I was talking to Stefan Arngrim and he told me putting the Spindy in the air would have blown the budget out of the water. Personally, I wish they could have!! Would have loved seeing the Spindy getting shot at by the giants! I also wish they would have made Ron Howard’s boy genius a recurring character….helping the little people fix and upgrade their ship!!
There are only three Leinster novels, two UK novels, and one HARDBACK FLIGHT OF FEAR (the best). Later, Deanna Lund published VALERIE IN GIANTLAND. See my timeline.
I haven't specifically looked for "Land Of The Giants", but there are tons of fan-fiction stories on the internet. There are quite a few "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" stories but I have to admit, without the visuals, they don't hold my attention very long. On the other hand, I've read 100 or so "Star Trek" novels, and they're actually pretty good.
I'm still working my way thru assembling & watching an Irwin Allen collection. I've got LOST IN SPACE, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (just started on season 3) and THE TIME TUNNEL (just started on that). While I'm considering getting a few other Irwin Allen projects (THE LOST WORLD, CITY BENEATH THE SEA, upgrading the VOYAGE feature to DVD), I have zero plans to ever watch LAND OF THE GIANTS again. I came in late when it was first-run, only watched it occasionally, and saw most of them when Philly's channel 48 ran them on Sunday afternoons at 3 PM (between UFO and THE TIME TUNNEL) around 1974-75. I'd rather suffer thru his awful big-budget disaster epics, "THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE" and "THE TOWERING INFERNO", and I doubt I'll ever be going after them as it is. As it happens, I have read the 1st GIANTS novel. It was ages ago-- probably in the early 70s. The main thing I remember was, not only did it seem to be almost completely-different from the show, I thought it was WAY BETTER than the show. These would have made a cool series of TV movies, in an entirely-unrelated continuity, and each one would have probably required a way-bigger budget than Allen had available for the TV series. There just seemed to be a lot more "science-fiction" ideas in that first novel I read. Had the series been more like the books, I might have liked it better. Even your description of Fitzhugh makes me more sympathetic toward him. On the show, he just seemed a 3rd-rate imitation of Dr. Smith. By the way, if you ever get a chance, see the pilot for "McMILLAN AND WIFE" with Rock Hudson & Susan St. James. Among the guest-stars are both Jonathan Harris AND Kurt Kazner! Also, seek out online the 1962 (I think) unsold pilot for "NERO WOLFE", where Kazner plays Wolfe-- and William Shatner plays Archie Goodwin! Let me just say, the 2 lead actors are NOT why it didn't sell. They're both terrific in it.
Leroy Yerxa Amazing Stories Sept 1946, Arthur C. Clarke Venture 1957, Melisande by Edith Nesbit, Disney's Gigantic about Princess Inma, Swift's Brobdingnag 1726, Macross Meltrandi, "Az Oriasok Orszagaban"(1980), "Heer Der Drei Welten"(1960), Dr Creep on Deviant Art, hara Fung on Deviant Art, and of course read "Little Everyman" by Deborah Needleman Armintor.
Comic book "Giant Damsel in Distress" had similar gender role reversals but could have been done better. They should have a scene were a princess in miniskirt uses Spindrift for a bicycle saddle seat for copilot to exclaim "Holy Hottentot" and captain Burton to reply "Be glad Brobdingnag does not have any kilted Scotchmen".
Sounds like fanfiction, in a way. For years, I've been in a group that writes decorative stories, and I've even done some homebrew comics. In looking at a lot of stories, from around the web, I've run into stories with high word counts, but long passages about someone sitting in a chair, or walking to a door. Plus lots of words pulled from a thesaurus. On the surface, that doesn't sound too bad. But when chapters are full of this, and you begin skimming, looking for anything eventful, you've got a problem. A little description is fine, and necessary, to set the scene, but I've seen it work to a story's detriment.
I'd never heard about these books. They don't sound worth reading. This seems like another instance of a writer using an established IP to get people intetested in his own ideas.
I was talking to Stefan Arngrim and he told me putting the Spindy in the air would have blown the budget out of the water. Personally, I wish they could have!! Would have loved seeing the Spindy getting shot at by the giants! I also wish they would have made Ron Howard’s boy genius a recurring character….helping the little people fix and upgrade their ship!!
