Heat Wave (original) (raw)

Heat Wave	[Oct. 15th, 2009\|10:05 pm]madripoor_rose
(No, not Mick.)The tv series Castle's premise is that famous mystery novelist Richard Castle is riding along with Detective Kate Beckett, so he can base a new character, Nikki Heat, on her.In an unusual move, instead of an ordinary episode-like tie-in novel, the first novel, Heat Wave by Richard Castle, has been released. And is 26th on the New York Times bestseller list. The book is in character, right down to the author's note and photo of Nathan Fillion. Who has also done some signings as Richard Castle at California Borders bookstores.Something similiar was done in Bad Twin, by 'Gary Troup' a Lost media tie in supposedly written by the guy who gets sucked into the turbine in the first few minutes of the series pilot.I just got it from the library a few days ago. Good book. I'd like to know who the ghostwriter is and if they've done any other mysteries.(I have to warn, there is an attempted rape scene that might be triggery.) A Trump wannabe real estate guru gone bankrupt is thrown off the balcony of his luxury apartment. Lots of suspects, bitchy trophy wife, bookies, etc. Was surprised by who the killer was.It can be read as a tie-in easily, since Castle is thinly fictionalizing people. His own Marty-Stu, Jameson Rook, a journalist shadowing the homicide unit for an article. Detective Nikki Heat. Detectives Raley and Ochoa are of course Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito. ME and Nikki's galpal Lauren Perry is Laurie Parish.A nod to slashers and fandom mash-ups, Raley and Ochoa are 'a duo affectionately condensed to Roach.'I also liked the reference to Rook's Broadway star mother, known as the Grand Damn.And incredibly geeky cool, in last week's episode, Fool Me Once, Kate's reading an ARC of the book, pretending she's not. To tease her, Rick tells her there's a love scene between their characters on page 105. She scurries to the ladies room to check.It's really there. On 105.The only thing I didn't like, sigh, was sexualized violence. A russian mafiya thug makes a rape threat in interrogation. Later, (the heat wave of the title) has Nikki walking around her apartment naked after a bath. And the thug shows up. Nearly strangles her before she gets in a solid hit with an iron she had heating up to touch up her linen blazer for next morning.But all in all a good read.
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Heat Wave

[Oct. 15th, 2009|10:05 pm]madripoor_rose

(No, not Mick.)The tv series Castle's premise is that famous mystery novelist Richard Castle is riding along with Detective Kate Beckett, so he can base a new character, Nikki Heat, on her.In an unusual move, instead of an ordinary episode-like tie-in novel, the first novel, Heat Wave by Richard Castle, has been released. And is 26th on the New York Times bestseller list. The book is in character, right down to the author's note and photo of Nathan Fillion. Who has also done some signings as Richard Castle at California Borders bookstores.Something similiar was done in Bad Twin, by 'Gary Troup' a Lost media tie in supposedly written by the guy who gets sucked into the turbine in the first few minutes of the series pilot.I just got it from the library a few days ago. Good book. I'd like to know who the ghostwriter is and if they've done any other mysteries.(I have to warn, there is an attempted rape scene that might be triggery.) A Trump wannabe real estate guru gone bankrupt is thrown off the balcony of his luxury apartment. Lots of suspects, bitchy trophy wife, bookies, etc. Was surprised by who the killer was.It can be read as a tie-in easily, since Castle is thinly fictionalizing people. His own Marty-Stu, Jameson Rook, a journalist shadowing the homicide unit for an article. Detective Nikki Heat. Detectives Raley and Ochoa are of course Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito. ME and Nikki's galpal Lauren Perry is Laurie Parish.A nod to slashers and fandom mash-ups, Raley and Ochoa are 'a duo affectionately condensed to Roach.'I also liked the reference to Rook's Broadway star mother, known as the Grand Damn.And incredibly geeky cool, in last week's episode, Fool Me Once, Kate's reading an ARC of the book, pretending she's not. To tease her, Rick tells her there's a love scene between their characters on page 105. She scurries to the ladies room to check.It's really there. On 105.The only thing I didn't like, sigh, was sexualized violence. A russian mafiya thug makes a rape threat in interrogation. Later, (the heat wave of the title) has Nikki walking around her apartment naked after a bath. And the thug shows up. Nearly strangles her before she gets in a solid hit with an iron she had heating up to touch up her linen blazer for next morning.But all in all a good read.

