TV - Book Crossovers Series

Hey, what is your favorite book-tv or tv-book crossover series?
Which do you like better, the tv show or the books they inspired or were based upon?

The few I can think of immediately are (TV-Books):
Castle - Nikki Heat series
Rizzoli and Isles - series by Tess Gerritsen with same title (the show is actually a lot closer to the books than most series I've seen)
Bones - Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs
Monk - series of Monk books (I haven't read them all but the few I did read were just ok)

I'm sure there are loads more; tell me some I've missed. I tend to enjoy the tv shows better.

(Sorry if this is in the wrong section. I wasn't sure where to put it.)

I, Claudius and Jeeves & Wooster spring to mind.

Probably Game of Thrones as well, though I haven't read those books.

"True Blood"-Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire novels (never read Harris' books)

"Legend of the Seeker"-Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels (both had their own strengths and weaknesses)

Now if we're talking TV tie-in books, a clever one was Six Feet Under: Better Living Through Death. It was a collection of the characters' journal entries, e-mails, photographs, etc. I can't recall any major revelations the book offered, but it did a capable job of expanding the show's world.

I heard Game of Thrones was good, but those books are scary big. I might listen to an audio sometime, but I'm waiting until I can get a hold of book 1...I saw book 5 in the library the other day.

Never was a vampire fan.
Legend of the seeker did sound interesting. How many season of that are there?

Anamnesis said:

"True Blood"-Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire novels (never read Harris' books)

"Legend of the Seeker"-Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels (both had their own strengths and weaknesses)

Now if we're talking TV tie-in books, a clever one was Six Feet Under: Better Living Through Death. It was a collection of the characters' journal entries, e-mails, photographs, etc. I can't recall any major revelations the book offered, but it did a capable job of expanding the show's world.

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I have mixed feelings about True Blood. The books were not as explicit as the HBO series. Silly me, I didn't think about it being an HBO production when I sat down to watch the first episode with my son in the same room(borrowed from library). Had to watch the rest of the season in my room. Alone. Aside from that, they did a good job with casting and capturing the humorous bits from the books. I only watched the first two seasons, so I never found out if they included the character of Bubba, and if so, how they portrayed him. He's my favorite side character..nice guy, just don't mention Elvis:innocent:

readsalot said:

Legend of the seeker did sound interesting. How many season of that are there?

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Only two :sad:.

abecedarian said:

I only watched the first two seasons, so I never found out if they included the character of Bubba, and if so, how they portrayed him. He's my favorite side character..nice guy, just don't mention Elvis

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I read the writers weren't going to include Bubba. They said he was too goofy for the TV show. I wish they felt the same way about the fairies because that storyline really felt out of place in the show (I'm sure it worked well in the books).

Blood Ties was originally a book series. I started watching a couple of episodes into it, but then realized that most of the episode was pretty boring until like the last ten minutes so I stopped watching the series. I liked the premise, just didn't much care for the execution of it.

The Game of Thrones TV adaptation is brilliant, and I was actually surprised by how closely they followed the books, raunchy scenes included. I always get a bit of a thrill when I hear characters speaking exact dialogue from the novels.

That being said, the books are much better than the TV series. I think that getting the first-person perspective from the character in books (i.e. their thoughts) enables you to better understand their motivations, and why certain things are happening. I also find that the back story can be shared in much subtler ways in books than on TV or in movies - it always seems a bit clumsy to me when TV characters are trying to explain things about the setting and what led up to events that are occurring in the present.

readsalot said:

I heard Game of Thrones was good, but those books are scary big. I might listen to an audio sometime, but I'm waiting until I can get a hold of book 1...I saw book 5 in the library the other day.

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The audio books are absolutely fantastic! They are read by Roy Dotrice, who is incredibly talented at creating different voices for the characters. I have read the books and listened to the audio books, and you certainly aren't missing out with just listening to the audio version. He was set to play one of the main characters for the TV series, actually, but had to pull out because of illness.