This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Seven Seals: It occurs to me that popular television series are also often backed by books, but if I'm not mistaken those are usually just Expanded Universe stories. Does anyone have examples of series being retold through books? If so, maybe we could expand the trope's scope.
Seven Seals: To somewhat answer my own question, there's probably much manga-from-anime that would qualify (the reverse being more common). While adaptations, those aren't exactly novelizations though.
Smapti: Off the top of my head, almost all of the Doctor Who original series serials were novelized at one point or another, and quite a few Star Trek episodes have been novelized.
Paul A: If memory serves, all of Star Trek The Original Series was converted into short story collections, as was Star Trek The Animated Series. By the time Star Trek The Next Generation started, home video had arrived on the scene, and TV novelizations had had their day.
Seven Seals: OK, now there's significant overlap between this entry and Television Tie In Novels, mostly on behalf of the examples given. We should probably expand the scope of Television Tie In Novels to not be restricted to TV (plenty of computer game tie-in novels as well) and restrict Novelization to movies. Or we could lump the combination of both under either Tie In Novels or Novelization, since having to separate straight novelizations from Expanded Universe tie-ins is awkward.
Paul A: Why is it awkward? It seems straightforward to me, and certainly more intuitive than saying "novelization = only movies".
Seven Seals: Well, over half the entries in Television Tie In Novels mention straight novelizations in addition to tie-ins — should we mention all of those over here as well?
Robert: Not as well, instead of. Move all mention of novelizations from that page to here. Novelizations are more nearly canonical than tie-ins, especially when written by the actual scriptwriters. They're also an adaptation of an existing story rather than a new story, significant differences.
We could just restrict it to reasonably significant novelizations though. Today, many more people have probably read the 2nd Doctor's stories than have watched them, if only because those episodes that aren't missing are black & white. That makes them rather more significant than, for example, the quantum leap books, which seem little more than a footnote to the series. Certainly, listing every single film that has ever been novelized would be too much.
