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Tie

Entry updated 29 June 2026. Tagged: Theme.

1. A term used in this encyclopedia to designate a work whose subject matter is tied to a previous work or concept. In some respects, therefore, a tie clearly resembles a sequel. However, ties can be differentiated from sequels in two ways: first, a tie is generally written to occupy a different format or genre than the work which inspires it – novelizations are, for instance, often spun off from films, an example being The Sensitives (1968), Louis Charbonneau's novelization of a script written by Deane Romano – and, second, a tie is almost always written by some person other than the author or creator of the original work or concept. For further remarks on novelizations, see 2. below. (But see also Sequels by Other Hands.) Ties can be spun off, therefore, from almost any kind of source: from stories, novels, series, Comics, films, television series, Braids and other Shared-World enterprises, Games, Toys, or concepts put out for hire by packagers like Byron Preiss.

The first ties were almost certainly Shared-World anthologies like Mugby Junction (anth 1866 chap), edited by Charles Dickens as a special Christmas Number of his journal All the Year Round; and film novelizations can be found from before World War One, though most books-of-the-film, until at least 1950, were in fact simple reprintings of the original novel, sometimes with movie stills inserted. With the increasing commodification of sf in the 1980s, ties suddenly became very common, and were often found in conjunction with sharecropping activities. Very many tied novels have been generated by the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises. Ties can be distinguished from Sharecrops by the fact that ties are defined by their relationship to the source of their inspiration, while sharecrops – though they usually involve ties – are, strictly speaking, works of any sort written for hire.

The most interesting tied enterprises in the later twentieth century are probably shared-world anthologies like George R R Martin's Wild Cards sequence from 1987 (still continuing) and the War World books edited from 1988 by Jerry Pournelle, John F Carr and Roland J Green; but works of interest can be found through the whole range of the phenomenon.

In this encyclopedia ties are marked in the relevant author Checklists by the self-explanatory note "tie:" or "tie to ..." in the comment field. We do not normally use this annotation for Parody, pastiche, Recursive SF and Sequels by Other Hands making use of established characters and settings without the constraints imposed by a franchise. Thus most independent novels about Sherlock Holmes are not so marked, but the Ellery Queen title A Study in Terror (1966; vt Sherlock Homes Versus Jack the Ripper 1967) – largely written by Paul W Fairman – is noted as a tie in both authors' entries because it is tied to a specific film. [JC/DRL]

2. One particular sort of tie – the novelization – merits some special attention. A novelization is a novel that closely follows the plot of a certain film or television programme; it may also be based on an original screenplay instead of the final filmed version. They are a specific variety of ties, which are more often new stories employing settings and characters from films and television programmes. The writers of novelizations enjoy far less creative freedom, since they are obliged to tell someone else's story, though they are occasionally allowed to make some changes. (Their works, viewed as unimportant, are probably not subject to intense scrutiny to verify their accuracy.) One could also mention shorter works based on films, one example being Robert A Heinlein's adaptation of Destination Moon (1950), the film he co-authored, also entitled "Destination Moon" (September 1950 Short Stories). And there have been Comic book adaptations of sf films, such as the version of Destination Moon that appeared in the first issue of Strange Adventures in 1950 and Jack Kirby's adaptation of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) as 2001: A Space Odyssey (10 issues 1976-1977).

The first significant sf novelization, King Kong: Conceived by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper: Novelization by Delos W. Lovelace (1932), emerged from peculiar circumstances, as journalist Delos W Lovelace drew material from Edgar Wallace's incomplete screenplay for King Kong (1933) with input from director Merian C Cooper. Beginning in the 1950s, novelizations began to occasionally appear, with examples including Robert Smith's Riders to the Stars (1954), adapting Curt Siodmak's screenplay for Riders to the Stars (1954); Philip MacDonald's Forbidden Planet (1956), adapting Forbidden Planet (1956); and Murray Leinster's Men into Space (1960), adapting the television series Men into Space (1959-1960) (though Leinster's book imperfectly accorded with the stories in the series). By the 1960s, they had become fairly common, but as interest in reading has declined, they are less frequent today. David Pringle is one of the few scholars who has shown an interest in novelizations, publishing an article about them in 1994 listing many relevant works: "SF, Fantasy & Horror Movie Novelizations" (February 1994 Interzone).

This encyclopedia endeavours to cite all novelizations in film and television entries, usually labelled as "ties", though these novels are generally disregarded by reviewers and critics as undistinguished products produced hastily to promote films. Alan Dean Foster is one talented author who long specialized in writing novelizations, including Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (1976), officially credited to George Lucas, adapting his Star Wars (1977), but such assignments are usually handled by yeoman writers. Still, some noteworthy authors have produced novelizations, such as Theodore Sturgeon's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), adapting Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961); James Blish's twelve volumes of stories adapting episodes of Star Trek (1966-1969); Ben Bova's THX 1138 (1971), adapting Lucas's THX 1138 (1971); and Orson Scott Cards novelization of The Abyss (1989) as The Abyss (1989). Edward Bryant novelized Harlan Ellison's script for the pilot episode of the doomed series The Starlost (1973-1974) as Phoenix without Ashes (1975), which significantly differed from the version that was filmed. Gordon Williams's The Micronauts (1977) is a rare example of a novelization of a film that was never actually made.

If a film bears little resemblance to the novel that it is allegedly based on, it may be necessary to write a new novelization, one example being Christopher Wood's James Bond and Moonraker (1979), which retells the plot of Moonraker (1979), a movie which completely abandons the plot of Moonraker (1955; vt Too Hot to Handle 1956), the Ian Fleming novel that inspired it. Another instance involved James Gunn's The Immortals (fixup 1962), which led to a significantly different television series, The Immortal (1969-1971), requiring a new novelization also written by Gunn, The Immortal (1970). The film Total Recall (1990) differed so radically from its source inspiration – "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (April 1966 F&SF) by Philip K Dick – that Piers Anthony was called in to write the novelization Total Recall (1989).

When sf writers undertake to write novelizations, they are sometimes challenged to make an effort to better rationalize the typically shoddy science of the films. Thus, in novelizing Fantastic Voyage (1966), Isaac Asimov, writing Fantastic Voyage (1966), struggled mightily to logically explain the film's Miniaturization process, just as E C Tubb struggled mightily to justify the many scientific idiocies of the series Space: 1999 (1975-1977) in his novelization of its early episodes, Breakaway (1975).

One could finally argue that certain recent works of Young Adult sf, like Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (2008) and Veronica Roth's Divergent (2011), seem to have been written as anticipatory novelizations of films that were subsequently produced. Considering the amounts of money that authors make when their works are optioned as films, such products might be considered the most profitable type of novelization. [GW]

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