"Well, in the book it says..."

In the pre-internet days of my adolescence, the first time you heard about a new film was often when you saw the poster thumbtacked below a "COMING SOON" banner at the local cinema. However, there was a way to be ahead of the game...

Movie novelisations tended to reach Australia weeks or even months before the flicks that they - with varying degrees of accuracy - represented. If your imagination was up to the challenge, they were almost like a preview screening.

While there wasn't a bookstore within cooee of my home, the newsagency had a substantial display of books running along one wall. And every now and then, a mysterious movie novelisation would materialise on the bottom shelf.

As a voracious reader, impatient (genre) film buff and insufferable know-it-all, I absolutely ADORED them. I bought several and borrowed those that I either hadn't seen for sale or hadn't been able to afford from the public library.

I read them over and over again, memorised the cast and crew credits that usually appeared on the cover, studied the colour stills in the middle of the book... If anything, novelisations made me more excited to see the flicks themselves.

When that day came, I'd walk into the cinema with an air of smugness. Although I wouldn't spoiler my buddies beforehand, I'd drop hints on request - and bore them afterwards with all of the subtle differences between print and screen incarnations.

Based on the number of occasions I revisited them, my top five movie novelisations were: "The Goonies", "War Games", "E.T." (I also loved the unfilmed sequel, "The Book Of The Green Planet"), "The Last Starfighter" and "Explorers".

It's painfully obvious now what those titles had in common - everyday kids escaping from their everyday lives and doing extraordinary things. Like uncovering the secrets of a "major motion picture" before it had even been released!