I'm lucky enough to have the complete set of the English GUNDAM novels.
Here's the deal:
they're not novelizations, they're NOVELS by Gundam creator Yoshiyuki
Tomino (did I spell that right?) and translated by Frederik Schodt.
In these novels, Tomino followed the original series VERY loosely, changing
events to suit his own taste.  For example, Amuro is no longer a civilian
but a cadet pilot, and the Pegasus, (the WhiteBase) is populated not by
refugees, but by cadets.  Fra Bow rarely makes an appearance, instead Amuro
shacks up with Salia Mas.  That's right, he's sleeping with Char's sister! 
You can pretty much consider this an alternate reality.  
Schodt, in his less-than-infinite wisdom, used his own spellings for
character names instead of the more accepted ones.  For example, "Char"
became "Sha."

Schodt's translation is somewhat clumsy, as he leaned more towards exact
translation as opposed to actual readability.  Still, this trilogy is a
must-have for any U.S. Gundam otaku.  Haunt the used bookstores, raid the
libraries, SPAM Bandai and Del Ray books if you haved to, just GET THIS
SERIES!!!


----------

From: Wai-kwong Wong <waikwong@total.net>
To: Nightman <nightman@provide.net>
Cc: AlphSailor@aol.com; ffml@fanfic.com
Subject: Re: [FFML] The Gundam novels mentioned in passing
Date: Monday, January 04, 1999 11:56 PM



Nightman wrote:

AlphSailor@aol.com wrote:

Gundam novelizations? They do exist in english version, and in US? I

didn't

know that.

Yes they do, though they're probably not in print right at the moment.
They were translations of the authorized Japanese novelizations and
released when I was in college, circa 1989. I think they might follow
the continuity of a Gundam manga not the tv series, because some
die-hard Gundam junkies back who had copies of the movies made comments
about some details differing.

As I recall, and as someone who's only seen like, a half-dozen episodes
of Zeta Gundam (3rd gen raw off Japanese tv) they were pretty good
novelizations. Something I've always found amusing was a note from the
translator in the front of the novel. He said that the reason that the
character "Char" Aznable had his name given that way was that it was
mis-written on some imported models when they were new. According to

the

way it was spelled in Japanese characters, and pronounced, it should
have been "Sha" and he proceded to use that spelling the whole series.
Despite the sound reasoning, it was like fingernails on the blackboard
to those die-hard fans I knew. I'm kinda curious how AnimeVillage
rendered it in their releases. ^-^

Nightman
*feeling misty enough to get out that tape of the first 12 eps of

Ranma.

Third gen, off tv... with Japanese commercials. ^_^;;*

Unfortunately these Novels are out of print presently. As for Char's name

Sha,

the translator said he approximated athe sound from Japanese as when he
translated these novels way back when, it was the first Gundam translated.