What is the Best 90's Indy novel?

Did they have the Interior World? That's the only one I need.

Well, the one I went to didn't.

I am not finding them at Wal Mart. I get coupons for Borders though.

I read most of them years ago and really enjoyed them.

Hello, YouNeverKnow. It's been years since I read them, but my memory is of liking the Rob MacGregor ones a lot, liking the Martin Caidin ones considerably less, and liking the Max McCoy ones a fair bit even though my enthusiasm had been diminished a bit by the Caidin ones (and even though I accidentally skipped over one of the McCoy ones). I do in fact mean to reread all of them in the not-too-distant future.

I really wish we'd gotten posters of Drew Struzan's cover art!

Crack that whip said:

I really wish we'd gotten posters of Drew Struzan's cover art!

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No kidding! There are full plates of the back/front cover without any Indy logo or text.
I want all of them! (A favourite is probably "Delphi" because of the facial expression.
He looks confused & inexperienced which is perfect for the 1st story.)

My history with the novels is a different one. I bought them all as they came out up until Caiden's "Sky Pirates" and,
for years, thought it was the last Indy title published. "Peril of Delphi", I absolutely loved for many, many reasons.
"Dance of the Giants" was enjoyable so, by the time "Seven Veils" hit, I was stoked! Don't judge a book by the cover.
A new adventure in S.America? Ooooh, this is going to be good! (So, I thought.)

I started reading "Veils" in early '92 and found it so boring that it took me 15 years to read! Over the years every attempt
to finish the book met with failure. That is, until last year when I finally hunkered down and finished the blasted thing.
I am resolute about reading the novels in order and want to get to the glittering prizes in store - namely, crystall skulls!

Because "Veils" is still fresh, I went back to the first 2 for a memory jolt and have now started "Genesis Deluge"...
(The 1st time I read "Delphi" there was an image of young Ford in my head. The 2nd read it was automatic Flanery.)

Don't worry guys, Lucasfilm will sell them. They need our money. Trust me.

They actually were going to years ago, but AFAIK they didn't.

Back in the early '90s, when the novels were new (about when Star Wars was also experiencing a resurgence with a new publishing campaign), a company called Kilian Enterprises was going to make some. Kilian was a dealer of movie posters (theater one-sheets and other posters) and other such "antiquities," and also produced licensed merchandise, usually along the lines of one-sheets or other promotional posters, but intended specifically for sale to collectors, rather than actually being used in theater lobbies and the like. They did a half-sheet-sized poster of Tom Jung's art for the cover of Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novel Heir to the Empire; I think they were going to do ones of the art for all three books, but I'm not sure if they ever released them all. Anyway, about the time they were doing that, they also announced their intentions to do posters of Drew Struzan's art for the then-new Indiana Jones novels (or at least the first one, Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi), but AFAIK they wound up postponing and eventually cancelling the project.

They did at least do Raiders of the Lost Ark 10th anniversary "one-sheets," though, using Struzan's art from the original release campaign that wound up originally being used only on some of the foreign posters (you can see this art as used in the original Italian Raiders poster in the poster archives in the "Downloads" section on the Indy official site, and in this StarWars.com article on Indy posters). Aside from this and a number of other Star Wars posters, they also did an Alien anniversary "one-sheet" with art by John Alvin, and at least a couple posters in a series of Who Framed Roger Rabbit prop replica one-sheets - copies of the posters for various (fictional) Maroon Cartoons, as seen in R. K. Maroon's office in the movie!

I read a few of them but have to say I never really liked them. I felt the character was off and, honestly, don't feel anyone has captured the Indy from the movies in comics or books. As mentioned in a previous thread at least one book contained swearing (specifically 2 f-bombs) that were totally out of character and whereas an argument could be made the books weren't aimed at children I disagree. I was very young when I saw the movies and all the merchandise seems to be aimed at younglings.

I personally don't feel Indy works in an expanded universe because it is OUR universe and not a fabricated one. But, as always, this is just my opinion.

I've only read The Genesis Deluge. I enjoyed the story. I thought it was a good quick read.

Anybody read the Adventure series books? I have the first one. They remind me of the Choose Your Own Adventure books I read as a kid. You turn to the page you decide where the story should go. I know they are for kids but kinda fun.

I'm reading The Sky Pirates right now and it's fairly good.





"Snakes,why did it have to be snakes"

I've only read Secret of the Sphinx by Max McCoy, and I liked it. Like many books of this sort, though, the beginning was much better than the end, IMO.

Agent Spalko said:

Anybody read the Adventure series books? I have the first one. They remind me of the Choose Your Own Adventure books I read as a kid. You turn to the page you decide where the story should go. I know they are for kids but kinda fun.

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I own one that I picked up at the thrift store for 15 cents. I've only had it a few months, still haven't read it. *I have piles of books to read!* I thought it would be fun for my kids to read it. I'll have to pull it out for next week's episode of 'but moooooooom, I don't knooooow whhhhhatttt tooooo read for homework'. Oh child of mine, I do not deny you books!

