SF Media Tie-Ins: A Brief History, Page 2

The science fiction boom of the 1950s, in movies and the newer medium of television, generated a number of tie-in books. One of the best SF movies of the time, Forbidden Planet, was adapted in novel form by W.J. Stuart. The popular kids' series, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, was a multimedia phenomenon. It started as a TV series, but generated a radio series, a daily newspaper comic strip, comic books, and a series of eight hardcover novels from Grosset & Dunlap, publisher of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. The writer of the books, Carey Rockwell, adapted some elements from the TV series and added some of his own, reflecting the influence of the books' acknowledged inspiration, Robert A. Heinlein's novel Space Cadet.

Unlike Forbidden Planet, other classic SF movies from the 1950s were more likely to be based on a previous work of written science fiction than to be the inspiration for a novelization. This Island Earth was based on the novel of the same name by Raymond F. Jones. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers was based on Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers. At least two major SF movies were based on shorter works. John W. Campbell, Jr.'s short story "Who Goes There" inspired The Thing, and Harry Bates's "Farewell to the Master" was the source of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The 1960s would see more media SF, including more SF movie tie-ins.

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