What Features Should A Book Cataloger Have For Movie Novelizations?

As someone who collects novelizations like they’re rare Pokémon cards, I need a cataloger that’s as detailed as a wiki page but as easy to use as a shopping app. It should let me tag books by the original movie’s genre—like sci-fi for 'Star Wars' or horror for 'Alien'—because mood matters when I’m picking my next read. Bonus points if it flags adaptations with extra scenes or alternate endings, like how 'Blade Runner 2049: Nexus Dawn' expands the film’s lore. I’d also love a 'completeness' rating showing how faithful the book is to the screenplay, because nothing’s worse than a novelization that skips the best monologue.

A timeline feature would be killer, too. Imagine sorting novelizations by their movie’s release date or chronological order—super handy for franchises like 'Fast & Furious' where the books jump around. And if it could scrape fan forums to highlight which adaptations are cult favorites (looking at you, 'The Thing: Zero Bar'), I’d never use another app.

I approach novelizations as both a film buff and a librarian, so my dream cataloger is a hybrid of IMDb and Goodreads. First, it must cross-reference metadata: not just the author and ISBN, but the screenplay writer, director, and even key actors. This helps trace patterns—like how Alan Dean Foster’s 'Star Trek' books have a distinct voice. It should also note if the novelization was based on an early draft of the script, since films like 'The Shining' have radically different book versions.

Visual aids are non-negotiable. Uploading cover art variants (international editions, anniversary reprints) would be a godsend for collectors. A section for 'deleted scenes' in the book versus the final film could spark deep dives—did you know 'Jurassic Park: The Novelization' includes a subplot about dinosaur lice? For usability, I’d want filters for 'canonicity' (official tie-ins vs. expanded universe) and format (audiobook narrators matter—especially if they’re the original actor, like Tom Hanks for 'The Polar Express').

The social aspect matters too. Integrate user reviews that highlight niche details, like which 'Godzilla' novelizations best capture the kaiju’s roar in prose. And for love of all things geeky, let us tag Easter eggs—finding out 'Back to the Future: The Novel' slyly mentions a 1955 Doc Brown cameo made my year.

My ideal book cataloger for novelizations would feel like a treasure map for hidden gems. Priority one: a robust search that lets me hunt by obscure criteria, like 'all novelizations with female protagonists' or 'books adapted from 80s action flicks.' I’d die for a feature that compares page counts to movie runtimes—some books, like 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' are shockingly short, while others, like 'Dune,' are doorstoppers.

Since I use novelizations as writing inspiration, I’d want a 'prose style' tag. Some authors, like Christa Faust ('Final Destination 3'), write with cinematic punch, while others get poetic—compare the lush descriptions in 'The Revenant: A Novel' to the terse script. A 'translation notes' field would be clutch for imports; the Japanese 'Ghost in the Shell' novelization has whole chapters cut from the English release.

Lastly, a community-driven 'adaptation quirks' section. Did you know the 'Die Hard' novelization calls McClane 'Joe Leland' because it recycled an older script? Gold like that deserves its own spotlight.