Usually, books and movies are mutually incompatible. Horrible cinematic adaptations of literature are far too numerous to list here. Even the good book-based movies lose a lot in the translation. When John Le Carre's The Taylor of Panama moved to the big screen, the author observed that the adaptation process was something akin to watching a cow reduced to beef bullion.
By that same token, novelizations of movies often turn out about as well as attenpts to build a cow out of bullion cubes. It may taste vaguely cowlike, but it won't moo. Some of the better movie novels manage to fill in a little backstory or include scenes that ended up being cut for cinematic reasons. Some are basically the shooting scripts stretched out into complete sentences, which is a huge waste of reading time after one has already invested at least an hour and a half in watching the movie. Other novelization--notably the Star Wars Revenge of the Sith--made me wonder if I was watching the same movie that the book was allegedly based on. Either way, the novelizations often end up as time one will never get back.
Serenity is different. I've already gushed about the movie. This morning, I burned through the Serenity novelization by Keith R.A. DeCandido. The book merits the best bit of praise I can give to a work of fiction: I enjoyed reading it. Normally, that would not be much of a compliment, but I read as a writer, dissecting the technical aspects of the piece. I still read a lot, but that is for a combination of market research and professional skill development. Most of Serenity bulldozed right through that and got to that little corner of my brain that still reads just for fun. A book that can get past my internal editor is a rare gem indeed.
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