy (1999) by Max Allan Collins – This one was a surprise to me. I forgot how much I love this movie. Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz are so adorable. It’s just a lot of fun to watch this movie. And when I rewatched it for the show, I found myself not taking notes and just watching the movie. And the novelization continues that fun. It front loads the book with a lot more of the ancient Egypt stuff, and adds a few extra scenes at the end. Like I said it just surprised me how much I enjoyed revisiting the movie and reading the novelization. So, now I want to do the sequel, The Mummy Returns. Max Allan Collins actually wrote all three Mummy novelizations as well as the very first Mummy spin off with the Rock, Scorpion King. And you know how much I enjoy one author writing multiple books in a franchise. So, this may be the beginning of another sub-series on IRM.

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

Over the course of the show I’ve covered just over 60 books and novelizations. That includes the 53 episodes of the main show, as well as the Apendix 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 is Craig Shaw Gardner. I’ve covered five of his books (Batman 89, Batman Returns, The Lost Boys, Back to the Future Part II, and Back to the Future Part II).

In second place is 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).

Third place is a tie between James Kahn and Jeffrey Cooper with three titles each. Then there are a bunch of authors where I’ve covered only one or two titles.

So, that’s my I Read Movies 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 in 2022.

What usually happens with IRM at year end is that I take a break in January, and then new episodes start again in February. And this February IRM is going to debut new episodes on the CultFilmClub.com podcast feed. However, due to behind the scenes stuff, I want to move my break to later in the year, so I’m going to go ahead and do a January episode this year. So expect that soon. And I’ll go ahead and reveal it to you now, I’ll be covering the novelization of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Up, up, and Away!

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