There are only three Leinster novels, two UK novels, and one HARDBACK FLIGHT OF FEAR (the best). Later, Deanna Lund published VALERIE IN GIANTLAND. See my timeline.
I haven't specifically looked for "Land Of The Giants", but there are tons of fan-fiction stories on the internet. There are quite a few "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" stories but I have to admit, without the visuals, they don't hold my attention very long. On the other hand, I've read 100 or so "Star Trek" novels, and they're actually pretty good.
I'm still working my way thru assembling & watching an Irwin Allen collection. I've got LOST IN SPACE, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (just started on season 3) and THE TIME TUNNEL (just started on that). While I'm considering getting a few other Irwin Allen projects (THE LOST WORLD, CITY BENEATH THE SEA, upgrading the VOYAGE feature to DVD), I have zero plans to ever watch LAND OF THE GIANTS again. I came in late when it was first-run, only watched it occasionally, and saw most of them when Philly's channel 48 ran them on Sunday afternoons at 3 PM (between UFO and THE TIME TUNNEL) around 1974-75.
I'd rather suffer thru his awful big-budget disaster epics, "THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE" and "THE TOWERING INFERNO", and I doubt I'll ever be going after them as it is.
As it happens, I have read the 1st GIANTS novel. It was ages ago-- probably in the early 70s. The main thing I remember was, not only did it seem to be almost completely-different from the show, I thought it was WAY BETTER than the show. These would have made a cool series of TV movies, in an entirely-unrelated continuity, and each one would have probably required a way-bigger budget than Allen had available for the TV series. There just seemed to be a lot more "science-fiction" ideas in that first novel I read. Had the series been more like the books, I might have liked it better.
Even your description of Fitzhugh makes me more sympathetic toward him. On the show, he just seemed a 3rd-rate imitation of Dr. Smith.
By the way, if you ever get a chance, see the pilot for "McMILLAN AND WIFE" with Rock Hudson & Susan St. James. Among the guest-stars are both Jonathan Harris AND Kurt Kazner!
Also, seek out online the 1962 (I think) unsold pilot for "NERO WOLFE", where Kazner plays Wolfe-- and William Shatner plays Archie Goodwin! Let me just say, the 2 lead actors are NOT why it didn't sell. They're both terrific in it.
Leroy Yerxa Amazing Stories Sept 1946, Arthur C. Clarke Venture 1957, Melisande by Edith Nesbit, Disney's Gigantic about Princess Inma, Swift's Brobdingnag 1726, Macross Meltrandi, "Az Oriasok Orszagaban"(1980), "Heer Der Drei Welten"(1960), Dr Creep on Deviant Art, hara Fung on Deviant Art, and of course read "Little Everyman" by Deborah Needleman Armintor.
Comic book "Giant Damsel in Distress" had similar gender role reversals but could have been done better.
They should have a scene were a princess in miniskirt uses Spindrift for a bicycle saddle seat for copilot to exclaim "Holy Hottentot" and captain Burton to reply "Be glad Brobdingnag does not have any kilted Scotchmen".
"Cosmic Casanova" by Arthur C Clarke was made into a comic book "Shock Suspense Stories #3".
Sounds like fanfiction, in a way. For years, I've been in a group that writes decorative stories, and I've even done some homebrew comics. In looking at a lot of stories, from around the web, I've run into stories with high word counts, but long passages about someone sitting in a chair, or walking to a door. Plus lots of words pulled from a thesaurus. On the surface, that doesn't sound too bad. But when chapters are full of this, and you begin skimming, looking for anything eventful, you've got a problem. A little description is fine, and necessary, to set the scene, but I've seen it work to a story's detriment.
I'd never heard about these books. They don't sound worth reading. This seems like another instance of a writer using an established IP to get people intetested in his own ideas.
Such books are called movie / series tie - ins. Lucas allowed Star Wars books & book series to be written.
I could write better media derived fiction since I had often dreamed of taking other classic sci fi films and video to put my own spin on.