Don't Expect an Alan Dean Foster Version of Cameron's Avatar

This selection from my conversation with James Cameron is definitely for deep cut sci-fi folk.

Those of us who dabble in expanded universes know that the hardest working man in franchise fiction in Alan Dean Foster.  Go into your basement - you have a paperback with his name on it, I guarantee it.

When the topic of novels and comics in the Avatar world came up, I didn't expect to unleash a torrent of vitriol against ADF.  Let the nerdcore flaming begin.

Jordan Hoffman: You have said before if Avatar is a financial success if there is a sequel, so we'll worry about that later, but there's definitely going to be a desire from that niche audience out there, a desire for expanded universe stuff.  Comics, novels, is that definitely happening?

James Cameron: Yeah, we'll do as much as possible to do.  I wanted to get the bible worked out so that these things didn't generate conflicting ideas or conflicting plotlines with things I would want to do in the sequels, or with each other.  That was the purpose of generating Pandorapedia, working out the backstory and the future history. 

JH: And you don't have any of those deals worked out with comic creators or...

JC: Not right now, that's really going to be a second wave, including a novel which I hope to have time to write myself.

JH: Oh, you're not going to punt that to Alan Dean Foster.

JC: No, he would probably be the last person I would choose...

JH: Yikes.

JC: Not a big fan.  Since he did the Aliens novelization which I thought was pretty dreadful.  I didn't make that deal.  But I did make the deal for The Abyss, which I had Orson Scott Card write, who did a fantastic job on The Abyss novel, which we didn't even call a novelization, just a novel.

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