The only tie-in books worth a crap have the Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family on the front. Since then, the only good tie-in book is one that is on fire, and flying through the air towards a huge pile of other tie-in books that have been drenched in gasoline.

i ONLY read books based on video games.

As a review of books, right, that is what you do? You should know how hard it is to get your first novel published, to get that novel to be recognized anywhere, to gain a fan base. Making a living as a writer is difficult and sometimes people write novelizations.

Some authors make deals to get their original work published after doing the novelization. Maybe getting an award will help them get a better deal with their publisher or make the publisher look twice at their previously rejected work.

Shame on you! Don't be an asshole.

I do think that Jessica Fletcher being credited is hilarious though.

As a reviewer of books I meant.

By the way, you have some knowledge of the publishing industry, right?

Sorry about being snarky, I just know these people are trying to make a living doing what they love to do, writing.

Maybe the reason real artists have such a hard time getting noticed is that the hacks spew out so much crap.

Clearlyhere, sorry. No. I do not accept your premise. Writers have written shitty books for well over a century, under names both assumed and real. It's called hacking, or being a hack writer. And it's a legitimate way to make money, and do some writing. Many of those hacks are probably, in fact, better writers than many writers who have been published.

But an award for a media tie-in is gross, and completely misses the point of an award, which is to signify work that is well above the average. Tie-ins are by definition mediocre at best...at BEST...and giving an award for them is an insult to the idea of awards. If you have a shitty job, you shouldn't expect people to praise you in public for it. You should work hard and get out of the shitty line of work that you're in. Praising a tie-in is giving a food award to McDonald's.

Yeah, I'm sure that's it. People take books too seriously. Not everything has to last a lifetime. I've read the Stephanie Plum novels 1-8 because they were light and funny. I've read Dan Savage's The Kid and The Commitment, Good Earth, Great Expectations. They were entertaining. I know I'm not going to read The Good Earth again anytime soon, but I will read "A Really Nice Prom Mess" because it was fun. Not everybody want to watch only Lost or the British Miniseries of Pride and Prejudice. More often you casually turn on The Daily Show or America's Next Top Model.

This isn't a case of people taking books too seriously. I love pulp novels and I read series mysteries, too. Anyone who looks at the books I review can tell you that I read a whole range of books. But tie-ins aren't like America's Next Top Model. They're more like an infomercial, or like those bad 1980's cartoons that were really a half-hour ad for toys. And an award for them is stupid.

@1: Those Partridge Family books are utter garbage! They're not the least bit funny! However, the Brady Bunch books rule! Written by William Johnston, who also did novelizations of The Flying Nun, Get Smart, Welcome Back Kotter, Bewitched (starring Uncle Arthur, of course), Nanny and the Professor, Room 222, Captain Nice, Happy Days, F Troop, The Monkees, The Munsters, Then Came Bronson, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Mod Squad, Ironside, Banyon, and, his greatest work, the only Gilligan's Island tie-in novel! And he wrote smutty paperbacks on the side! If he doesn't have a lifetime achievement award, I'll kick somebody's ass!

It's the novelization of comics and movies that kill me!

I agree with Constant for once.

Although I do find ratzkywatzky's enthusiasm to be infectious and now I really want to read a book or two by William Johnston.

I'm still waiting for the novelization of The Passion of the Christ.

C'mon, Mel!

And I'm with Paul. I've enjoyed my fair share of novelizations (I'm a Doctor Who fan, sometimes that's all there is) but an award for this stuff is ridiculous.

I found myself agreeing with you . . .

Until I remembered how many Star Wars books I've read. Those were pretty sweet.

1. People are praised all the time in shitty jobs by doing better than average or exemplary examples in them. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it can make having one of the shitty jobs better.
2. The award means nothing like most awards except to those in the industry. Most people don't care who got the LA Critics' award for best short film.
3. They aren't giving out an award for best book of the year and only including tie-ins, they are saying these are the best the tie-in genre.
4. I think that most book awards are crap anyway. I wouldn't touch their incomprehensible prose.

There has to be a varying degree of quality in these novelizations and why not recognize someone who raised the bar. Of course, that is total optimism. They could all be crap.

I do get your vitriol though.

Perhaps there's still hope for my post-apocalypse zombie transvestite tie-in novel, Resident Evil: Queen of the Desert.

Back in the day I remember seeing the cover (but unfortunately not sampling) the novelization of the movie 'E.T.', which was by William Kotzwinkle, an excellent writer whose stories I would later enjoy in college.

Any other 'crossover' novelizations?

Terry Brooks did the novelization of Hook. It took me a while to get over that craptacular.

Alan Dean Foster is the John Grisham of sci-fi tie-ins.

Timothy Zhan was always the best Star Wars-related author.

Zahn

Grant (If I may call you Grant), I heard that Kotzwinkle made a metric shit-ton of money off that E.T. novelization and its sequel, and that funded many of his later books, which are, in fact, excellent. For the most part, though, tie-ins make me think of Peter David, who had a fun run on the Hulk comic book for a long time, but is mostly a hackety-hack-hack-hack. I can't think of any other good crossovers, no.

Err... Doesn't every field have awards like these? Why can't these people have their own thing without it being subjected to the condescension of the literary Illuminati?

I just thank goodness that all my literary canon lovers have had to point out that so many of the books they love were actually hated and criticized when they first came out and later became canonical only when the current generation of gate keepers finally died. Says something about the subjectivity of tastes. Especially funny when people represent their own tastes and prejudices as objective truth.

Big fucking deal. The names that I do recognize here are working writers, not artistes who have faculty jobs with summers off and the occaisional sabbatical that allow them to leisurely spend five years on their "serious" novel about a professor who is boning one of his students.

These awards seem silly. Yet...the novelization "The Death and Life of Superman" is, even as an English lit major, one of my favorites ever, for sheer fun value. For those of us who like superhero stuff but can't spare the money or effort to buy 19 comics titles every month to follow one character, dipping into this sort of thing once in a while is quite fun.

And I'll bet the conversations at this ceremony would be quite hilarious.

Who gives a shit? How is this any more an abomination than any office's "employee of the month?"

Mark in France, calling shit shit is not condescension. There is a slow creep of stupidity going on in this culture, and sometimes it has to be called. Especially when something THIS stupid pops up. We're not exactly talking about neglected great works here. I know you are in France and all the cultural richness and sophistication are making you want to reach for a TV remote, but please. Please.