It's been a long time since I read the two Indy novels I have, Indiana Jones and the Interior World, and Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge (both by MacGregor) and I didn't really like them. The dialogue seemed forced, the endings were always inconclusive, and Indy spends way too much time thinking about stuff. I didn't really get that "I'm making this up as I go" feeling that Indiana Jones is all about. I also wanted to either see some references to the YIJC (which I loved) or a different take on the younger character and time period; something more like the films. Instead, from what I remember, we got just as many historical figures and issues popping up but no actual continuity with the series.

That said, there were some interesting ideas in the novels. I liked the idea of Indy going after Noah's ark. (As a small child, I had often thought that Indiana Jones went after Noah's ark; it being the only ark I knew of at the time. Imagine my dissapointment... ) The imagining of the Interior World legend as a kind of inverted alternate universe/state of mind rather than a simple, literal, obvious location was also a cool concept. They just weren't executed that well.

Now, I am looking forward to reading some of the other novels. I've got my eye on Dinosaur Eggs and the Hollow Earth, both of which look pretty exciting.

TC

TalonCard said:

It's been a long time since I read the two Indy novels I have, Indiana Jones and the Interior World, and Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge (both by MacGregor) and I didn't really like them. The dialogue seemed forced, the endings were always inconclusive, and Indy spends way too much time thinking about stuff. I didn't really get that "I'm making this up as I go" feeling that Indiana Jones is all about. I also wanted to either see some references to the YIJC (which I loved) or a different take on the younger character and time period; something more like the films. Instead, from what I remember, we got just as many historical figures and issues popping up but no actual continuity with the series.

That said, there were some interesting ideas in the novels. I liked the idea of Indy going after Noah's ark. (As a small child, I had often thought that Indiana Jones went after Noah's ark; it being the only ark I knew of at the time. Imagine my dissapointment... ) The imagining of the Interior World legend as a kind of inverted alternate universe/state of mind rather than a simple, literal, obvious location was also a cool concept. They just weren't executed that well.

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Please note the books aren't as episodic as the movies, but are more interconnected (I'm a bit mystified at your "no actual continuity within the series" comment, actually), with continuing narrative threads (at least within each author's own set of books). Ideally, you wouldn't start with Genesis Deluge or Interior World, but would instead begin with Peril at Delphi and read through the series in sequence. I don't know if that would have changed things enough for you to have better enjoyed the two books you read, but it might be worth considering.

Crack that whip said:

Please note the books aren't as episodic as the movies, but are more interconnected (I'm a bit mystified at your "no actual continuity within the series" comment, actually), with continuing narrative threads (at least within each author's own set of books). Ideally, you wouldn't start with Genesis Deluge or Interior World, but would instead begin with Peril at Delphi and read through the series in sequence. I don't know if that would have changed things enough for you to have better enjoyed the two books you read, but it might be worth considering.

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What I meant there was that the novels had no continuity with the YIJC TV series; not that there was no continuity within the novel series themselves. And yet the novels I read cover some similar ground (Indy meets Al Capone, flashback to younger Indy with Corey Carrier-style antics) but have no relation to the events in the show.

Admittedly, tying the two together would have been difficult, seeing as how both the novels and the television show would have been produced at about the same time. Still, Lucas did work out a detailed timeline for Young Indy, so I think some of this could have been avoided.

I do agree that ideally I wouldn't have started with the two books that I did...however, this was 2005 and Indy books were hard to find! I was working at Disney World at the time, and, remembering that the Indy gift shop at the Disney*MGM Studios park had many Indiana Jones books, I raced there just before I left for Texas to pick up as many as I could. (A 50% discount is a wonderful thing to behold!) Unfortunately, while the store had scads of Indy books...the only two titles they had were Genesis and World. Oh well.

The funny thing is that I went back there early this year the only Indy books they had were a few copies of Interior World that had been there two years ago...

TC

TalonCard said:

Admittedly, tying the two together would have been difficult, seeing as how both the novels and the television show would have been produced at about the same time. Still, Lucas did work out a detailed timeline for Young Indy, so I think some of this could have been avoided.

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Lucasfilm just didn't seem to be bother with much of an overall continuity for whatever reason.

On the one hand you have the Young Indiana Jones books moving from a River Phoenix potrayal to tie in with the TV series (like Indy and Miss Seymour on the Titanic) but then you have Max McCoy telling this website that he wasn't doing a Spear of Destiny novel plot because Dark Horse was doing a comic, but then he writes about about the Philosopher's Stone which also shows up in a Dark Horse comic.

I never bothered to check; do the Young Indy books actually predate the show, as a tie-in to Last Crusade?

TC

TalonCard said:

I never bothered to check; do the Young Indy books actually predate the show, as a tie-in to Last Crusade?

TC

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I'm to lazy to check mine but I think the books were published in '91.

The books were originally published as a follow up to River Phoenix's portrayal in Last Crusade. I think there were about eight before the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles premiered. So the earlier books only reference the movies (Indy's friend Herman) and the later ones occasionally reference the TV series (including Titanic Adventure with Miss Seymour.