George Gipe (1933–1986)

I picked up these novelizations because I had heard that the author, writing directly from the screenplays without seeing the movie, just made up and filled a lot of details regarding the mogwai, gremlins, their dialogue and thoughts, and their background. And that it was absolutely bonkers.
While that is all true to a degree, there is certainly not nearly as much of that as I was led to believe, nor hoped was there. It is a pretty interesting take though. There's also a scene with the cops show more later on poking holes in the three rules that reminded me a lot of a scene from the Masters of Horror entry, 'Deer Woman' many many years later.
Besides the alien origins and off the wall background, the main differences between this and the movie we hopefully all love is one of tone. Its darker and more serious than the film, with Gipes' style feeling a little like the pulp detective noir. The characters are less wholesome and lovable than in the movie, the romantic subplot is a lot more subdued, and there's another subplot involving Mrs. Deagle trying to sell off most of town to a chemical company that ends up being kind of unimportant and unrelated to anything else. I did really like the additional background and lost militaristic dreams of Billy's mother, and the bit of a payoff for the bathroom buddy near the end.
I would likely have given this an even higher rating if there was more gonzo mogwai/gremlin/mogturmen background. Worth a read if you find it cheap, don't go out of your way for a collector's priced copy though. show less

It might be common knowledge for any fellow Internet junkies, but the novelization of Gremlins takes some “liberties” with the source material. For example, George Gipe decided that the mogwais are from space and were genetically engineered (years before Jurassic Park made that a thing) by an alien named Mogturman. And I guess they were supposed to do something like terraforming? It’s not clear, but none of this makes a difference in the story.

What I didn’t know was that the show more mogwais/gremlins talk to each other. They have some kind of telepathy thing going on. Stripe actually has a conversation with Gizmo. I mean, it’s not a good conversation (good as in well-written). They talk like robots or stiff Klingons. It does not match their behavior or the tone of the story.

It’s the same author of the Back to the Future novelization featured in BF: The Novelization of the Feature Film, so you know there’s going to be some tone shifts and pacing issues. The gremlins don’t hatch until halfway through the book, so you can see Mr. Gipe had word count on his mind. show less

This is an incredibly well-written movie novelization. The movie pales beside it. I adored this book as a kid. I think the writer's a genius.

This book is far more than a get-it-out-quick piece of merchandise. If it wasn't for the obvious fame of the film (and the book's cover!), you could swear you were reading an original work. There are differences from the film, sure - in this case, though, many things are expanded or given depth that the original movie didn't allow. A different style from the film, maybe, but it works all the same.