SF Media Tie-Ins: A Brief History, Page 3

Before Star Trek, the first really successful television series to do science fiction while attracting an adult audience was Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. Given that many episodes of the show were based on previously published short stories, adapting original episodes of the series as short stories seemed like a good idea. Published well before the coming of the VCR, these were the only way avid fans could relive episodes of their favorite shows. Bantam began publishing the Twilight Zone books in 1960 with Stories From The Twilight Zone. It was followed by More Stories From The Twilight Zone in 1961 and New Stories From The Twilight Zone in 1962. The books were short and contained, on average, half a dozen short stories adapting episodes. 

The same format was used a few years later when James Blish started writing his Star Trek adaptations, but as the books skyrocketed in popularity, and Blish was able to see the actual episodes and not just early draft scripts, the adaptations (and the books) grew longer and more faithful.

The original books have been reprinted several times over the years, most recently in a single volume. Other Twilight Zone books have included Marc Scott Zicree's Twilight Zone Companion, an episode guide; Visions From the Twilight Zone, an odd, oversized book featuring strange and dramatic images from the show, and two Tempo paperbacks by Walter Gibson, which featured some episode adaptations and some original horror stories. (Decades earlier, Gibson wrote most of the novels based on the mystery character The Shadow, who appeared in magazines, books, radio shows, movie serials, comics, newspaper comic strips, movies....)

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