 During his efforts to bring the book to the big screen, Peter David grew more and more dissatisfied with what he considered to be an amateur novel.He was also concerned with how dated the story seemed, with anachronisms such as an office filled with clattering typewriters and an almost non-existent Republican presence in New York City mayoral politics.Because he had updated and expanded the story when writing a screenplay version of it during one of the numerous times it was optioned to be adapted into a film, he decided to rewrite the novel, incorporating aspects from the screenplay version, and bringing it more into line with how his writing style developed over the years.