Okay, it looks like my first attempt at this thread was misleading, and the existing "books about TV" thread did not cover what I was attempting to cover at all (the existing thread is about non-fiction books that discuss TV, while I wanted to discuss fiction), so I'm restarting it with a clearer title.

There are many forms TV shows can take to infiltrate other media. Here are some examples I've seen to start the discussion off, because I've always been curious about them.

I've been flipping through the "new season" of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in comic book form, even though I wasn't the hugest fan, and found it intriguing. I'm wondering what all of you out there who WERE fans thought of it. Having seen the Angel episode "Smile Time" and laughed, I'm keeping track of the comic continuation in which Spike runs across some affiliated puppets in Japan.

Do the Lost jigsaw puzzles actually reveal anything?

Are the Law and Order PC games as lame as they look? The CSI games?

Do you find Horatio Caine as maddening in the novelizations as you do in the show?

Ever played the Stargate tabletop RPG? Is IT as lame as it looks?

Other examples?

As a teen, I owned all the Dawson's Creek novels. I remember thinking they were shit when I read them, but I loved the Creek so much that I kept buying them, online of course. I couldn't bear to let anyone know that at the age of 17, I was reading DC novels! I just recently found them, thumbed through a few, and decided once and for all that they were utter shit. They sold relatively fast on eBay, though.

I do own the C.S.I. board game, and its really fun and a little bit hard. My sis, who has a degree in bio-technology (basically CSIing), always wins, so I jockey to be on her team. The only problem is you have to buy the refill packs.

The L&O game is a bastardized version of L&O and C.S.I. combined, and it sucks terribly. If anyone else has played, please tell me that my friends and I are not complete idiots, and that the game really does suck!

I've played the first L&O game and didn't hate it, didn't love it. The CSI game, same thing. Both were entertaining enough, but had pretty much no replay value for me.

I read a couple of the CSI paperbacks, mainly 'cause Max Allen Collins wrote them, and I'm a fan of some of his comic book work. They were pretty good, but the CSI: Miami one I read was pretty weak. (Then again, look at what he had to work with.)

Oh, and any of Peter David's Star Trek books are pretty good, too.

Imzadi was a masterpiece, and Imzadi II wasn't too shabby, either.