Who is Alan Dean Foster?

Alan Dean Foster is an American speculative fiction author, known as much for his Star Trek and Star Wars franchise novels as for his own independent work. He famously ghost wrote the first Star Wars novelization. Of his original work, his most popular science fiction is the Humanx Commonwealth series, which includes more than twenty novels and a handful of short stories. Fans sometimes refer to it as the Pip and Flinx series, after two of the most popular characters. He also wrote the eight-book Spellsinger fantasy series.

Grand Master of Media Tie-In Writers

However, Foster is probably better known in the Science Fiction world for his novelizations of sci-fi and fantasy movies. In 2008, Foster won the Grand Master award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. He wrote ten books based on Star Trek: the Animated Series, the Star Trek Log books. He wrote the novelization of Krull and ghost-wrote the novelization of the original Star Wars movie, although that book is officially attributed to George Lucas. He also wrote the SW sequel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. He is responsib;r for nove;izations of the Aliens and Transformers franchises.

Foster and Disney

Alan Dean Foster was born November 18, 1946 in New York City, NY, USA. Ironically, he shares a birthday with Mickey Mouse, who debuted November 18, 1928 in the sound cartoon Steamboat Willie. This is ironic because Foster is at the center of Disney’s Pay the Artist Scandal. [I]”wrote novelizations of the popular Alien movies,Transformers, Krull, The Last Starfighter, and Disney’s own The Black Hole. Disney, as we know, has been expanding greatly in recent years, acquiring Marvel, Lucasfilm, Henson’s Muppets, and 20th Century Fox.”

Foster remarked:

“When you purchased Lucasfilm you acquired the rights to some books I wrote.  STAR WARS, the novelization of the very first film.  SPLINTER OF THE MIND’S EYE, the first sequel novel.  You owe me royalties on these books.  You stopped paying them.

When you purchased 20th Century Fox, you eventually acquired the rights to other books I had written.  The novelizations of ALIEN, ALIENS, and ALIEN 3.  You’ve never paid royalties on any of these, or even issued royalty statements for them.

All these books are all still very much in print.  They still earn money.  For you.  When one company buys another, they acquire its liabilities as well as its assets.  You’re certainly reaping the benefits of the assets.  I’d very much like my miniscule (though it’s not small to me) share.“

On television, writers like J. B. Fetcher (Murder, She Wrote), David Rossi (Criminal Minds), Temperance Brennan (Bones), and Rick Castle (Castle) make a handsome profit from their writing. In real life, few authors make enough from royalties to live on, so Foster not getting his royalties is a major matter.

Foster has written 23 of his own books, and done the novelizations on 23 more titles beyond that. He has written at least 12 novels in the Star Trek universe, and at least 4 in the Star Wars universe. He has edited three anthologies and published eight collections of his own short stories. Foster’s sometimes humorous, occasionally poignant, but always entertaining short fiction has appeared in all the major SF magazines as well as in original anthologies and several “Best of the Year” compendiums. His published oeurve includes more than 120 books.

Awards and Honors

Foster’s novel Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990, the first work of science-fiction ever to do so. He is the recipient of the Faust, the IAMTW Lifetime achievement award. As mentioned above, he won the Grand Master award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers in 2008. His writing has been translated into more than fifty languages and has won awards in Spain and Russia.

Personal Life

Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City, New York, but raised in Los Angeles, California. He attended UCLA, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a Master of Fine Arts in Cinema. He began his writing career as a copywriter for a California advertising and public relations firm. His first published speculative fiction was a Lovecraftian letter in August Derleth’s Arkham Collector. Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, enjoy travel, and together have been to six of the seven continents. (They have not yet been to Antarctica,) He and his wife currently reside in Prescott, Arizona. In April of 2020 he began writing orchestral music and to date has written a number of short pieces in addition to two symphonies, though to our knowledge, none have been commercially released.