Wizard's Blog

Heat Wave book cover

I just finished reading Heat Wave by Richard Castle – a tie-in novel for the TV show Castle (I wrote about the show previously).

There are some TV tie-in novels that I’ve enjoyed – for Burn Notice¹, Psych² and Monk³, however they all had a certain pulpiness in common.  Not just because they immediately came out in paperback (which I’ve always taken as a sign of the publisher putting in less effort because they don’t expect to make a lot of money from the book), but because they were a bit hobbled by their connection to the TV series.  The writers can’t kill off or otherwise make any major changes to the characters, their back story or setting – something writers of original novels can do at will.

Heat Wave is different – it’s meta-fiction.  In the TV series Richard Castle is a writer, and has written a book called Heat Wave - this book is written as if it is that book, by him.  For a brief while we get to live inside the world of the TV series because we can read the book that they’re reading.  The illusion is maintained flawlessly – from the dedication and afterword to the picture on the back cover.

An advantage Heat Wave has over most (if not all) other tie-in novels is that because it’s supposed to have been written by the TV character instead of about the TV character, the actual author can change things without causing any problems.  Any differences to the TV series are put down to the meta-author changing the names to protect the innocent or improving on (what is to him) real life by making it juicier.

A difference between the TV series and the book is that Castle is the main character of the series, but Nikki Heat is the main character of the book.  The main difference this makes is that although a good portion of the series is dedicated to Castle’s personal life, that aspect is almost completely missing from the book.  Once again the meta nature of the book smooths this over – Castle’s mother gets a cameo in the book, and if you’ve seen the TV series you can easily imagine her haranguing her son to be written in.  His daughter is completely missing, but as a protective father you can imagine Richard Castle wanting to spare her any embarrassment by leaving her out.

The book is further tied back into the TV series by the actual cover being used in an episode and the actual page number of a sex scene in the book (p105) mentioned in the episode.

Additional meta is provided by Nathan Fillion showing up to book stores and signing the books as Richard Castle.

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• ABC to Publish Novel Tie-in For Hit Show Castle (readersread.com)
• Heat Wave (annetteholland.com)

1. The Fix and The End Game [↩]
2. A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read and Mind Over Magic [↩]
3. Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse, Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii and Mr. Monk and The Blue Flu [↩]

Burn Notice: The End Game book cover

The first book must have done well enough – Tod Goldberg‘s writing another Burn Notice novel - Burn Notice: The End Game is coming out in May!

To be honest I don’t know a lot about it yet, but the fact that it’s Burn Notice is enough

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• Behind the scenes of the Burn Notice books

Book cover via Amazon

I just started reading Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross.  So far it is fantastic (ignore the cover art).

Unusually for books of any kind (even those as good as Mr. Stross’), it keeps inspiring me to get back into writing myself.  I know it sounds strange, but I kept zoning out on almost every page because I kept writing scenes from my book in my head.

I’ve always had a lot of ideas, but I’m terrible at completing anything.  Of course the best novel in the world that never gets written isn’t as good as the worst novel that actually gets written.

I won’t explain the idea in case I don’t get it finished, but it’s completely unrelated to Saturn’s Children and one I had years ago and that’s been in a landing pattern around my head ever since.

I know posting it on the internet will be the same as throwing it away (from a saleability point of view) but I’m not doing it for the money, and I doubt it’ll be long enough or good enough to do anything profitable with anyway.

I want to get started right away, but as it’s late I think I’ll put it off until tomorrow.  I must be getting old – I remember 4am being the best time for inspiration, now I get sleepy before midnight…

P.S. got the post in before midnight (barely) :D

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• Saturn’s Children: an homage to Friday
• Stross’s new novel: Saturn’s Children, a late Heinlein homage

Burn Notice: The Fix book cover

Right now I’m reading Burn Notice: The Fix by Tod Goldberg.

Let me begin by saying that I’m a huge fan of Burn Notice.  It’s among my favourite TV shows¹, so I bought the book as soon as I knew it existed (I did the same think with the Monk books).

I’m such a fan of Burn Notice that I would buy, read and enjoy any book they released, but I couldn’t help but noticing that Burn Notice: The Fix needs more editing.

I found the first mistake on page 4 – instead of Miami-Dade it says Miami-Dad.  And it’s not just spelling – on page 182 it says Overhead, planes were taxiing into and out of Miami International.  Really?  They were taxiing overhead?  Were you buried under the airport?

On the other hand, since the TV show uses first person narration in Michael Westen’s voice, the book being written in the first person feels just right.

