The Director Should've Shot You SYNOPSIS
Few people have aggravated as many major film studios as author Alan Dean Foster.
A Grand Master of Media Tie-In Fiction (for both original tie-ins and novelizations), Foster comes to any project with experience, professionalism, and a certain…directness that makes him a reader's favorite and, occasionally, a director's chagrin. Like the time Alan tried to fix Alien 3 only to be told “No, Thank you!” Or the time that a vice-president at Universal studios banned Foster from any dealings with The Chronicles of Riddick when the film's star invoked the author's name in a debate with the director over re-shoots. Oh, and then there was this one time Alan saw the first ever screening of Star Wars with Alice Cooper.
Yes, that Alice Cooper!
Foster traces his beginnings from UCLA…including almost writing for Adam West's Batman…to his first fiction sales. Along the way, Foster brings his indomitable wit and humor to each disappointment and success as he builds a best-selling career. Now a veteran author with over 130 books — many with such recognizable names as Star Trek, Terminator, and The Thing — the stories behind those stories are collected here for the first time.
This memoir provides an insider's glimpse into how studio marketeers hire, and often discard, the writers they've brought in to help sell their movies, television series, or video games. Not one to mince words, Foster presents an unabashed narrative of almost fifty years translating script to prose, prose to script, and lumps he's taken along the way.
The Director Should've Shot You shines a spotlight on the film industry like never before, and once you read Alan's first-hand accounts, you'll never see your favorite films the same way again!
The Director Should've Shot You EDITION INFORMATION
Signed by Alan Dean Foster.
500 signed copies and 1,000 unsigned copies.
Fully cloth bound, with dustjacket, three-color stamping, ribbon marker, head and tail bands.
Printed endpapers.
Published June 2021.
ISBN 978-1-61347-282-8.
Book size 5½ × 8¼ inches.
Number of pages: 272.
Dark Star SYNOPSIS
John Carpenter's classic USC student film has been rightly praised as a classic of comedic science fiction. But just as comedic is Alan Dean Foster's novelization, first published in 1974 by Ballantine books, which was so popular it went through a half dozen printings in its first six years. It introduced Alan Dean Foster to the novelization world, where he would dominate with bestselling books for the next few decades.
Being a visionary and future Grandmaster of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, Alan crafted a novel that plays in the cracks where the screenplay couldn't go, focusing on the theater of the mind which the space-mad men often played in. And thus, Centipede Press presents to you this Legacy edition novelization by Alan, filled with wit, philosophy, and an alien named Beachballus Carpenterbannoni.
For twenty years, the crew of the Dark Star has endured mind-numbing boredom as they reflexively continue to fulfill their mission to keep the galaxy safe by destroying unstable planets. Their captain is dead and kept in cryogenic sleep leaving commanding officer, Lieutenant Doolittle, Sergeant Pinback, Corporal Boiler, and Talby to keep a rapidly failing space ship afloat. To prevent themselves from going even madder, they often engage in trivial pursuits like chasing the alien mascot around the ship, target shooting, playing music and practical jokes, or just watching the universe go by. When an electromagnetic storm accidentally arms intelligent Bomb #20, the crew suddenly has only a short time to convince it not to detonate. Will teaching it philosophy be enough to save their dull, useless lives, or will the Dark Star become one a new star itself?
This new Centipede Press edition of Dark Star is the first hardcover edition of this classic ever published. It features a new introduction by Alan Dean Foster, original poster reproductions, original artwork reproductions, some film stills through the text, and new dustjacket artwork by Ben Baldwin.
The book is fully bound in European cloth with multiple color stamping on the spine and front board. With a ribbon marker and Smyth sewn binding, this is a small, attractive hardcover that will find a place of honor on your shelves. Signed copies are gone, but there are a couple dozen unsigned copies left.
Dark Star EDITION INFORMATION
Introduction by Alan Dean Foster.
Artwork by Ben Baldwin.
Signed by Alan Dean Foster and Ben Baldwin.
Reproductions of movie posters.
Photographs of the crew and film.
Fully cloth bound, gorgeous dustjacket, three-color stamping, ribbon marker, head and tail bands.
Published April 2021.
ISBN 978-1-61347-256-9.
Book size 5½ × 8¼ inches.
Number of pages: 232.
