James Swallow was interviewed by Unreality SF about several of his projects, including the upcoming release of his novelization of “Air”, the three-part premiere of Stargate Universe written by Brad Wright and Robert. C. Cooper.
Swallow isn’t a stranger to Stargate, having written several of the Big Finish Audio Dramas for both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. He’s recently joined their staff as a story editor to work on the next set, or season, of plays.
From the Stargate portion of the interview:
His next Stargate project is a novel, though: James’ novelisation of Air, the opening episodes of the new Stargate series Universe, will be published in November. There are always horror stories floating around about how secretive some production studios can be when it comes to providing the authors of novelisations with information, so how much access did James have to inside information about the series while writing the book? “I was working directly from the three episodic scripts that made up the pilot storyline, along with a few scripts from later episodes, photos, story synopses and character notes,” he explains. “Early on, I had to work from out-of-date versions of the scripts where many details were still in flux – names and ranks, order of scenes, that kind of thing – but later I got access to the final drafts, thanks to the help of John Scalzi, the show’s creative consultant, and used a combination of all the elements to build the novel.”
Some studios demand very strict novelisations of their episodes/movies, with little to no added material, but that wasn’t the case with Air. “I got to add a fair bit of new stuff,” James reveals. “Mostly what I did was expand and ‘open out’ existing scenes from the scripts with added dialogue and more narrative depth, but there are a couple of places where I wrote some totally new scenes. I was lucky in that I had a pretty free hand.”
By now, the episodes have aired, and James has been able to compare his novelisation with the final episodes. “It’s fascinating to see how scenes were actually shot compared to how I had visualised them,” he ruminates. “I guess in a way, the novelisation is the way I would have ‘directed’ it. There’s not a lot of differences between the two on a gross level, but on a smaller scale there are variations – for example, Air has a lot of quick, choppy flashbacks in it, and while that works well on TV, it’s not so good for a novel, so I wrote a strictly chronological version of the events. There’s also a couple of scenes that were moved to later episodes of the TV show that appear in the novel, and some that were scripted and shot but cut for time.” He admits that there are “some things I would have written differently if I had seen the episodes first, but I kinda like the fact that the book and screen versions don’t exactly marry up – it means that fans who watch the show and then read the novel get to experience two versions of the same narrative.”
With the novelisation of Air, James has written for all three TV incarnations of Stargate. What does Universe brings to the table to stand out against the two previous series, in his opinion? “You can see from the outset that SGU is a very different show, in terms of look and texture. I think this series has the potential to be Stargate’s equivalent of Deep Space Nine, with a darker take on familiar tropes. I imagine that, like DS9, SGU will be the red-headed stepchild of its franchise,” he laughs. Asked if there will be original Universe novels following his novelisation James reveals that “there are indeed plans in the works for Fandemonium Books to produce original Stargate Universe tie-ins in the future, adding to the existing line of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis novels.” Another James Swallow book in the Universe line could be a while off, though. “I certainly wouldn’t rule out writing an original SGU novel myself – but I think I’ll wait until the first season is complete to get a better handle on the show’s direction before considering it.”
Make sure to visit Unreality SF for the rest of the interview, which discusses many of Swallow’s other projects. Stargate Universe: Air will be out this month, according to this article, and is already available for pre-order at Amazon.com.
Congratulations to Brad Wright for his 2009 Gemini Award for “Best Writing in a Dramatic Series” for his Stargate Atlantis episode “The Shrine” and to Todd Masters, Leah Ehman, Holland Miller, Brad Proctor and Kyla Rose Tremblay for the “Best Achievement in Make-Up” award for the episode “Vegas”!
