Christina York’s latest ALIAS tie-in novel, STRATEGIC RESERVE, just came out and she muses today about the craft of tie-in writing:
Another thing about writing tie-ins. It takes a lot
of research. You have to get it all right.[…] But it’s not just the stuff from the
show. It’s all the rest of the world, too. Alias was particularly
challenging, because of the diverse and exotic locations.In STRATEGIC RESERVE, a good portion of the book was set above the
Arctic Circle, along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. I have never been about
the Arctic Circle, but I know if I messed anything up, I will hear
about it from a reader or three. So I spent a lot of time looking at
photos on line, studying maps, and reading accounts of people who have
been there.[…] Writers tell lies for a living. But we try to layer in enough truth
that you believe everything we tell you.