Alan Dean Foster


Alan Dean Foster is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction, who has written several book series, more than 20 standalone novels and many novelizations of film scripts.

Education and personal life

Foster earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles and currently resides in Prescott, Arizona, with his wife. He is a cousin of singer Lesley Gore. Foster also holds multiple state and one world record in senior powerlifting.

Writings

Foster may be best known for his novelizations of film scripts, beginning in the mid-1970s. His science fiction novels set in the Humanx Commonwealth, an interstellar ethical/political union of species including humankind and the insectoid Thranx. Many of these novels feature Philip Lynx, an empathic young man who has found himself involved in something which threatens the survival of the Galaxy. Flinx's constant companion since childhood is a minidrag named Pip, a flying, empathic snake capable of spitting a highly corrosive and violently neurotoxic venom.
One of Foster's better-known fantasy works is the Spellsinger series, in which a young musician is summoned into a world populated by talking creatures where his music allows him to do real magic whose effects depends on the lyrics of the popular songs he sings.
Many of Foster's works have a strong ecological element to them, often with an environmental twist. Often the villains in his stories experience their downfall because of a lack of respect for other alien species or seemingly innocuous bits of their surroundings. This can be seen in such works as Midworld, about a semi-sentient planet that is essentially one large rainforest, and Cachalot, set on an ocean world populated by sentient cetaceans. Foster usually devotes a large part of his novels to descriptions of the strange environments of alien worlds and the coexistence of their flora and fauna. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is Sentenced to Prism, in which the protagonist finds himself trapped on a world where life is based on silicon rather than carbon, as on Earth.

''Star Wars''

Foster was the ghostwriter of the original, which was credited solely to George Lucas. When asked if it was difficult for him to see Lucas get all the credit for Star Wars, Foster said, "Not at all. It was George's story idea. I was merely expanding upon it. Not having my name on the cover didn't bother me in the least. It would be akin to a contractor demanding to have his name on a Frank Lloyd Wright house."
Foster also wrote the follow-up novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye, written with the intention of being adapted as a low-budget sequel to Star Wars if the film was unsuccessful. However, Star Wars was a blockbusting success, and The Empire Strikes Back would be developed instead. Foster's story relied heavily on abandoned concepts that appeared in Lucas's early treatments for the first film.
Foster returned to the franchise for the prequel-era novel The Approaching Storm, and also wrote the novelization of the first sequel trilogy film, The Force Awakens.

''Star Trek''

Foster has the story credit for . He also wrote 10 books based on episodes of the, the first six books each consisting of three linked novella-length episode adaptations, and the last four being expanded adaptations of single episodes that segued into original story. In the mid-seventies, he wrote original Star Trek stories for the Peter Pan-label Star Trek audio story records. He later wrote the novelization of the 2009 film Star Trek, his first Star Trek novel in over 30 years. He later wrote the novelization for Star Treks sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness.

Awards

Foster won the 2008 Grand Master award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.

Humanx Commonwealth Universe

Pip and Flinx

Novels are listed in chronological order of the story. Foster comments, in a foreword to a re-issued edition of Bloodhype, that it is the eleventh novel in the series, and should fall between Running from the Deity and Trouble Magnet.
  1. For Love of Mother-Not
  2. The Tar-Aiym Krang
  3. Orphan Star
  4. The End of the Matter
  5. Flinx in Flux
  6. Mid-Flinx
  7. Reunion
  8. Flinx's Folly
  9. Sliding Scales
  10. Running from the Deity
  11. Bloodhype
  12. Trouble Magnet
  13. Patrimony
  14. Flinx Transcendent
  15. Strange Music

    Founding of the Commonwealth

  16. Phylogenesis
  17. Dirge
  18. Diuturnity's Dawn

    Icerigger Trilogy

  19. Icerigger
  20. Mission to Moulokin
  21. The Deluge Drivers

    Standalone Commonwealth novels

In chronological order:
  1. Nor Crystal Tears
  2. Voyage to the City of the Dead
  3. Midworld
  4. "The Emoman" short story
  5. "Surfeit" short story
  6. Drowning World
  7. Quofum
  8. "Mid-Death" short story
  9. The Howling Stones
  10. Sentenced to Prism
  11. Cachalot

    [The Damned Trilogy]

  12. A Call to Arms
  13. The False Mirror
  14. The Spoils of War

    Dinotopia Universe

  1. Carnivores of Light and Darkness
  2. Into the Thinking Kingdoms
  3. A Triumph of Souls

    Marexx

  4. Builder

    Spellsinger series

  5. Spellsinger
  6. The Hour of the Gate
  7. The Day of the Dissonance
  8. The Moment of the Magician
  9. The Paths of the Perambulator
  10. The Time of the Transference
  11. Son of Spellsinger
  12. Chorus Skating
"Serenade", a novelette set immediately after The Time of the Transference, was first published in the anthology Masters of Fantasy and was later reprinted in Foster's short story collection Exceptions to Reality.

The Taken trilogy

  1. Lost and Found
  2. The Light-Years Beneath My Feet
  3. The Candle of Distant Earth

    The Tipping Point trilogy

''Star Trek'' universe

''Star Trek: The Animated Series''
  1. Star Trek Log One
  2. Star Trek Log Two
  3. Star Trek Log Three
  4. Star Trek Log Four
  5. Star Trek Log Five
  6. Star Trek Log Six
  7. Star Trek Log Seven
  8. Star Trek Log Eight
  9. Star Trek Log Nine
  10. Star Trek Log Ten
    ''Star Trek'' movies
  1. Alien
  2. Aliens
  3. Alien 3
  4. '
  5. '

    Terminator universe