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James Kahn is an American doctor and author best recognized for his novelization of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, he attended the University of Chicago, where he did his degree in medical studies, before undergoing his post-graduate training where he specialized in Emergency Medicine; one which he completed at USC-LA County Hospital and UCLA.

Passionate about writing and music, James wrote with whatever free time he could find–publishing science fiction and murder mysteries novels.

James also wrote the novelizations of the films Poltergeist and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, as well as a number of popular TV shows such as Melrose Place and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

More about James Kahn

Genres: Fantasy / SF, Historical Fiction

Born: 1947

United States

Website: https://thatjameskahn.com/

Non Series

  • Diagnosis: Murder (1978)
  • The Goonies (1985)
  • The Echo Vector (1987)
  • Incarnate (2014)

Indiana Jones (Films)

  1. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
  2. The Adventures of Indiana Jones (2008)

New World

  1. World Enough, and Time (1980)
  2. Time's Dark Laughter (1982)
  3. Timefall (1987)

Poltergeist

  1. Poltergeist (1982)
  2. Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

Star Wars

  1. Return of the Jedi (1983)
  2. The Star Wars Trilogy (1983)

Detailed book overview

Non Series

Diagnosis: Murder

Modern Los Angeles Dr. Watson discovers a beautiful young patient of his is a suspect in a murder investigation – and that he, alone, can produce the evidence that will clear her. Watson takes on the detecting characteristics of his fictional British namesake in order to save his patient’s life – only to discover a much darker secret at the heart of the matter. The culmination of the case is personally distressing, but Watson finds he likes the detective business, and may pursue it in the future.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1978
Ebook: B007FCANYO
The Goonies

It's summer in the small seaport town of Astoria and The Goonies are restless. Big developers threaten to take over the town. Then Mikey finds an old pirate map and the kids take off to find the loot that can save their neighborhood. But they never counted on skeletons with swords, a booby-trapped underground passage and the murderous ex-con, all of whom want the Goonies' head. Take the oath. Join the adventure.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1985
ISBN: 978-0446328418
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
The Echo Vector

Emergency doctor Jordan Marks notices more nosebleed patients coming into his ER than usual. No big deal – until they begin mysteriously dying. Meanwhile a serial killer is on the loose in LA – and Jordan is the only one who begins to see a connection between the bleeding disease and the killer. The crisis turns personal when his girlfriend gets a nosebleed – and then disappears.

Now Jordan has to find her before the serial killer makes her his next victim. In the course of that hunt, while avoiding the serial killer himself, Jordan unravels the threads of what turn out to be a much more elaborate conspiracy. The problem is… Jordan is beginning to get nosebleeds.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1987
ISBN: 978-0312910495
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Incarnate

Two men, born decades apart, are caught up in a complex web of reincarnation and murder. Chicagoan Vic learns his fiancée is being stalked — just as his last wife was, before she was killed. And Los Angeleno Guy begins having dreams of a 19th century murder in Ireland — dreams he's convinced are from his own past life — in which he was the killer.

Guy also learns he has a brain tumor, which his doctors tell him is the cause of these delusions. But he believes the tumor is the karmic result of his past-life murders, and if he can only find out what it was he did back then, and to whom, he can atone —and maybe the tumor will go away.

What ensues are the parallel stories of these two men — Guy hunting down clues to his past life in an old Irish manor, where a young bride is living with a man whose ancient family portraits look strikingly like the murderer in Guy’s dreams; and Vic, trying to catch the man who’s stalking his fiancée before she gets killed, like his first wife.

How these seemingly unrelated dramas connect leads to the shocking surprise that turns everything on its head — and may stop a series of murders, if those involved can just unravel the true meaning of the dreams, and the reincarnative labyrinth that binds them all.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 2014
ISBN: 978-1619335356
Publisher: FastPencil Premiere

Indiana Jones (Films)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The time is 1935. Through a series of misadventures in Shanghai—and a narrow escape from death—Indiana Jones finds himself in a remote village in India. A mysterious old shaman tells him that his arrival has been foreseen—and that he and his companions are destined to save the villagers.

So begins the most daring, dark, and dangerous quest of Indiana Jones’s career.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1984
Ebook: B002H2I4DO
Publisher: Ballantine Books
The Adventures of Indiana Jones

This volume includes the following novels:

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

With bullwhip in hand, Indiana Jones has unearthed a wealth of ancient treasures.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the fearless archeologist journeys from Nepal to Cairo to the Mediterranean, dodging poisons, traps, and snakes, battling rivals old and new–all in pursuit of an ancient artifact that holds the key to dazzling, invincible power.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom finds our intrepid hero in a remote village in India, where a mysterious old shaman tells him that his arrival has been foreseen–and that he must retrieve a stolen mystical stone.

