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Castle: "When the Bough Breaks" 10/19 - Grading & Discussion

Grading

  • Excellent

    Votes: 10 41.7%
  • Above average

    Votes: 13 54.2%
  • Average

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • Below average

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Poor

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    24
I always figured that since Castle had multiple Derek Storm books there would be multiple Nikki Heat books as well, allowing the show to continue as needed. It surprised me that it actually was addressed as a plot point.

I got the impression that there was always the potential for more NH books -- which might be why he was still hanging around -- but accepting the "certain British secret agent" offer would've precluded Castle from doing any more NH books at least for several years. So it was a choice between doing more NH and doing Bond. And when Heat Wave premiered so strongly, the publisher made Castle a firm offer for three more books, making it definite rather than potential, and offered an even bigger advance than he would've gotten for the Bond books, perhaps because the publisher was aware of the Bond offer and wanted to make sure Castle stayed where he was.

And I still don't get why they'd hire a mystery writer to do a spy series.
 
Maybe they wanted to back to their roots and be more holmes and less guns and toys.

When was James Bond anything like Sherlock Holmes? The literary Bond was never a detective, more of a cold-blooded thug, assassin, and sadist.

Besides, I think the "toys" are a function of the movies, not the books. Castle was being pegged to take over the book series for at least three volumes.
 
Maybe they wanted to back to their roots and be more holmes and less guns and toys.

When was James Bond anything like Sherlock Holmes? The literary Bond was never a detective, more of a cold-blooded thug, assassin, and sadist.

Besides, I think the "toys" are a function of the movies, not the books. Castle was being pegged to take over the book series for at least three volumes.

We don't really know it was Bond though, do we? Did they ever actually say which British spy it was?
 
^Of course they couldn't say the name onscreen for copyright reasons, but it's pretty obvious who they intended it to be. I mean, what other British secret agent in literature is famous enough that everyone who heard "a certain British secret agent" would instantly know who was being talked about? And I think there was a bit of a musical nod to the first few notes of the Bond theme at one point in the soundtrack.

And regardless, the question remains. Spy stories are a different genre from mystery stories. Okay, according to Wikipedia, one post-Fleming Bond novel was by Kingsley Amis, who also had some mystery fiction to his credit; but he was known for writings in a diverse range of genres. Castle specializes in mysteries; as far as we know, he's never worked in any other genre. Also, he's an American, and the last American to write Bond novels (Raymond Benson) generated some controversy due to his nationality. So he seems like an odd choice. It was a bit of a stretch conceptually.
 
In the meantime, I see that HEAT WAVE by "Richard Castle" is #44 on the USA TODAY bestseller list today. And apparently Nathan Fillion is doing book signings as Castle!

That is sheer genius!
 
It's a really thin book, not actually the size of the one shown in the TV show. But it has the same cover. And there's a bio for Richard Castle with Nathan Fillion's picture.
 
Apparently, the book exists. There was a brief article about it in USA TODAY this morning. And it's on the bestseller list.
 
HAving bought the book, I can conform that it is a real book. And, after talking up the staff at the local Boarders, they tell me that it is selling very well.
 
^Not surprising. The audience for even a moderately successful TV series is huge compared to the audience for a typical novel, so if even a small fraction of the TV audience buys the book, it would sell really well by book standards.
 
I'm happy it got picked up for a full season, he is having better luck with this than he did with Firefly at least.

Good ep, I look forward to next week.
 
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