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Category Archives: Graphic Novels

Richard Castle’s DEADLY STORM: A Derrick Storm Mystery

Deadly Storm The immortal Oscar Wilde said that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” It’s all I can think about when I read a Castle book.

Castle is a show on ABC about a mystery writer, Richard Castle, who is on a perpetual ride-along with NYPD detective Kate Beckett. Being a fan of the mystery genre and writers in general, this show appeals to me quite a bit. It’s generally a good mix of drama, comedy, and good old-fashioned sleuthing (though I could do with a bit less drama at times). It doesn’t hurt that Nathan Fillion (of Joss Whedon’s short-lived but much beloved Firefly) plays the title character.

But what made me really fall in love with the show is that they have been publishing the books that Castle is supposedly working on each season. And they have become bestsellers, these books written by a fictional author. (I always wonder if real, live mystery authors get upset about that.) With so many shows and movies ripping their stories from books, or series of books, it’s a fun change to see the show itself producing an original series of books as a tie-in.

That series is the Nikki Heat series. Book 3, Heat Rises, was released in September and is on my “currently reading” stack. This year they went even further, however, and released two books. Deadly Storm is a graphic novel interpretation of Richard Castle’s novel of the same title – the first in a series that supposedly shot him to fame and fortune. Except the original novels don’t exist, making this “adaptation” yet another layer of fabrication. Have we gotten stuck in a metacognitive loop yet?

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WITH THE LIGHT: Raising an Autistic Child by Keiko Tobe

27 Jul

With the Light

WITH THE LIGHT is a 7-volume manga series I really want to read! The books follow Hikaru’s life from birth through his teenage years. His mother knows something is different about her boy, but when he is diagnosed with autism we become exposed to real-life complications, odd social situations, looming sexual awareness and everyday disruptions to family life.

The subject matter is so hard to live with, let alone share with others, that I think it is a very important series. The manga format is engaging for teens, while the subject matter is complex and personal. I think anyone working with autistic children or their siblings should get this series. It should be in doctor’s waiting rooms and high school libraries. A must read for teachers and therapists.