Darrin Drader

They really would do well to improve the sense of scale. When I first looked at it, I thought it was the size of a house. And while it would be cool to be able to zip around from planet to planet in a ship the size of my house, I think I'd go crazy in little time if I had to stay confined to it for a generation or longer.

Sanctuary wasn't filmed entirely in front of a green screen, but a great deal of it was. Also, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome (which hasn't aired yet) pretty much was. I suppose that it depends on what it's tying into. I've read my share of novels that tie into game settings (Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance), and what they do is detail significant events in the worlds in which they're set. I think what tie-in fiction ultimately accomplishes has a lot to do with how good of care the people overseeing the IP are taking, and what the writer is trying to do with it. I know that one author that I follow has said that they treat them like historical novels that are set in a history other than our own. Some are definitely better than others.

I'm currently reading a book called The Mason of New Orleans for a friend of mine. It's not exactly what I was expecting, but it's definitely well written.

I think that one of the things going against tie-in fiction today, particularly for currently running TV series', is that CGI has made budget practically irrelevant. The question is no longer "What can I do in a book that I can't do in the show?", but rather "How much more story can I get in a book than I can get in a TV episode?"

One of the more memorable books I've read was Night of the Wolf by Alice Borchardt (Anne Rice's sister). She did a trilogy that were set in different historical periods, and the one thing they all had in common was that they involved werewolves. Honestly, I couldn't finish the first book, and I still haven't picked up the third one, but the second one really resonated with me. It was set at the beginning of the Roman Empire, when Caesar took power. This one definitely bends genre, which is cool because in the end, it became its own thing.

Probably David Gemmell's Troy series (which is technically closer to alt-history, as the magic and other fantasy elements are given a very light touch). I read Tolkien and Dragonlance at about the same time when I was younger, so of course those both rank. R.A. Salvatore's original Icewind Dale trilogy. The original Moonshae Trilogy.

I think my favorite handling would be how David Gemmell did it in his Troy series. He did the research to make sure that nothing was anachronistic, and he avoided modern cliches and expressions, but he made the dialogue easy to understand for modern audiences.

I'll be honest - I've tried reading Erikson twice and I don't think I made it any farther than 100 pages into the first book. I will give it another shot, and probably in the near future, but what I remember of it was characters coming in and going out, but never really focusing on anyone. I can only assume that his writing style became more accessible at some point after that.

Possibly. And please forgive me for talking about my own work here, but I think this is a question that I can only answer with personal experience (this isn't a shameless attempt at self promotion). I've worked on gaming books for a number of shared worlds, including the Forgotten Realms (I actually co-authored Serpent Kingdoms with the setting's creator, Ed Greenwood), as well as my own original universes, such as Reign of Discordia, a space opera setting. I actually own the IP for Reign of Discordia, and it's currently off with a new publisher getting written up for the Savage Worlds game system. At some point in the near future, I'll probably write some fiction in that universe. Right now, I'm working on a novel set in a different game setting that I originally conceived and helped write up. I'm fairly proud of all of it, but for different reasons. Some of the supplemental material that I wrote for the Forgotten Realms made it into the core book for 4th edition. As a game writer, I take that as a major win (even though I can't claim to be a fan of 4th edition). With Reign of Discordia, I'm proud of it because the longer it stays out there, the more people seem to climb out of the woodwork to tell me about the games they've run in that universe, and how they're either excited about the new edition or disappointed that there won't be any more True20 support. Would I be more proud of a story set in that universe as opposed to one set in Star Trek? I think that ultimately it would have more to do with the scope and quality of the story rather than with who originally imagined the universe. Personally, one of my five-year goals is to be allowed to write a Star Trek novel. On the flip side, there have been some projects I've worked on strictly for the work and another mark on my list of credits even though I really wasn't all that passionate about the IP (in fact, I couldn't wait to be done working on them). Alnother question that's worth asking is how historical fantasy figures into all this? It seems to straddle the line between ti-in and original since reality and myth created the characters and setting, even though the author puts their own spin on it.

No, but it's still working from a familiar implied setting. When Monte Cook, one of the lead designers for D&D 3rd edition, was introducing his Arcana Unearthed series, he wrote a fairly lengthy article that discussed how D&D had a certain implied setting (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, dragons, orcs, and other familiar fantasy trops). I would argue that a fairly large number of original fantasy works rely on the same tropes, thereby adopting the same implied setting. Sure, there are occasionally some differences - in some worlds there are only humans and monsters, and in other settings they leave out halflings, or dwarves, or dragons, but the differences from one world to the next tend to be ones of omission rather than original creation. Incidentally, Arcana Unearthed was an attempt at creating a different implied setting, and for the most part, his usual audience couldn't grok it. He released a few support products, then it was licensed to someone else, and then finally dropped entirely. In addition to this, many times with tie-in fiction, the authors come in and develop new areas of the setting that hadn't been touched before. In the Forgotten Realms, the Icewind Dale was entirely the creation of R.A. Salvatore. In Star Trek, the David Mack created all the major characters, the space station, and the metaplot for the Vanguard series (Kirk and Spock appeared only in the first book, and only as minor characters). In short, I think that the idea that there isn't originality in tie-in author's works is more perception than reality. Yes, there are books where they literally bring *nothing* new to the franchise, but again, given the changes in the fiction marketplace, I've seen this become less of a thing than it has been in the past.

Well, you know what they say about there not being any such thing as an original idea. Even in science fiction or fantasy, "originals" can be reduced to a knockoff of one thing or another. Most fantasy owes its roots to Tolkien/Dungeons and Dragons. Stephen Erikson openly acknowledged that the Malazan books came directly from an RPG (though I don't recall if it was D&D or GURPS). The same is also true for Raymond Feist. Science fiction tends to be a little more varied, but odds are that somewhere along the line, the story has been told. With tie-in fiction, the author gets to skip the two hundred pages of world building and jump right into the story, which is something I can appreciate as a reader.

I only buy digital these days, so it's from Amazon. Also, as an independent writer, Amazon opens up options in publishing and distribution that simply don't exist without them (yes, I'm aware that you can also e-publish through B&N, Sony, Apple, etc., but non one has the same market share as Amazon). I know that their policies often leave some things to be desired, but I feel that the benefits outweigh the negatives.

I read The Hammer and the Blade by Paul Kemp, and I'm now reading Star Trek - Typhon Pact - Plague of Night. I'm also going to try to squeeze in a book by a friend of mine, Charles Ryan since it's releasing in about a month and he wants some reviews out there around release time.

I think it is a fair criticism that some tie-in fiction sells because of the logo rather than the author, but as the publishing business tightens up, I've been seeing many of the weaker authors either up their game or disappear entirely. On the other hand, R.A. Salvatore also writes the Demon Wars series, Peter David also writes screenplays and comic books, Paul Kemp now has a book set in his own IP called The Hammer and the Blade (good book, too!), Keith Decandido also writed the Goblin Precinct and related novels and others. I guess it's totally valid to say that you really should have some interest in the IP before you'd be moved to pick up a book set in that universe. That said, I don't know how many times I've had people look down their nose at what I was reading for no reason other than that it was tie-in. One of my friends equated it to pulp, to which I responded that so much pulp is so, so good.

I haven't read Jack Vance, though he's been recommended a number of times. I honestly end up reading a lot more fiction by authors I know personally, which of course means tie-in fiction. I'm absolutely not opposed to giving him a try once I get through the current queue of books.