10 Fantastic SFF Novelizations Like The Shape of Water

As well as working with del Toro (the pair collaborated on the Trollhunters books, which was then adapted into a Netflix animated series), Daniel Kraus was hired to complete George A. Romero's unfinished novel The Living Dead. The Shape of Water won del Toro his long-awaited Best Director and Best Picture Oscars. 

The sci-fi horror romance follows Elisa, a mute cleaner who works the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. One night, she lays eyes on the center's secret asset: an amphibious man from the Amazon to whom she is instantly drawn. So begins a highly unusual romance and a life-or-death battle to free him from the nefarious clutches of Cold War subterfuge.

Readers may know David Hagberg best for his techno-thrillers featuring spies and Tom Clancy-esque intrigue. He mixed things up in 2003 with a very different kind of technological menace: the Terminator. 12 years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the now-adult John Connor is living off the grid and trying to stay alive before the apocalypse begins and he is drafted to lead the human rebellion against Skynet. As another robot is sent back in time to try and kill him, a familiar face returns to keep him safe.

Secret Wars was a 12-issue comic book crossover by Marvel that featured a team-up with some of the label's most legendary characters: The Avengers, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, the X-Men, and more! A cosmic entity, the Beyonder, creates Battleworld to force groups of the universe's finest superheroes and villains to battle to the death. Enemies become allies, friends become foes, and the stakes have never been higher. 

While this novelization was originally adapted from the comics, it's well-known that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is planning a film called Secret Wars, too.

Few authors are better known for novelizations than Alan Dean Foster. He was the ghostwriter of the original novelization of Star Wars, although it was credited solely to George Lucas. He also wrote well over a dozen novelizations of the Star Trek universe, the Transformers franchise, and John Carpenter's The Thing. Arguably, his most acclaimed ones are from the Alien series, of which he’s written five installments. 

While writing Alien, the film that changed sci-fi history, Foster wasn't allowed to view the design of the eponymous creature, so he had to describe it as vaguely as possible. Despite that, his Alien is just as chilling as Ridley Scott's film.

You remind me of the babe… Jim Henson's fantasy Labyrinth is beloved by millennials the world over, and not just because it features David Bowie in some very revealing attire! Anthony Charles Hockley Smith, a British author and playwright, wrote the novelizations for both Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, translating to the written page the dark fairy-tale qualities of the films. 

Sarah lives in her own fantasy world, but when she accidentally wishes her baby brother Toby away to the goblin kingdom, she must venture into a strange place of trickery and get him back. But the Goblin King isn't so ready to relinquish the child.

The Star Trek series and its accompanying films have been a crucial foundation in science fiction for over 60 years now. They've inspired countless writers (and helped to invent the concept of fanfiction!) So, it only makes sense that the franchise’s many novelizations would be penned by some of the most legendary writers in the genre. 

Vonda McIntyre won pretty much every major SFF award, even beating George R.R. Martin’s first Game of Thrones book to the Nebula Award! She was a great choice for the novelization of the third Star Trek movie, The Search for Spock. Following the beloved Vulcan's death, the crew of Starfleet Command must deal with their grief as they take on the might of the Genesis Device, an all-powerful creation that can make and destroy life.

Here’s another novelization based on a Guillermo del Toro movie. Nancy Holder is a six-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award for horror writing, making her an ideal choice for a novelization of a gothic horror ghost story inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Henry James. Edith Cushing has long been haunted by ghosts warning her of Crimson Peak. When she meets the dashing English baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe and his sister, Lucille, she is enraptured and agrees to Thomas's proposal. He sweeps her away to his crumbling mansion where he hopes to revive his fortunes. But it is here where Edith's nightmares begin to come true.

Gregory Keyes took on the difficult task of novelizing Christopher Nolan's hefty sci-fi epic about a time-bending trip across the universe to save the fate of planet Earth. He was certainly up for the job, having written epic fantasy and sci-fi novelizations for franchises like Star Wars and Babylon 5. As Earth sinks further into its own extinction, Joseph Cooper, a former NASA test pilot, is recruited to lead an expedition into a wormhole that they hope will lead humanity to a new homeland. But leaving to save the world will mean abandoning his children…

You might know the late, great Peter David from his work in comic books, particularly his award-winning and character-redefining 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk. He wrote Star Trek comics for several years. While David wrote many original books, he is perhaps most beloved among sci-fi fans for his novelizations, which included Batman Forever, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, and The Rocketeer. He penned the novelization of Iron Man too, helping to bring the format into the new era of superhero cinema. 

Yes, even Isaac Asimov, one of the grandfathers of 20^th century science fiction and one of the most important figures in the genre, wrote novelizations. He adapted the 1966 film directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. After an assassination attempt leaves a Soviet scientist comatose, a team of American scientists are miniaturized and sent inside his body to fix the blood clot that is on the verge of killing him. They must navigate the many paths of the human body, avoid the white blood cells that see them as a disease, and perform never-before-seen medical miracles. If they fail, the world itself could fall to pieces.