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(Deleted comment)I know I've joked about tie in novels being 200 or so pages of quality gen/het fic...but this really does have a weird meta 'in universe RPF' feeling to it.It's been a long time since I've seen media tie ins novelizing episodes, so I'm assuming they'll do more original plots, if the series continues.(Deleted comment)He actually did author signings in character at a couple of Borders bookstores, so he'd probably do it at a con.Pretty cool, I hope they write a couple more of these. I don't know, I think the fact that the attempted rape scene ends with the woman -- who happens to be a cop -- fighting off her attacker in such an ingenious way kind of subverts the standard sexualized violence trope. That's my out of context take on it, though; I haven't actually read the book or seen the show. It just seemed a little gratuitious. Like the whole point of the scene was to imagine Stana Katic naked and in danger.Well...is there anything essentially wrong with that? Seriously, is there anything morally reprehensible about imagining an attractive woman naked? Personally, I think that, from a storytelling perspective, there's nothing wrong with sexualized violence, given that it combines two majors pulls for emotional investment. It's when the concept of sexualized violence is overused in a specific, damaging way to the point that it overshoots being a trope and becomes an expected cliche that there's a problem. After all, it's to be expected that characters in a suitably dramatic, action-filled work of fiction would encounter violence. And, because humans are hard-wired to appreciate sexual displays, it's to be expected that the characters encountering violence will be somewhat attractive. With that in mind, I don't think there's anything especially objectionable about the idea of a female character being attacked in her apartment. (Though it bears pointing out that I would find the exact same event in real life shocking and horrible.) If the female character had been reduced to a cliche-ridden cardboard cutout by the trauma of it all, then I would object, but based off your description? I don't see anything especially wrong with it.On the other hand, if it didn't fit into the narrative and seemed tacked on for the sake of fanservice (assuming that's what you meant by gratuitious) then that's an entirely separate issue, having more to do with the skill of the author than sex and violence tropes. That is what I meant by gratuitious. They can't do a nude scene on network television, but here, the reader can imagine the hot actress naked.And I agree that it can be used effectively, but it's become the cliche to up the drama for a female character with a rape/attempted rape, and disturbingly, seems to have a taint of happening to strong women characters to either explain why they got tough and cynical, or to show them vulnerable and knock them down a peg. And it's freaking everywhere. The last two other books I happened to read had a rape/ rape threat to female characters. I'm just tired of it.

Comments:

**(Deleted comment)I know I've joked about tie in novels being 200 or so pages of quality gen/het fic...but this really does have a weird meta 'in universe RPF' feeling to it.It's been a long time since I've seen media tie ins novelizing episodes, so I'm assuming they'll do more original plots, if the series continues.(Deleted comment)**He actually did author signings in character at a couple of Borders bookstores, so he'd probably do it at a con.Pretty cool, I hope they write a couple more of these. I don't know, I think the fact that the attempted rape scene ends with the woman -- who happens to be a cop -- fighting off her attacker in such an ingenious way kind of subverts the standard sexualized violence trope. That's my out of context take on it, though; I haven't actually read the book or seen the show. It just seemed a little gratuitious. Like the whole point of the scene was to imagine Stana Katic naked and in danger.Well...is there anything essentially wrong with that? Seriously, is there anything morally reprehensible about imagining an attractive woman naked? Personally, I think that, from a storytelling perspective, there's nothing wrong with sexualized violence, given that it combines two majors pulls for emotional investment. It's when the concept of sexualized violence is overused in a specific, damaging way to the point that it overshoots being a trope and becomes an expected cliche that there's a problem. After all, it's to be expected that characters in a suitably dramatic, action-filled work of fiction would encounter violence. And, because humans are hard-wired to appreciate sexual displays, it's to be expected that the characters encountering violence will be somewhat attractive. With that in mind, I don't think there's anything especially objectionable about the idea of a female character being attacked in her apartment. (Though it bears pointing out that I would find the exact same event in real life shocking and horrible.) If the female character had been reduced to a cliche-ridden cardboard cutout by the trauma of it all, then I would object, but based off your description? I don't see anything especially wrong with it.On the other hand, if it didn't fit into the narrative and seemed tacked on for the sake of fanservice (assuming that's what you meant by gratuitious) then that's an entirely separate issue, having more to do with the skill of the author than sex and violence tropes. That is what I meant by gratuitious. They can't do a nude scene on network television, but here, the reader can imagine the hot actress naked.And I agree that it can be used effectively, but it's become the cliche to up the drama for a female character with a rape/attempted rape, and disturbingly, seems to have a taint of happening to strong women characters to either explain why they got tough and cynical, or to show them vulnerable and knock them down a peg. And it's freaking everywhere. The last two other books I happened to read had a rape/ rape threat to female characters. I'm just tired of it.