Friday the 13th Part 3: 3-D

by Michael Avallone

He lies in wait. Patiently. Quietly. Ready to strike. As darkness settles over the forest, the victims enter his lair. And one by one they die! The book that takes you from the edge of your seat to the edge of madness!

Genres: Horror, Media Tie In

200 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Also wrote Nick Carter: Killmaster series under Nick Carter alias with others

Michael Angelo Avallone was a prolific American author of mystery and secret agent fiction, and novelizations based on TV and films. He claimed a lifetime output over 1,000 works, including novels, short stories, articles, published under his own name or 17+ pseudonyms.
His first novel, The Tall Dolores 1953 introduced Ed Noon PI. After three dozen more, the most recent was 1989. The final volume, "Since Noon Yesterday" is, as of 2005, unpublished.
Tie-ins included Man from U.N.C.L.E., Hawaii Five-0, Mannix, Friday the 13th Part III, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and even The Partridge Family. In late 1960s novellas featured U.N.C.L.E.-like INTREX. He is sometimes cited incorrectly as the creator of Man from U.N.C.L.E. (as in the January 1967 issue of The Saint Magazine), or having died March 1.
As Troy Conway, Rod Damon: The Coxeman novel series 1967-73, parodied Man from UNCLE. An unusual entry was the novelization of the 1982 TV mini-series, A Woman Called Golda, the life of Golda Meir.
Among the many pseudonyms that Michael Avallone used (male and female) were: Mile Avalione, Mike Avalone, Nick Carter, Troy Conway, Priscilla Dalton, Mark Dane, Jeanne-Anne dePre, Dora Highland, Stuart Jason, Steve Michaels, Dorothea Nile, Edwina Noone, John Patrick, Vance Stanton, Sidney Stuart, Max Walker, and Lee Davis Willoughby.
From 1962-5, Avallone edited the Mystery Writers of America newsletter. Personal Life:
He married 1949 Lucille Asero (one son; marriage dissolved), 1960 Fran Weinstein (one son, one daughter); died Los Angeles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_...
http://www.thrillingdetective.com/tri...

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah, it's Jason time again, terror and relentless slaughter among young people. Of course we'll go back to Pinehurst County and Chrystal Lake. Everything starts with Edna and Herold. Two young couples will follow. Well, the night is still young and there is much work to be done (for Jason of course). As you can guess there is always some down and more to go. Death wears a very special mask. I really enjoyed this book and the nice black and white pictures of the movie too. Really recommended, not only for Jason fans.

[~Cyanide Latte~ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Props to Michael Avallone for following an earlier version of the script for this movie and making it a book, I suppose, but honestly, I feel as though this novelization of Friday the 13th part 3 pales drastically in comparison to the one done by Simon Hawke, based on the final version of the film.

I think my biggest issues here are that Jason feels very out-of-character, Avallone did nothing to flesh out or make us care about any of the characters at all, and the ending is very confusing. Are we supposed to be left to draw our own conclusions? Because all I'm drawing is a great big question mark at everything that happened here.

Once again, a huge thanks to The 80s Slasher Librarian channel on YouTube, for doing their fan-made audiobooks! I wouldn't have been able to go through this book otherwise, I don't think, and that channel is an absolute godsend for these old out-of-print slasher books!

[Ethan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Probably the goofiest book I’ve ever read. I couldn’t tell if the narrator was trying to have some fun but just doesn’t care so the narration comes across as the literary equivalent of that Steve Buscemi meme (hello fellow kids). But hey! I laughed, like a rattle snake in the tall grass or a kid having a real thigh slapper of a good time!
And if you thought those similes were weird and somewhat irrelevant then oh boy should you read this book! The similes and metaphors are far too long winded and often come in pairs and more often than not the next sentence is a reworded version of the sentence before.
There’s a lot of similes and the book repeats itself a lot like it was just written to make the word count and little to no editing was done.

Hilariously ridiculous. I did have fun.

[Mikepottz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jason swinging a mammoth meat clever out of the darkness like a freight train into the chest then leaving him on the toilet with his pants down. Then plunging a knitting needle through the back of the head, exploding out of the mouth as the victim gagging uncontrollably as the river of blood flows out of her mouth. Eight kids will embark out to the lake unaware Jason is on a rage of destruction. Jason will wear the white mask for the first time and shot a spear gun into a head. He will carry a foot long machete and savagely and powerfully cut a man upside-down, mutilating the halved remains bouncing down stairs. Jason silhouetted body in the cellar will throw a body onto live electrical wires and crush a guys skull with his bare hands as the eyes bulged out of the socket. The final girl will be pursued relentlessly, hiding in a closet as Jason splinters the wood with an axe before the final girl stabs him in the thigh. Jason death who wears a white mask will have his head chopped off in the finale.

[Paul Lê · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better written style-wise than Simon Hawke's more straightforward (yet still rather insightful) '89 adaptation, and it also features the "lost" ending that, at the time, left room open for further sequels.

