Roswell Fanatics

Yeah, after the first book, the storyline veers pretty far from the show's. There are only ten books, so you could probably read them all pretty quickly (I think I read all ten in just a couple of months). If you can look at them apart from the show, they're pretty enjoyable. But, I mean, don't expect great novels or anything - they are intended for young readers, after all.

I read the books too and enjoyed them, but I have to say that I'm glad the show went in a different direction from the books. There are a few things I wish they'd taken into the show such as the connection between the six of them but other than that...

I'd definitely read the rest, if only just to see what Roswell may have been like had it followed the books. Would have been a different show completely, and shown some very different sides to some characters!!

Rach x

The books are different but if you pay close attention, you realize that the writers used some stuff from them. For example :

- the bad guy in the books was a guy named Dupris. Michael's human donor was a Dupree, close enough,

- there was a good alien who died whose name was Ray. Alex's name in Las Cruces was Ray,

- in the books, Max fell into some sort of alien coma, in the show it was Michael (The balance)

- Michael stayed on Earth for Maria at the last minute in the books, the same thing happened in the show,

- There was a girl who was a rival for M&M, Cameron in the books, which transformed into Courtney in the show,

- In the books, Isabel dated a bad alien whose name was Nicolas, there was a Nicolas in the show who had an affair with Vilandra on Antar,

- The books had magic rocks, the midnight stones and the show had the healing stones,

- The aliens could travel through a vortex in the books, Khivar did the same in the third season,

- and of course, the couples and the love stories : both in the show and in the books, it was about Max and Liz, and Michael and Maria. Alex and Isabel were the unlucky ones in the books and the show.


I am sure that there are other winks from the writers to the original books. So no, not really similar storylines, but a fun way to incorporate some stuff from the original books. There are probably other examples, I just gave a few ones.

Didn't Alex also have a brother named Jesse?

xmag wrote:The books are different but if you pay close attention, you realize that the writers used some stuff from them. For example :

- the bad guy in the books was a guy named Dupris. Michael's human donor was a Dupree, close enough,

- there was a good alien who died whose name was Ray. Alex's name in Las Cruces was Ray,

- in the books, Max fell into some sort of alien coma, in the show it was Michael (The balance)

- Michael stayed on Earth for Maria at the last minute in the books, the same thing happened in the show,

- There was a girl who was a rival for M&M, Cameron in the books, which transformed into Courtney in the show,

- In the books, Isabel dated a bad alien whose name was Nicolas, there was a Nicolas in the show who had an affair with Vilandra on Antar,

- The books had magic rocks, the midnight stones and the show had the healing stones,

- The aliens could travel through a vortex in the books, Khivar did the same in the third season,

- and of course, the couples and the love stories : both in the show and in the books, it was about Max and Liz, and Michael and Maria. Alex and Isabel were the unlucky ones in the books and the show.


I am sure that there are other winks from the writers to the original books. So no, not really similar storylines, but a fun way to incorporate some stuff from the original books. There are probably other examples, I just gave a few ones.

i add:

"- in the books, Max fell into some sort of alien coma, in the show it was Michael (The balance)"
also this kind of remind me what happened in chant down babylon
in the last book Max is crazy because something controlled him (the collective consciousness) he was himself but he wasn't at the same time, his soul tried to 'escape' to take control, to protect Liz. It's Liz's love that saved him. The same happened in the show when Clayton got Max's body and controlled him while Max was trying to survive, in the end Liz saved him and it was Max's love for her that kept his soul alive the whole time.

- in the book the fourth alien is Adam who feel in love with Liz and tries to take Max's place into her heart. In the show the fourth alien is Tess who tries to take Liz's place into Max's heart. Both of them died in the end and both of them didn't have a real moral about good and wrong.

If you weren't crazy about the first Metz book, you might try a couple of more, but she tends to rely heavily on the descriptions of aromatherapy, auras and other new-age practices throughout all ten books. For me, that became very repetitive. Toward the end of her series, Max is basically a puppet of the collective consciousness of Antar. It was painful to see such a beloved character reduced to "licking a glass cat figurine" (I am not kidding) because the collective consciouness of Antar was curious as to what it would taste like. The books that follow Metz's series are more interesting, though some are tough to come by. The last ten books are written by several different authors, some of whom tend to shout from their political soapboxes or rely on gimmicky pop culture references, but the characterizations do follow the tv series. Honestly, some of the fan fic that I have read has been far superior to many of the published books. If you are looking for the last ten published books, you might try your local library, and if they don't have the title, they may have a partner library who has it. I really couldn't afford $200 for a copy of Turnabout, but I was able to check out a copy via my local library. Hope this helps.-DestinyC

The collective consciousness was a mind link between all the inhabitants of the home planet. It was a very weak storyline, especially as it reduced Max to a zombie for about one third of the series.

The only thing in the series of books that I really missed in the series was the close friendship between all the gang. They developed a really close friendship and had fun together which we only glimpsed once in the tv series (in the Melinda Metz/Laura Burns penned episode - I'd love if they had written more episodes.)

I really enjoyed the books. I wish the would've incorporated a bit more of the books into the show. Like for starters, I wish that instead of bringing Sean Deluca onto the show, they should've brought Adam into the show instead. I loved Adam's character in the books and I think that Liz had much more chemistry with him than she did with Sean. Her and Sean just didn't feel right together.