5 Novelizations We Want to See

Bookish people (like you and me) can be snobbish about the film and TV adaptations of our beloved novels. We complain about their lack of depth or failure of execution. We bemoan producers’ lack of original thinking. But sometimes it works the other way around: pop culture offers up freshness and originality in the form of a movie, TV show, album, podcast, or, heck, a board game. These rare examples of breathtaking narrative beauty often deserve (and sometimes receive) their own novelization. (Look no further than Neverwhere, a BBC series whose truly special effects translated masterfully from screen to page.)
Here are a few ideas for pop culture products ready for their literary close-up. While you peruse, I’ll be working on my geriatric version of The Baby-Sitters Club, based on my favorite episodes of The Golden Girls.
Welcome to Night Vale
For those of you haven’t heard of the best little podcast on the Interwebs, it’s not too late. To the hep cats caught up on their Tumblr feeds, you’ll agree that the public radio dispatches from everyone’s favorite surrealist desert town are ripe for bookification. (So long as the novel doesn’t mention the dog park, which citizens should never enter. Or clocks, or cars, because they’re not real.) In fact, I bet the only reason we can’t yet read about the romance of Cecil and Carlos or the swashbuckling heroics of 12-year-old Tamika Flynn—who managed to finish the above-her-reading-level Cry, the Beloved Country—is because of that spoilsport Steve Carlsberg. (Update: according to the Night Vale website, a book is coming soon!)
Pushing Daisies
The world was blessed with but two seasons of this underappreciated series starring a resurrecting pie-maker and his merry band of freaky friends. Almost since it was prematurely and unjustly canned by ABC in 2009, the populist campaign to bring it back in some form or another has been a grumbling undercurrent of the Internet. Could the quirk translate to Broadway? What about a Kickstarter for a mini-series or film? Fans have burning questions that need answers! But let’s not forget the tantalizing prospect of a Pushing Daisies graphic novel, which has been on an on-again, off-again Purgatory carousel for years. So, DC Comics, hear my official plea: bring the pie-maker, Chuck, and Olive back to me.
Candy Land
Candy Land is really just Mount Olympus in a gumball machine, with its power struggles and sundry sugary-sweet characters who have nothing but treachery-nougat centers. So as I see it, the novelization of this member of the National Toy Hall of Fame could go one of two ways. First, it has all the trappings of a subversive fantasy tale penned by Neil Gaiman, focusing on the disappearance of King Kandy and the plottings of Lord Licorice, with his secret minions Jolly and Plumpy. (And who knows what Gramma Nutt’s really doing inside Peanut Brittle House? cough cooking children cough.) The other option would be a graphic novel series in the vein of Fables, complete with a gumdrop gulag and the ultimate siege of Candy Castle.
In other news, I now have four cavities.
The Cornetto Trilogy
Comprised of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the recently released The World’s End, Edgar Wright’s comedic trilogy skewers (lovingly) the genres it chews up: zombie movies, buddy-cop films, and sci-fi and man-child coming-of-age tropes. Hey, guys, you could do the same affectionate mocking with the written word! If Simon Pegg can take a break from beaming up people in Star Trek to write, maybe the gang could plow through those garden fences in loosely related, interweaving Cloud Atlas-style stories. Shaun of the Dead did get its own companion graphic novel, but come on, let’s do a traditional novelization of the whole series.
I Am…Sasha Fierce
Yes, Beyoncé killed off her Sasha Fierce alter ego, so she alone could reign supreme as Queen Bey. But the Sasha Fierce album, with its dual, dueling discs, has some powerful storytelling possibilities. From the mournful “If I Were a Boy” to the sass-to-the-max “Diva,” it’s an emotional arc of personal triumph. It could be a perfectly lovely tale of self-growth, or it could turn into a sci-fi alt-universe where Beyoncé—known to her people as Destiny’s Child—is kidnapped for her great beauty and cloned. The result is her evil copy, Sasha Fierce, with whom she must do battle to save the universe! Whatever you’d like, really. But I’m putting a ring on it right now.
What do you want to see become a novel?