Few people have aggravated as many major film studios as author Alan Dean Foster. A Grand Master of Media Tie-In Fiction (for both original tie-ins and novelizations), Foster comes to any project with experience, professionalism, and a certain…directness that makes him a reader’s favorite and, occasionally, a director’s chagrin. Like the time Alan tried to fix Alien 3 only to be told “No, Thank you!” Or the time that a vice-president at Universal studios banned Foster from any dealings with The Chronicles of Riddick when the film’s star invoked the author’s name in a debate with the director over re-shoots. Oh, and then there was this one time Alan saw the first ever screening of Star Wars with Alice Cooper. Yes, that Alice Cooper! Foster traces his beginnings from UCLA…including almost writing for Adam West’s Batman…to his first fiction sales. Along the way, Foster brings his indomitable wit and humor to each disappointment and success as he builds a best-selling career. Now a veteran author with over 130 books—many with such recognizable names as Star Trek, Terminator, and The Thing—the stories behind those stories are collected here for the first time. This memoir provides an insider’s glimpse into how studio marketeers hire, and often discard, the writers they’ve brought in to help sell their movies, television series, or video games. Not one to mince words, Foster presents an unabashed narrative of almost fifty years translating script to prose, prose to script, and lumps he’s taken along the way. The Director Should’ve Shot You shines a spotlight on the film industry like never before, and once you read Alan’s first-hand accounts, you’ll never see your favorite films the same way again!
Author
Bestselling science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946, but raised mainly in California. He received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA in 1968, and a M.F.A. in 1969. Foster lives in Arizona with his wife, but he enjoys traveling because it gives him opportunities to meet new people and explore new places and cultures. This interest is carried over to his writing, but with a twist: the new places encountered in his books are likely to be on another planet, and the people may belong to an alien race. Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux. Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novel Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000.
