![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Occasionally, my computer has a seizure wherein it resets my hard drive parameters and reassigns my COM ports. It's easily fixed by resetting the default parameters and ports in Safe mode, but it never fails to send my blood pressure into orbit because I'm convinced that this will be the time it doesn't come back.
It had a seizure last night right after I'd written 1300 words on Et Tu IX, right after I'd written what I considered some of my best work in months, if not years. Thankfully, I'm paranoid and save every half-page and use Autosave every five minutes, but I could only imagine the horror I'd've felt had I not. Computers are both a boon and a curse to modern writers; one the one hand, they've revolutionized editing. On the other, they hold the promise of catastrophic failure that could, at any time, and with any keystroke, send their life's work and pontential Pulitzer into the abyss. At least your old IBM Selectric would never go berserk and delete the only copy of your manuscript while simultaneously printing thirteen copies of the "fuck you" letter you wrote to your mother after a fantastic row over your housecleaning skills or lack thereof. It's a trade off, I guess. Lord knows I'd be nothing without the immediate succor of Backspace and DEL.
And yes, I burned my latest babies to CDRWs posthaste.
I finally read Four Walls, the latest CSI:NY tie-in novel. It's markedly better than the previous three, though this might seem faint praise since the uni-colored dribblings from my chili-tormented ass would also qualify as an improvement on Kaminsky's blundering, deathless, template prose. But DeCandido has obviously given the show a modicum of dignity by taking the unprecedented step of actually watching it before he sat down to write.
The characters sound like themselves when they speak and act like themselves on the page. Mac is Mac, and Flack is Flack, right down to his refusal to take his Percocet for fear of being weak and his chafing at surrendering his weapon in prison. Danny is Danny, at least until Lindsay gets involved, but since she also exhibits such personality-altering, mighty morphin poon powers in canon, I can't fault him there. Lindsay is a whiny, self-absorbed, Montana-obsessed doofus, so that fits as well, but I'd by lying if I said I didn't wonder how much his immersion into fannish culture has influenced his perceptions of the characters.
Everyone gets screen time here, even Gerrard, Angell, Adam, and Sinclair, and each character plays to their strengths. DeCandido is true to the characters as they've been presented in canon, but he makes no judgments based on that presentation. Take Gerrard , for example. He readily acknowledges the tension between him and Mac as a result of the Dobson case and the subsequent IAB investigation, but he doesn't skew to Mac's side. In fact, his Gerrard makes a damn fine argument as to how Mac owes him for having the courtesy to inform him of the investigation when Sinclair wanted it to be a secret. So, while DeCandido is clearly writing about Our Heroes, he's not a mindless fanboy apologist for them.
The book wasn't perfect. I found the cases sturdy but boring, and the resolution to the Washburne case was a bit weak. I was also dubious of the possibility that Flack would still be in sufficient agony a year after the bombing to need a heavy opiate like Percocet, but I'm grateful beyond words to see the fallout from the bombing explored in any measure, so I'm not going to carp on that. I've never had my guts blown open, so I can't say that it isn't true.
For any Hawkes lovers, DeCandido also treats on Hawkes' arrest on suspicion of murder and how returning to a prison for a case might affect him. Hurrah for continuity. If only the show were so diligent. I sincerely hope that the tie-in franchise remains in DeCandido's hands for the foreseeable future.
A-
It had a seizure last night right after I'd written 1300 words on Et Tu IX, right after I'd written what I considered some of my best work in months, if not years. Thankfully, I'm paranoid and save every half-page and use Autosave every five minutes, but I could only imagine the horror I'd've felt had I not. Computers are both a boon and a curse to modern writers; one the one hand, they've revolutionized editing. On the other, they hold the promise of catastrophic failure that could, at any time, and with any keystroke, send their life's work and pontential Pulitzer into the abyss. At least your old IBM Selectric would never go berserk and delete the only copy of your manuscript while simultaneously printing thirteen copies of the "fuck you" letter you wrote to your mother after a fantastic row over your housecleaning skills or lack thereof. It's a trade off, I guess. Lord knows I'd be nothing without the immediate succor of Backspace and DEL.
And yes, I burned my latest babies to CDRWs posthaste.
I finally read Four Walls, the latest CSI:NY tie-in novel. It's markedly better than the previous three, though this might seem faint praise since the uni-colored dribblings from my chili-tormented ass would also qualify as an improvement on Kaminsky's blundering, deathless, template prose. But DeCandido has obviously given the show a modicum of dignity by taking the unprecedented step of actually watching it before he sat down to write.
The characters sound like themselves when they speak and act like themselves on the page. Mac is Mac, and Flack is Flack, right down to his refusal to take his Percocet for fear of being weak and his chafing at surrendering his weapon in prison. Danny is Danny, at least until Lindsay gets involved, but since she also exhibits such personality-altering, mighty morphin poon powers in canon, I can't fault him there. Lindsay is a whiny, self-absorbed, Montana-obsessed doofus, so that fits as well, but I'd by lying if I said I didn't wonder how much his immersion into fannish culture has influenced his perceptions of the characters.
Everyone gets screen time here, even Gerrard, Angell, Adam, and Sinclair, and each character plays to their strengths. DeCandido is true to the characters as they've been presented in canon, but he makes no judgments based on that presentation. Take Gerrard , for example. He readily acknowledges the tension between him and Mac as a result of the Dobson case and the subsequent IAB investigation, but he doesn't skew to Mac's side. In fact, his Gerrard makes a damn fine argument as to how Mac owes him for having the courtesy to inform him of the investigation when Sinclair wanted it to be a secret. So, while DeCandido is clearly writing about Our Heroes, he's not a mindless fanboy apologist for them.
The book wasn't perfect. I found the cases sturdy but boring, and the resolution to the Washburne case was a bit weak. I was also dubious of the possibility that Flack would still be in sufficient agony a year after the bombing to need a heavy opiate like Percocet, but I'm grateful beyond words to see the fallout from the bombing explored in any measure, so I'm not going to carp on that. I've never had my guts blown open, so I can't say that it isn't true.
For any Hawkes lovers, DeCandido also treats on Hawkes' arrest on suspicion of murder and how returning to a prison for a case might affect him. Hurrah for continuity. If only the show were so diligent. I sincerely hope that the tie-in franchise remains in DeCandido's hands for the foreseeable future.
A-
Tags: