Ghostbusters by Larry Milne

I can’t find much on Mr. Milne. He wrote three books, the novelization of Ghostbusters, a novelization of Biggles: The Movie and a novelization of the Bob Dylan movie, Hearts of Fire. Huh. That’s news to me. Bob Dylan acting in a movie?

Ghostbusters was the god damn biggest movie to come out in 1984 so they hired a guy who had never written a book before?? I don’t think so. This has got to be a pseudonym. Does someone out there have the answer? Please let me know.

Everyone knows the Ghostbusters so no basic plot premise.

This book adds little to nothing from the movie. What a disappointment. Not only that but without the comedic timing and emphasis on the lines everything reads really dry. This is my favorite movie. I’m not even joking. I was so excited to read this, and it crashed hard.

One positive item I can take away from this is that I knew the movie so well, like I could probably recite 75% of the movie from memory, that when I was reading the flat dialogue, it opened up my mind to how a story should be visualized by the reader. I have always read the lines straight forward in books. I didn’t put any emphasis on how a character’s personality would affect how a line was delivered. This opened my eyes to all I was missing. There is a sort of artistic license for lack of a better term as readers of books that we can hear and see these characters how we wish and bring them to life in our minds. Ever since I read this novelization it has made other books I’ve read more enjoyable. And really my thank you goes out to Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis in how they brought this to life.

So, did anything interesting or different happen in this book?

Venkman is a the responsible one in the book. I mean, he’s kind of the same guy but he worries about bills and responsibilities. It was weird. Also, he’s totally the main character where in the movie I’d say the three main guys are pretty even.

Egon doesn’t have a lot of dialogue in the book.

Winston has a backstory to rival any Men’s Adventure character.

Venkman doesn’t say, “nobody steps on a church in my town.” Which I always thought was an out of character thing for him to say so that was cool.

And the biggest difference of note, Luis Tully is not only interested in dating Dana Barett he has fantasies of her raping him.

And scene.

Coronet Books 1984

Video review:

Quick Change by Jay Cronley

There is a dedication in this book to MacDonald, McBain and Westlake so we’re off to a good start.

A clown walks into a bank. The security guard thinks it’s hilarious and plays jokes with him. Then the clown pulls out a gun and tells him it’s a robbery. The guard still thinks it’s a joke. The clown grabs him by the neck, turns around and tells everyone in the bank it’s a robbery. People laugh and applaud until he puts a bullet in the ceiling. The people hit the ground, but the bullet hit the sprinklers and now it’s spraying water everywhere.

The police show up and there is now a hostage situation. The clown is on the phone with the police chief. He makes extravagant demands, helicopters, buses, motorcycles, etc. There is no way out of the bank for the clown so the chief knows he has him, but he can’t let him hurt any hostages, so he gives into the demands.

The people inside the bank are led into the vault. One of the customers is losing his shit and the clown almost shoots him. The clown is acting erratic. He says he has dynamite taped to him. Finally, he starts letting out hostages.

Eventually the police raid the building. Inside there is no clown. Somehow, he’s gotten away with it, but how?

The rest of the book is essentially the clown trying to get to the airport and the police chief trying to figure out how he did the robbery and where he’s at. This is a comedy/crime book, so we have lots of shenanigans. Ridiculous situations. Close calls. NYC life after midnight in dangerous neighborhoods. Hoodlums. The characters are snarky. Some are witty. I think I only laughed out loud once, and it was just a “hah.”

I more enjoyed the tension of whether the crime would be successful or the cop would catch them. You find yourself rooting for both. As each disaster leads into the next, it never becomes monotonous. The obstacles are all interesting and almost little puzzles that you solve along with the crime.

I loved this book BUT I think it had a lot to do with the movie. There is a lot of humor in this that is all about the delivery. It’s a book that does well translated into a movie, dare I say, the movie is actually the better option in this case. Of course, it’s hard to compare because Bill Murray plays the main character in the movie and really brings him to life. I mean, it’s Bill Murray, how are you going to compete with that?

Jay Cronley was a newspaper columnist in Tulsa Oklahoma. Much like my other reviews lately this one was made into a movie. I was only aware of the one until researching this but it looks like there was a French Canadian one called Hold-Up also. The movie that I had seen and loved was Quick Change with Bill Murray, Geena Davis and Randy Quaid from 1990. Whatever happened to Geena Davis? She was so great. Cronley wrote eight books in total. One of them being Funny Farm which was also made into a movie starring Chevy Chase. Also, a childhood favorite.

Quick Change was originally published in 1981

My copy is a UK edition: New English Library 1984

Review by Nick Anderson