…which examines a rich literary category in a manner not merely for fans of media tie-in writing, but for new explorers, seasoned profession­als…and even open-minded cynics.

Advance praise from New York Times and internation­ally best­sel­ling authors Lee Goldberg, Alan Dean Foster, Max Allan Collins, Steven Savile and James Reasoner has already hailed it as “de­fini­tive”…“a milestone”…”an eye-opener”…“a genuine treas­ure”—plus “well-written, packed with in­formation, and above all entertain­ing.”

Intertwined with its com­prehensive history—reaching back to the silent movie era, moving for­ward through the British Book of the Film series and then into the multi-faceted development of film and TV tie-ins through the decades—THE NOVEL­IZERS is also a deep dive into the craft of adaptive and borrowed-universe story­telling. Aspiring and veteran writers seeking new insight will find it no less revelatory than the aficionado peering behind the cur­tain of the creative process.

The reader drinking in the history and the craft will also meet the people for whom the book is named—many of them profiled here for the first time anywhere—and fall in love with them, via in-depth interviews and evocative, close-up por­traits.

In the tradition of landmark insider works about popular cul­ture—such as William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade, Craig Zadan’s Sondheim & Co., and Marc Scott Zicree’s The Twilight Zone Companion—David Spencer’s THE NOVELIZERS resonates beyond its subject matter. It’s not only the his­tory of a genre…it’s a full-blooded and deeply human chronicle of merging media in modern society. Of which tie-in writing has ever-increas­ingly become an inevitable, inextricable com­ponent.

DAVID SPENCER is an award-winning musical dramatist, author, critic and musical theatre teacher, whose work has been produced in the US, Canada and England. His most well-known credits as lyricist-librettist are two musicals in collaboration with composer Alan Menken: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, based on the novel by Moredecai Richler (original cast album on Ghostlight Records) and Weird Romance (co-librettist: Alan Brennert; original cast album digital-on-demand from Columbia Masterworks). He made his professional debut writing the acclaimed colloquial Eng­lish-language adaptation of La Bohème for the Public Theatre; and as composer-lyricist wrote scores and orchestrations for Theatreworks/USA’s young audience versions of The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables (librettist-director for both: Rob Barron). His published books are The Musical Theatre Writer’s Survival Guide (Heinemann), the acting edition of Weird Romance (Samuel French)—and, pulpsmith proud, Passing Fancy, an original novel based on the TV se­ries Alien Nation (Pocket Books). He recently completed a draft of his first straight play, Spirit Run (story by him and Jerry James). He has taught at BMI, HB Studios and in London at BML and Goldsmith’s College.