Despite perhaps seeming to concede victory to my opponent right off the top, I must say that I am not wholly against the idea of media tie-in novels. The concept behind them doesn’t scare me to the point that I am considering dressing as a tie-in novel for the next Halloween, in an attempt to frighten all of the neighborhood kids. I don’t have such fear and loathing when I contemplate the existence of tie-In novels that I have to check my surroundings to make sure I’m not in Vegas (though, if I were? Sweet! Vegas, baby!). Nor do I even find myself filled with so much abhorrence and revulsion that the only thing left to do is to create a brand new online magazine to vent about it, pulling in an international writing staff to help out (hey, it happens more often than you’d think!). But though my hostility has yet to reach those levels, I just don’t think tie-in novels are worth it.

My opponent has generously pointed out several of the issues that occur with most tie-In novels already: they’re quick and cheap, they either have to push a big reset button at the end of the book or really screw with canon, and many aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Let’s look at some of these issues a little more closely.

For one, the original creators of the TV show or movie(s) are rarely involved in tie-in novels. The creators don’t pay much attention, if any, to the specifics that go into them (perhaps giving an okay to the general plot ideas at most.). Think of the fan uproar that occurred when news broke that the original producers of Buffy wanted to make a new movie; one that did not include Joss Whedon. The fans knew that any Buffy without Joss isn’t really Buffy at all. So why accept Buffy books without Joss? I mean, a book could be good and have the right tone, style, feel, even dialogue of the TV show or movie, but without the original creator involved, or at least a member of the writing staff, any such attempt will feel false to begin with. Heck, look at the Buffy, Season 8 comics (no, really, go look at them)! Joss was involved for most of it, even writing many of the issues. And it worked – it was Buffy. But some issues were written by others, with no Buffy connection…and it didn’t always work. Or look at the Aftermath comics of Angel. Joss isn’t involved in those. And…they’re kind of odd. They just don’t have the right feel to them. Thus, I gave up on them.

And without the creator involved, the likelihood exists that a tie-in novel can really screw with canon. You can have things happen to characters that never would have occurred on the show; characters will make decisions or act in ways that don’t ring true. It’s annoying when an episode of a TV series has characters act, well, out of character. It’s noticeable and frustrating. So when such a book is written, there are two options: It’s not part of canon at all, which means the book is effectively professional fanfic and should be ignored from here on out (and if so, why does it exist at all, other than to make money?) Or, it is part of canon and just like that you not only irritate the fan base but potentially color their views of the original TV show/movie.

That latter aspect is a danger area inherent in one of the “pros” of tie-in novels, as discussed by my opponent: that we can get insight and perspective into favorite characters through a novel, perspectives that you don’t get from watching on screen. This is true… but what if that insight doesn’t ring true? What if you have in mind a certain motivation for a character, and then some author comes along and assigns some completely different motivation? It’s going to color your view of that character from then on out, even if you do your best to tell yourself “oh, well, that didn’t really happen. That’s not what they really think”. So yes, it can be quite interesting to get insight you didn’t have before, but the risk exists that it would be insight that messes with your entire view of the character and/or show (which might sound a little extreme, but you just know it’s happened).

Now, I realize that everything I was just saying relies on a lot of “what ifs”. Kind of a worst-case-scenario for the media tie-in novel. I am aware of that. And I will even now admit that of the tie-ins I have read, some weren’t terrible, and I even thought that a few were particularly excellent. Peter David did quite a good job with some of his Star Trek: The Next Generation novels (Imzadi, for instance, deserves all the accolades it has received), and the Heir to the Empire trilogy (i.e. the Thrawn Trilogy) of Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn set a high bar that few (if any) have been able to reach – perhaps that’s only because those particular books, which kicked off the entire “expanded universe” of Star Wars, were written with the explicit and direct consent and blessing of George Lucas, however. But tie-ins of that caliber are few and far between. As my opponent said, “Tie-in novels are usually produced quick and cheap” and “They’ll most likely never win any awards”. And this is really my biggest problem with them. They exist only to make a buck, without regard to quality.

In the world of video games, it is a known fact that games based upon movies (or TV shows, but mostly movies) will suck. It’s a fact of life. (And the reverse is usually true, as well.) Any gamer who knows anything about video games knows this. There are exceptions, sure, but I doubt any gamer will ever buy a tie-in game, even if he/she is a huge fan of whatever movie/show the game is based on… unless they are convinced by respected reviewers that “actually, this particular game is pretty good! How weird is that?”.

I think it’s the same for tie-in books. They are only written because the studio/publishing house thought that they could make an easy buck off fans. Its telling that these books are mostly written about genre or otherwise cultish shows; a fanbase that will fork out hundreds for a three-dimensional chess set or a replica of Fray’s scythe will buy anything, seems to be the thinking. Most books are written by relatively unknown authors, they’re often quite short, and there usually doesn’t seem to be much thought put into them: often, they are full of glaring errors that would horrify even the most casual fan of the show. There really is a lot of junk out there. For every Imzadi there are a depressing number of TNG books where Data uses contractions; or Stargate books where the author thinks two-way travel through a wormhole is possible; or Buffy books where soulless Angel’s name is spelled “Angeles”. (From what I’ve been told… I don’t read these. Obviously.).

And even when decent books of this type are written, they could well then refer to events of past books (the aforementioned expanded universe Star Wars novels are quite guilty of this), meaning that to fully understand what is going on, you would need to wade through all the junk anyway.

Back to the video game comparison: a bad tie-in game shouldn’t really have an effect on the opinion of the original subject, but tie-in books can. Add that to the fact that many if not most are just not all that good to begin with -- why bother at all? For me, I have better things to do with my time than go through a sea of media tie-ins in the hopes that I’ll come across one that even approaches the standards of the TV show or movie on which it is based. Thus, I have stopped reading them completely. They’re just not worth it.

Having said all that, if only there was some kind of place one could go, perhaps some sort of online magazine on the world wide web… a “webzine” if you will… where books can be read and reviewed by others, people who are both fans and incredibly articulate and insightful, thus allowing one to find out ahead of time if a tie-in novel is actually one of the worthwhile ones. Man, that’d be pretty sweet.

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