A. C. H. Smith

My goodness, this author likes to be detailed. I mean cleaning-the-wall-with-a-toothbrush detailed, so you can scrutinize every tiny embossed figure and glyph. This novelization breaks a lot of storytelling guidelines and not in a good way. It doesn’t start with action or anything interesting happening. There’s barely any dialogue. No tension anywhere. Long paragraphs of internal thinking and descriptions of setting. And, to my disappointment, little elaboration on the lore. I was hoping show more for some backstory on Jen, how he lived with the Mystics. Or what are the Skeksis exactly ruling here? But I got none of that. Even the illustrations aren’t very good–they’re just pencil sketches of caves. At least it was short. show less

In my experience, movie novelizations are almost always terribly written. Being a big fan of the movie and the universe, I was expecting this to be cheesy, but fun. I was way off - this is an excellent novel! If you've never seen the movie, I think this book does a great job of conveying what happens. In fact, if you didn't know it was a movie, it's a great novel that fits right in with the other written Dark Crystal materials. Definitely read this if you're a fan, or if you're looking to show more see what the fandom is about. show less

“Everything. I have done everything you wanted...You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me. I was frightening...I have reordered time...I have turned the world upside down...And I have done it all for you. I am exhausted from living up to your expectations.”

I usually don’t read novelizations of movies, but it’s The Labyrinth! With Jareth! I’m not going to go into detail about the story, plot, and characters as those are basically the same as the movie. show more What I am going to point out are the major differences that sets the book apart from the movie.

First we have the back story on Sarah’s mother. In the movie we see newspaper clippings and photos in Sarah’s room of “Linda Williams” and the mysterious Jeremy (also played by David Bowie). If you get a chance to look closer at the newspapers it’s apparent that they were in a relationship on and offstage, so Sarah’s mother is an actress- which is where Sarah gets her love of theatre. The book goes into detail and explains the relationship in more detail, such as Sarah and Jeremy get along very well and Jeremy treats Sarah as an adult- taking her to highclass restaurants with her mother. But it also implies that Sarah’s mother left her family for Jeremy, so we can kind of see why Sarah is a bit bratty under the circumstances of being spoiled/hurt.

I really do wish they would have found some way to incorporate the songs into the book. No, I don’t want to be reading the lyrics off of the page or have the characters break out into song, but the music of The Labyrinth is so much a part of the movie that reading its novelization without having even pieces of the music lingering made some scenes fall really flat.

What fans will really want this book for is the early concept art by Brian Froud and Jim Henson’s personal journal pages! I always love watching the extras on DVDs and thumbing through movie-art books. Seeing the early stages of Henson’s ideas on the Labyrinth and Froud’s critters that didn’t make the movie makes the book worth purchasing on its own.

Overall, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: The Novelization is a great addition to any fans’ collection.

www.ReadingBifrost.com show less

I love Labyrinth, truly, but I feel like this novelization leaves a lot to be desired.
It felt like someone stripped the language and the feel out of the movie and gave us a retelling without character. The flow is choppy and the word choice toned down for maybe much younger readers.
I really wanted to enjoy this and couldn't.
(More on that here.)