Other than perhaps the practitioners behind them, nobody gets the film novelization better than S.M. Guariento. He acknowledges the general public’s dismissal of the oft-maligned publishing arm (“What the kazoo is to music, so is the novelization to prose,” he writes), then spends 530 pages of Light Into Ink: A Critical Survey of 50 Film Novelizations proving those people wrong.
Like any art form, you encounter both good and bad in the novelization; the joy is finding is what works for you. Guariento’s book is all about his discovery through several dozen examples. First published in 2019, his tome remains held in high regard by yours truly as a thoroughly engaging blend of scholarship and obsession.
Now, a half-decade later, it’s even more so as a Revised and Updated edition with 50 more pages, including an updated intro, several expanded chapters (most notably, The Incredible Melting Man), more cover art and — as if all that weren’t enough — an all-new index and outro. The latter includes Guariento’s list of the 10 best and brings the reader up to speed on his subject’s current resurgence via Severin Films and Encyclopocalypse Publications’ paperbacks for B-horror VHS favorites that never got the novelization treatment.
It bears repeating: more cover art. From thumbnails to full-page images, the hundreds upon hundreds of images are reason enough to merit a purchase, but what struck me the first time around remains: how splendidly written it is — no fandom-level first draft here.
Read my original review for a more in-depth look at the contents. As with that first volume, this Revised and Updated run comes in two flavors: the DeLuxe Edition in full, vibrant color and a more-affordable Midnight offering in black and white. —Rod Lott