[Bryan Frazier · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the book !! I am a big Friday the 13th fan anyway , so this was perfect for me !! I read this book aloud to my friend Ricky every morning in Science class before the period began . The book made me want to see the movie !! The book is well written , well plotted , and ( Since they were working off of an early script ,) the book included scenes that did not make the final cut for the movie . SPOILER : We are introduced to Jason's Father , Elias Voorhees in the final scene !! The ending makes you wonder where the story would have gone from there . This was the first tie - in book that was released for the Friday the 13th series . This book , as with all of the books released for the series , is either out of print , hard to find , or very high priced !! Some are a combination of all three !! This book was the partial inspiration to write a review of the film in my weekly column !! I heartily recommend this book !! ( If you can find a copy !! )

[Calis Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novelization is more based on an earlier version of the script. My dad give away is that in this book Jason is not wearing a hockey mask but a "faceless white mask" also it in slightly different than the film and doesn't even use any of the dream sequences. Plus another disappointment is we don't get enough back stories with our victims like in the last two novelizations I read.

[Ken Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writer does a pretty good job padding out the early sections where we meet the characters and journey to the cabin. Of course once the killer shows up, everything becomes extremely redundant and the writer runs out of new ways to say "her blood froze".
I have always enjoyed this chapter in the series for its bikers vs hippies angle. I liked the way this book emphasized how the characters' misconceptions about each other leads ultimately to their difficulty and (almost always) demise.
There are echoes in the story such as Rico draining the gas from the van early on to get even with the kids which has disastrous implications for Chris later that night, and again with Vera dropping a wallet twice. The first time she drops it she draws attention from Chili the biker chick, and the second time she draws attention from you-know-who.
This book has a slightly different epilogue than the film, but it's basically a variation on the usual dream sequence along with some parting words from the crazy old man. For anyone interested this book was read by the "80's slasher librarian" on you tube. I listened to it while I was doing some incredibly tedious tasks for work over several weekends and found it quite entertaining.

[William Cherico · Rating 1 out of 5]

An exceptionally bland and straightforward adaptation of an early Friday the 13th Part 3 script that doesn't really justify its existence. It's significantly longer to read than to watch the movie, Jason's mean and laughing which makes him a lot less interesting than the silent killer, and Avallone offers no extra insight that Simon Hawke's novelizations do. Every sentence featuring Shelly or the bikers specifies how fat or black they are, which is uncomfortable, and the objectification of the women reaches new levels. The characters are annoying (which I can't blame Avallone for; even for a Friday movie, the characters in Part 3 are one dimensional) and threads that are brought up like the police chief's hunt for Jason, one of the teen's pregnancies, etc. are dropped a scene after they're brought up. Combined with repeated, REPEATED description, this is just not a fun book.

[Dope Ghost Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah, it's a goofy novelization based on the early working script for Friday The 13th Part 3 and it pales slightly to the novelization written by Simon Hawke, but I still dug this slashertastic book!

It's a little bizarre. Jason doesn't have his normal trademark hockey mask, it's described as being more shabby and porcelain white. Also, he laughs and acts a bit more predatory, but we don't get to read any passages on what he's thinking necessarily. Also, the ending is significantly different. Weird.

Fun but strange.

[Lucas Dickinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok… for some reasons there are two official novelizations of Friday the 13th part 3. This one was based off the original script before things were changed. So there are some very noticeable differences from the movie. Not bad at all, but not quite as good as the movie.

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borderline awful, but I loved it so much. If Jason laughed this much in the actual movie I would be stopping people on the street to talk about it. Low effort cash grab 80s pulp you have saved me once again...

[christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

more of a 3.5 instead of a 4

[Riley Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

just for fun! it had some differences from the movie

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worth checking out for some alternate choices that makes this different from the movie, however the book is REAL BAD hahaha.

[Brett Littman · Rating 4 out of 5]

May have preferred this version to what we got. He can't be alive!

[Justin Gerber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very confusing alternate finale.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was much more excited about finding this book for like a penny at Goodwill than about reading it. The best part of it is that the title includes "3-D" (the book is not, incidentally, 3-D, it doesn't even have raised print on the cover). Most of you probably don't remember the last surge of 3-D movies from the early eighties, which for me started with "Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone" (a movie with a plot borrowed from a Gamma World module). Then there was a craze for releasing "Part III" movies in 3-D: "Amityville III," "Jaws III," and "Friday the Thirteenth Part III" were all released that way. I don't even think those are all from the same studio, so it caught on all over Hollywood.

That's all by way of historical digression, back to this book. Apart from it's title, the dedication is great. The author chose to dedicate it to Margaret and Ed Hernon, "and those Sunday breakfasts at the Colonial." I guess these people are friends of his. Do you suppose that they were honored to have a novellization of a slasher movie dedicated to them? Do they have a framed copy of the dedication on their wall? Do you suppose that he has like a list of people to dedicate his published books to, and they just happened to be at the bottom? Maybe they run a bed & breakfast place called the Colonial.

So, obviously this book has given me a certain amount of amusement. Between the title, the dedication, the "16 pages of terrifying photos," and the lurid cover, it earns its two stars without even being read. I did read it, though, because that's how I am. It's exactly what you expect.

[Stuart Hazleton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, so do I think was a GOOD book--as in well written literature?

I'm gonna plead the 5th on that question--but for any horror fans out there who'd like to read the alternate ending filmed for Part III (where Jason's momma WAS NOT involved,) this book is a fun addition to the world of all things Friday.

It's long out of print, so it's pricey--but for any full-on Friday fanatic, it's a must read!

[KAggie97 · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not bad, but the choppy sentences and less-than-stellar segues are distracting. The ending is, to me, bizarre. It seems like the author had it finished but, for some reason, cut out sections and lost a few of the cutouts and then glued together what he was left with. (I know there's an alternate ending.) It's truly weird, in my opinion. It's definitely worth reading, especially if you're a fan of the "Friday the 13th" franchise.