Thomas M. Disch, �The Prisoner�
Film and TV tie-ins make me nervous, even though I�ve read quite a few of them. For the most part, they�re really bad, like Network although the one for Natural Born Killers was pretty good, considering what it was.
But what can you make out of a book that is released ten years after the series first ended? From the look of this book, this was to be a simple retelling of the first episode of the British television show, which was fine by me. The television show has so many obscure visuals, I thought it would be interesting to see how the author would put these images into words. Besides, I just showed The Girlfriend two episodes, and when she turned to me when the episode �Free For All� finished and said, �Okay, what the hell was that?� I decided further insight might be useful.
And the book did use some of the story line from �Free For All� — for about 20 pages. Then the chapter ended rather abruptly moving onto the next episode, and then the next. It soon became apparent that he was planning to cover every pivotal moment in the shows 17 episodes.
Except it didn�t. After a few familiar story lines wrapped up much too quickly, Disch went into new story lines of his own, but still writing in an extremely disjointed manner. This guy must have been on more drugs than the creators of the show, and if you can imagine it, this book made even less sense then the final episode.
I suppose that�s the only reason it was officially sanctioned.
Aside from the officially sanctioned episode guide, every Prisoner-related tie-in I�ve read has been crap. I still have two more Prisoner-related titles waiting for me to purchase at work. If I had any brains, I�d stop thinking these were going to be as good, or god forbid, better than the show itself.
I would, in fact, put these titles back for some other sucker. I just don�t happen to have any brains.
They�ve been fucked out of me recently.
Duuuuuuhh.
Still, I would think this works out, as I�m probably more interesting when I�m complaining. But this wasn�t very interesting, was it?
