X-Men: A Novelization
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Ed Solomon, Christopher McQuarrie

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Book Reviews of X-Men: A Novelization

Book Review: Great Way To Kill A Few Hours By The Pool!
Summary: 5 Stars

Many of the characters X-Men fans know and love are there, but seen from a slightly skewed prospective. Rogue, Kitty Pride, Jubilee, and Bobby Drake are teenage classmates at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, while thirtysomething alumni Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm make up the current X-Men team.

Liberties have been taken with "origin" flashbacks, especially Storm's, and while Mystique and a pre-Carol Danvers Rogue play prominent parts in the story, their comic book relationship is nonexistent. Logan's origin is used well to flesh out his character, but his Weapon X, Alpha Flight and CIA history seem not to have happened at all.

The familiar interpersonal relationships between Professor X and Magneto and the Scott-Jean-Logan triangle are well represented, but others like the aforementioned Rogue/Mystique connection and the Wolverine/Sabretooth backstory are completely ignored.

The X-Men team seem a bit impotent as a fighting force, but that may be intentional to put the focus on the obvious star of the movie, Logan.

Novelizations of movie screenplays have always been a bit of a strange literary vehicle. It will be interesting to see how this one matches up to the movie which is still in post-production. Having watched the trailers again after reading the book, I can already spot a few inconsistencies, but that is natural considering the novelization is written, printed, and published well before the movie release.

Taken as a self-contained story outside the normal X-Men continuity, the book is a well written piece of escapism along the lines of the other Marvel novels and the Star Trek book series. Whether it captures the spirit and tone of the movie, only time will tell, but I think the story is worthy of its mission of introducing our beloved X-Men to the mass public.

I won't insult your intelligence and warn you that a novelization of a movie might actually reveal the plot of the movie (imagine that!) -- like an earlier reviewer insisted on doing, but I will warn you that if you see the movie with an X-Men neophyte friend, you will probably spent the rest of the evening introducing said friend to the "real" X-Men and their backstories.

Summary of X-Men: A Novelization

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• Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy
• Science Fiction