I was surprised that there are mentions of sub-prime loans and bank collapses in the book – although our current economic problems have been looming for a while, I didn’t expect to start seeing them in fiction quite so quickly.

So far there has been one really good quote in the book:

“What do you normally eat for breakfast?”

“Al-Quaeda,” I said. “Or yogurt.”

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• Burn Notice novel
• Behind the scenes of the Burn Notice books
• Burn Notice: The Fix – Book Review

1. Monk, Psych, Dexter,  Chuck, House, Bones, Life, Pushing Daisies, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, The Closer, The Middleman, Eureka, Reaper, How I Met Your Mother, True Blood, My Name Is Earl, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Big Bang Theory.  Looking at that list, I guess I watch too much television – that’s only the top ones and only ones that are still being made (bring back Firefly!). [↩]

Laughing Man logo

Having just watched Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig, I was looking for Tachikoma models. I love those little guys, thay’re so cute, I even named my UMPC after them.

Anyway, in the Amazon “Customers Who Bought This Also Bought” section there was a link to a messenger bag with the Laughing Man logo from the first Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex.

I haven’t watched the first Stand Alone Complex, so I looked up the Laughing Man, and it’s amazing.

The caption on the Laughing Man logo is the first line from a quote from J. D. Salinger‘s Catcher in the Rye:

I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn’t have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something they’d have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They’d get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I’d be through with having conversations for the rest of my life.

As an introvert, could I love that quote any more? No, I could not.

I haven’t actually read any Salinger either but because of this I just might have to.

Image from WikipediaIn February, Steven Brust published an unauthorized Firefly fanfic novel on the Internet. I’ve only just got around to finishing it.

Let me first of all say that I am a fan of Firefly – and I mean “fan” in its fullest sense, as in short for “fanatic“. As far as I’m concerned Firefly is the best sci-fi TV show ever made. The dialog was amazing, the unsteady-steadicam effects both on set and in CGI (!) were a breath of fresh air, the writing, the realism… The fact that it was cancelled after a single series is a travesty.

I didn’t think the Serenity movie was anywhere near as good as the Firefly series, though I couldn’t say why – it just didn’t feel the same. I wanted it to be good so very much.

I’ve also been a fan of Steven Brust’s Dragaeran series, which I was introduced to, very strangely, by Penny Arcade. He’s not the best author I’ve ever read – there’s an air of wish fulfillment to his books that smells amateurish, but I still bought almost all of the books in the series. I worried about his Firefly fanfic, as fanfic tends to be amateurish and full of wish fulfillment at the best of times.

However I was very pleasantly surprised – I don’t think the novel could have been better if it’d been written by Joss Whedon himself. He’s got the characters to a T – I could imagine all of the characters in the series saying all of the dialog in the book, thinking the same things (even River!) and acting in the same ways. Brust must have done a lot of research, because he even has all of the Chinese swearing and technical jargon down. Separate from the fanfic aspect, as a novel on its own there’s nothing to complain about – the plotting is clean and professional. All in all a good read.

I do now understand why people complain about reading things on computer screens (although I still view people who print out emails with eyebrow raised).

Image by astrocoz via FlickrI was really looking forward to reading Wicked by Gregory Maguire. It can be fun to look at stories you know from a different angle – for example Scrooged is an amazing perspective on A Christmas Carol. Wicked also had very good press – they even made it into a musical.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

If you think about it, the Wicked Witch of the West isn’t actually in the original story very much. She’s a typical one-dimensional bad guy that attacks the heroes and then gets vanquished. There isn’t really that much interaction between Dorothy and the Witch. Dorothy isn’t even in 99% of Wicked – the story is just concerned with getting the Witch from being a sympathetic character to the point where she takes the actions we see in the original.

For most of the book you are getting to know characters and events that really never matter, because (having seen or read the original story) you know how it’s going to end. It makes no difference what she did as a child. You go into the story knowing the climax, so Maguire doesn’t seem to even try to build up to it – things just happen.

A lot of questions are never answered. There are a lot of Why’s outstanding and you never really find out what happened to half of the characters. A lot of plot points are introduced and nothing ever happens with them. I know there’s a sequel, so maybe things get finished up in that, but a novel should stand on its own.

The book was also quite difficult to read. The language was quite dense. It had me reaching for the dictionary on occasion, but I usually appreciate that in a book. Somehow it was just annoying here. Having read the preview chapters of the Maguire’s other books included at the end of this one, he always seems to write like this. I will not be buying his other books.

I think that was the problem – it was hard work and there was very little reward at the end.

Image via Wikipedia

Oh sweet raptrous joy and other many lovely soft warm things!

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