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Perhaps the strongest and weakest point of Arrival is how closely it follows canon. For younger fans of the series -- ideally, the audience for these Little, Brown novelizations -- this will probably be seen as a good thing. After all, we know exactly what happens in the pilot episode, and at such a seminal point, any deviation can have significant consequences in terms of the mythology of the show. So yes, there was a bit of tightrope walking going on here for various reasons, and I understood why but wasn't especially entertained. I've seen the pilot episode -- several times -- and while reading often felt that I was being told what I already knew.

The most enjoyable parts were those in which we were given a broader view of the characters and the situations that affected them. Learning, for instance, that Lionel Luthor was closing the deal on the Ross' creamed corn factory the day he and Lex flew in and the meteor shower hit; that the two men selling the factory were Pete's father and uncle, Dale and Bill (don't know which is which); that Chloe is supposed to be far more of an urban sophisticate than she's portrayed on the show; that Nell has sold a lot of land to Lionel Luthor through the years. The little details are also nice: I very much liked reading about young Clark walking barefoot on ground that would have been unbearably hot for a typical human being, for instance. Peripheral characters -- in particular, Pete, but also Chloe -- are given more depth in Arrival than they were able to fit onto the small screen for the pilot episode. In general, all of the characters stay true to form and feel familiar (Lana, the sweet young girl who is defined by how she lost her parents; Clark, the self-effacing boy with a heart of gold; Lex, the businessman who hasn't yet lost his sense of decency), but there's no denying that Michael Rosenbaum, Kristin Kreuk, and Tom Welling give color and life to the characters in a way that is lacking in Arrival.

As earlier noted, one of the inherent dangers in novelizing an episode of a TV show is that the mythology is easily compromised -- and that does, in fact, happen here. We learned in a recent episode, Lineage, that Jonathan and Martha Kent actually helped save young Lex from the cornfield; there is no room for such an occurrence in Arrival, nor is there any thought or mention of the fact that Lionel Luthor in turn helped the Kents with Clark's adoption. (In fact, the book explicitly states that Jonathan Kent had never met Lex Luthor before Clark rescued Lex from drowning.)

Because the novels aren't meant to follow each episode of the show exactly, the end of Arrival is actually the end of the episode Metamorphosis -- Clark leaves Lana's necklace for her hanging on her door. Disappointingly, that means we also lose some of the best scenes from the show that lead up to this event (Whitney's confrontation with Clark, Lana's confrontation with Whitney, Lex and Clark discussing the battle of Troy), but that's a personal nitpick. In terms of the books, this needs to happen, as Arrival is clearly meant to stand alone and can't have loose threads.

The book was competently written, but perhaps the most disconcerting aspect was general editing errors that were jarring to find in a work that presumably would have been through several editing processes. It is especially unimpressive considering the book itself is not at all dense. I found no less than eight instances of typos/grammatical errors (which averages to one per chapter, including the epilogue), and it was distracting in the extreme. Might we ask for better editing?

On the whole, I would have enjoyed Arrival much more had I not already seen the pilot episode and the subsequent episodes that flesh out the mythology even more -- but conversely, if I didn't watch the show I'm not sure I'd be interested in reading the book series. So, what to do? If you ask me, Arrival is worth reading if you plan to read any of the other books, just so you know where you stand in terms of the characters/events in the novelizations (so that when you read the books that follow, it will make more sense -- it's Whitney Ellsworth, not Fordman, for example), but if that's not all that important to you, I'd just as soon advise you to start with See No Evil.

Timeline: Lana is three years old when the meteor shower hits, and Lex is nine. We are told that current events take place 12 years later, which makes Lana 15 and Lex 21.