And finally, Indy must face the most challenging and personal endeavor of his life: rescue his estranged father, the eminent professor Dr. Henry Jones, from a Nazi’s lair, and recover the legendary Holy Grail. Yet Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade doesn’t mean the adventure is over...

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 2008
ISBN: 978-0345501271
Publisher: Del Rey

New World

World Enough, and Time

World Enough, and Time is the first book of this spellbinding action adventure trilogy. In a post-apocalyptic world 200 years from now, humans are a dying species.

When Joshua's wife is kidnapped by a griffin and a vampire, he and his comrades, a centaur and an android, set out to rescue her across a surreal landscape filled with seemingly mythological creatures.

But the explanation for the existence of these beasts is based in science, and informed by nightmare. And the odyssey isn't over until they confront the evil cabal whose goal is nothing less than the extinction of the human race.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1980
ISBN: 978-1607466680
Publisher: FastPencil Premiere
Time's Dark Laughter

Book 2 finds Joshua and his friends alive, but not well, three years after the calamitous rescue in Book 1. Beauty's wife, Rose, disappears again, this time drawn compulsively to others of her kind — those with connecting ports implanted in their brains by the Queen's minions. But now Joshua goes missing as well, ensnared by the Queen herself, to father a semi-human child with the telekinetic potential of destroying the entire planet.

It's up to beautiful android Jasmine, powerful centaur Beauty, and Joshua's own disturbing, ghostly doppelganger to save the lives of those they love, even as they pull the crumbling world from the brink of destruction.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1982
ISBN: 978-1619336681
Publisher: FastPencil Premiere
Timefall

It has been years since Joshua the Scribe, Lon the Vampire, Jasmine the Neuroman, and Beauty the Centaur journeyed to save their lost families from the strange Queen in the City With No Name. And as time went on, they were visited by ghosts of themselves, sometimes aiding in their quest and sometimes just a haunting presence.

But were they really ghosts? Or were they simply incarnations of their own souls, visiting from another time to learn from them as well as to teach and to save their own world from the imminent destruction of the Timefall?

In this climactic denouement to the dystopian future envisioned in World Enough, and Time and Time's Dark Laughter, the first two books in this trilogy, a new Joshua and friends fall through a complex weave of time tunnels, landing in the terrain of the first adventures.

But to their dismay, they discover that the fates of both times are interdependent, and the new world's Joshua must enlist forces from the old to save the whole tipping universe from extinction.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1987
ISBN: 978-1619333895
Publisher: FastPencil Premiere

Poltergeist

Poltergeist

From author:

This was my first novelization. I’d been working a Santa Monica emergency room, when I was called to the set of ET: The Extraterrestrial to help resuscitate the little alien guy. I got in a hazmat suit and pounded on his chest, but between takes got to know Steven Spielberg a bit, and gave him a copy of my recently released sci-fi novel, World Enough, and Time. I think he passed it on to the producer, Frank Marshall, but in any case they offered me the Poltergeist novelization later that week.

The catch was that Poltergeist was in post-production at the time, and under the gun, so I only got the job if I could guarantee delivery in less than one month. I got some of my doctor buddies to cover all my ER shifts for the next month, and holed up in Steven’s office on the MGM lot for the next 28 days, writing longhand 15 hours a day, and doing two drafts in that time. Some weird things happened in that office, too – but that’s for another web page.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1982
ISBN: 978-0446302227
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Poltergeist II: The Other Side

Having escaped the horrors of their haunted Cuesta Verde home, the Freeling family moves to Phoenix only to find themselves tormented by a mysterious voice, a swarm of bees, a walking dead man, and other terrors

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1986
ISBN: 978-0345333827
Publisher: Ballantine Books

Star Wars

Return of the Jedi

It was a dark time for the rebel alliance...Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, had been delivered into the hands of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Determined to rescue him, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Lando Calrissian launched a hazardous mission against Jabba's Tatooine stronghold.

The Rebel commanders gathered all the warships of the Rebel fleet into a single giant armada. And Darth Vader and the Emperor, who had ordered construction to begin on a new and even more powerful Death Star, were making plans to crush the Rebel Alliance once and for all.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1983
ISBN: 978-0590066594
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
The Star Wars Trilogy

Forty years after the phenomenon was born, Star Wars remains one of the greatest science fantasy sagas ever told. Read these stories and rediscover the wonder of the epic that begins: 

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Star Wars Trilogy is a must-read for anyone who wants to relive the excitement, the magic, and the sheer entertainment of this legendary saga—now and forever.

Author: James Kahn
First Release: 1983
ISBN: 978-1101885376
Publisher: Del Rey