If you go into a bookshop and look for the science fiction, chances are you’ll notice a few things. Firstly, it’s often tucked away somewhere. Secondly, the science fiction and the fantasy will probably share shelf space. Horror will probably nearby, lurking in the shadows. In this same, magical and wondrous nook of books, you will find media tie-ins. Books set in the worlds of popular TV shows, computer games, and films. They will be nearby, but separate. Segregated even from the rest of our niche genre. This is the way it’s always been, but I keep asking myself one question.

Why?

For starters, it’s not as if there’s no crossover between tie-in fiction and original fiction. Countless authors play videogames or cite roleplaying games as an influence. TV shows and films have writers, and often those writers work in literature as well. Michael Chabon was the showrunner for Star Trek: Picard‘s first (and best) season, but did you know he’s an award winning novelist too? You’ve probably heard of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, but less well-known is the fact that he was an adviser on Stargate Universe.

Looking directly at tie-in novels, we see plenty of familiar names. Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of the biggest names in British science fiction, but one novel that doesn’t get as much attention as the rest is Day of Ascension. Why? Because it’s a Warhammer 40,000 novel. Likewise, Greg Bear is one of the big names in late-twentieth century SF, but gamers might recognise him more as the man behind the HALO: Forerunner Saga. A master of hard SF writing for a first-person shooter? It’s more likely than you’d think.

This is nothing new. In 1968, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick collaborated on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Film and novel were created simultaneously. Granted, this was a direct collaboration rather than a tie-in as we see them now, but you’ll rarely see 2001 slumming it with Star Wars novels. Relatedly, Isaac Asimov’s Space Ranger novels were originally intended to be turned into a TV show, and published under a pseudonym for this reason. The show never came to be, and now you’ll see them alongside his Foundation and Robot series. Asimov initially did not want to be associated with TV, but later on would happily author the official novelisation of Fantastic Voyage, and even write an original sequel of his own.

Today, Star Trek and Star Wars have their own pools of preferred writers. Authors who are familiar with both the restrictions of the setting, and the intense deadlines of tie-in storytelling. James Swallow, David Mack, and Una McCormack will be familiar to Trek readers, while Star Wars fans will recognise names like Alexander Freed, Troy Denning, and John Jackson Miller. But there have been other, arguably more recognisable names along the way. Greg Bear wrote for Star Wars. Mack Reynolds wrote perhaps the first Star Trek novel. James Blish became famous for his Star Trek adaptations, while Alan Dean Foster wrote the first Star Wars tie-in.

The clear message to take away from all this is that authors see no problem crossing from original fiction to tie-ins. readers and publishers, however, seem to be of a slightly different opinion.

On the publishing front, it’s simple. Certain publishers handle tie-in fiction, and others don’t. Warhammer books are published exclusively by Black Library. Star Trek recently passed from Pocket Books to Gallery Press, while Star Wars has been handled by a revolving series of high-profile imprints. Shelf space in high street bookshops is partly determined by publisher influence, so perhaps this explains the segregation.

It’s hard to tell how readers have affected the opinion of tie-in fiction, and how much the reverse is true. Generally, however, I think it fair to say that many readers are dismissive of tie-in fiction, seeing it as less important than original fiction. This manifests most obviously in the fact that (so far as I can tell) tie-ins have never troubled the shortlists for the major SF literary awards. Perhaps the closest it has come is John Scalzi’s 2012 novel Redshirts, which is a parody of Star Trek and sci-fi TV shows in general.

The audience of tie-ins is different to general fiction. There is a baseline expectation that you are are familiar with the universe you are about to enter. The various HALO novels flesh out the setting of the game, but you need to play the games to experience the whole story. Star Trek and Star Wars have bent over backwards to accommodate new instalments of their parent franchises, in both cases ending decades-long literary canons to better fit what is portrayed on screen. Warhammer books are nigh incomprehensible to people unfamiliar with the game

The simple fact of tie-in fiction is that it exists to promote a product. Film adaptations often include stills from the movie to encourage you to go to the cinema. Warhammer novels feature characters and enemies who can be built and displayed on the tabletop. What better advert for a game could there be than a compelling narrative that invites re-enactment? None of this is to say that tie-in fiction cannot be as emotive, thought-provoking, or downright literary as original fiction, but it is written with a different agenda.

So yes, I can see why some people’s gut instinct might be to denigrate tie-in fiction. It’s an easy thing to do, after all. A thing that I, an enlightened reader, would surely never do.

And yet.

And yet, I shelve my Warhammer, Star Trek, and Star Wars books separately to the rest of my science fiction collection. I file my reviews in a different index on this blog. Even on my spreadsheets, I keep them separate. Some years, over a third of my reading comes from tie-ins. So why do I separate them like this?

The shelving is a simple matter. These are multi-author series, with settings consisting of innumerable series and standalones, written in jumbled chronologies and all manner of internal orders. It makes sense to remove that big, messy block from my otherwise tidy collection and plonk it down somewhere else

My spreadsheets are, as ever, a slightly more complicated matter. I track my original SF books by publication date. This allows me to spot trends and movements, and to hone in on the origins of various ideas. To an extent, tie-in fiction exists outside of that project. Their ideas are rooted in games, film, and TV. Of course, ideas cross-pollinate. Star Trek is rooted in the ideas-driven short fiction of the pulp era. But for the time being, I’m not tracking TV shows on my spreadsheets. Tie-in fiction is my escape from the ongoing project to explore the history of science fiction. A partial escape, because tie-ins are a part of that history, but a little breathing space nonetheless.

I lost track of my thesis some time ago, but if I have a closing argument, it’s this: Don’t disregard a book simply because it’s part of a larger universe. You might not be the intended reader, but you also might be missing out on some great storytelling. At the end of the day, isn’t great storytelling what we’re all here for?