July 9, 2025 • 40 mins
Kyle Mills IS BACK to discuss his upcoming release Fade In.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:16):
All right. Today we welcome a friend of the
podcast, Dear Friend of the Podcast for I believe his fifth
appearance on No Limits the Thriller podcast.
Welcome back Kyle Mills. Thank you.
Thank you. It's good.
A fifth. Wow, that's amazing. 5 or 6?
Is that like, is that the record?
Has anybody been on more than me?
I think you've got the title. You're the heavyweight champion
(00:38):
I think right now, so congratulations.
I know that's a bigger accomplishment than your pub day
and your hardcovers unboxing. We saw you unboxing the
hardcovers, a fade in. How did that feel?
Good. Good.
I mean, yeah, it feels done. It feels real at that point.
And I don't know why you never get over that sensation, but
(01:01):
yeah, it's that's always a good day.
And honestly, you know, you never see the cover before that.
You see digital mock ups of it. But then you ask him, well, is
it going to be, you know, it's going to be shiny here and matte
there and everything. You don't know until you see it
so turned out beautiful. It's a beautiful cover.
Yeah, we just have the advanced reader copy, which is very
(01:22):
matte, very, very, very dull in its appearance.
I can imagine a hardcover just with a little bit of that gloss
just really popping with those Reds and that orange.
We're big on covers here on the podcast so.
I know. Yeah, you rate.
Them, right, yeah. And my favorite part about fade
in is the crosshairs. I just think that's a phenomenal
touch there on the cover. Yeah, that looks really good and
(01:42):
it's interesting. I'd sent that to my.
I don't know why I was even sending it to him, but I think
he asked my gun consultant who'sa friend of mine and he he's
actually also a designer and he changed the crosshairs on that.
So the ones you see he actually the like I think for accuracy in
the way that they were with thatthey were done should be
(02:03):
accurate now. Yeah, and is that Rod 'cause I
know with the Mish Rap series you were?
Leaning on, wasn't he? Yeah.
Yeah, good friend of the pod. Yeah, he's one of our patrons.
He came on the pod to talk guns and how, you know, the authors
incorporate weapons into their books and some do it better than
others. And when you can lean on someone
like that, it just shines through.
Like in this book, not only traditional weapons, but you've
(02:25):
got high tech next generation weapons, which we're going to
have to talk about. That's always a part of a Kyle
Mills book is you're always pushing the envelope about what
the world's going to look like in 1020, fifty years from now,
and whether it's your plots trying to guess at that, whether
it's the technology that's to come.
It feels like you and Brad Thoreare competing for who gets the
most amount of headlines in their books, and you're a year
(02:46):
or two ahead of the curve. You did that.
Here with this one, it's fun to do.
You know, I've, I've gotten usedto that over the years.
Like, you know, I, I, I write books because there are subjects
that interest me. I mean, it's great.
I, you know, it's an excuse to do a deep dive into something
that's really interesting to you.
And so all that technology that's right around the corner
(03:08):
or maybe is being developed now or even implemented now, but you
don't know, I love that stuff. It's sort of like when I first
met Tom Clancy, he'd go through,you know, Boeing's, you know,
financial statements, they wouldtalk about projects and he'd
figure out what they were doing from all these different places
and put it all together. I just love stuff like that.
(03:30):
It is like a puzzle and Someone Like You who's so in tune and
well read and keep up with current events.
You could put the puzzle together.
It seems faster than us mere mortals.
Hopefully that's all I think about all day, yeah.
And then you get to put in plots, you get to exercise that
creative muscle. So and Speaking of that creative
muscle, this is a story that's been lingering fade one we
(03:51):
covered on the podcast a few years ago, but you wrote it.
How many years ago was that published?
Now it was just it. We had just had its 20th
anniversary. And and how much the world has
changed just 20 years. What was it like to sit with
this character? And as everyone who listens to
Thriller Pod knows, you were thetorch bearer of the Vince Flynn
(04:12):
series writing Mitch rap for so long.
How did it feel to in some ways or actually it literally and
figuratively resurrect, fade andcome back to it after 2 decades?
It was really fun and and it wasinteresting in that after
writing Mitch for a decade, I guess it was a decade.
I mean that I know Mitch Rapp better than any character I ever
(04:34):
created because, you know, you've got a guy who you've met,
you've known him since he was incollege, right?
I mean, huge history behind him.I mean it, there's no, I never
had to guess what Mitch Rapp would do or think about
something because man, that guy is laid out, right?
Vince did a great job of it. Then I took it over, took him in
(04:55):
a little bit of a different direction, but always based on
his history. So with Fade, it was really
interesting because I, I wasn't sure like after being in Mitch
Rapp's head for a decade, could I pick him back up again?
And I thought in a few months I'll be able to figure him out
again. And I just took a few days and I
(05:17):
was right back like in Fade's head.
And he's he's got the same sort of deadly skills set as Mitch
Rapp, but from a personality standpoint, he's like the polar.
Opposite, yeah. And I feel like, you know, the
guardrails came off a little with this one.
Since it was your own universe, your own character, your
(05:39):
brainchild, did you feel maybe aweight lifted off your
shoulders, or at least in terms of creativity?
Did you feel that creative license to play around in this
universe 'cause this is a very creative book, whether it's
traveling weapons, just bizarre action scenes.
Like it's fitting for Fade to bein some of these situations
because they're so unfamiliar to, you know, a normal person.
(06:01):
But he's such a different kind of quirky operator and
personality. It makes sense for him.
I I just feel like you could go in so many different directions
where in the Mitrap universe, you know, you already had to
find guardrails that you had to kind of stay between.
Did you feel you you would let? Loose on this one.
I mean, guardrails are the perfect.
It's the perfect word for it. So, you know, you, the, the good
(06:24):
news is, you know Mitch like nobody else.
You know his history, you know everything about him.
But you, you can't, I mean, you can't go too crazy with him,
right? He's not going to, you know, as
I've said before, he's not goingto become a hairdresser.
He's not, you know, like there'sa certain way that Mitch Rapp is
(06:45):
going to behave and you can growhim like I did over the 10
years. But, you know, that has to go
year by year plotting, just likepeople change.
Yeah. Fade is a completely, he's a
little bit of an off the wall character.
You know, he's facing kind of anoff the wall world, which is one
of the reasons I really wanted to resurrect him is because he's
(07:07):
a little bit of a pop philosopher.
He's a little, he's obviously a little bit clinically depressed,
maybe has some substance abuse problems, but he's always
thinking about like he has really interesting observations
about the world, about himself, about other people and is not
always think one of the things about Mitch Rapp is he's he is
(07:30):
the master of his universe. You know, like he is in control
and fate can get swept up in things like like everybody else,
you're overwhelmed by things or he doesn't understand, you know,
the craziness of the world or technology or whatever.
So he feels a lot like, I think you can, you can have a little
(07:53):
bit of empathy for them because we feel that same thing.
And then on top of that, the analogy I really wanted to play
with a lot of the military people that I've met that came
back from war, who'd been there for a very long time.
And they come to the United States and it's like, what now?
Like their lives are completely changed.
(08:14):
How are they going to fit into it?
How are they going to go back into normal society and all
these things? And so he comes out of a coma
after having been shot by a police sniper.
And he's feeling very much all those things of like, is this
still my world? Do I want to be in it?
What am I going to do in it? What's my role here?
(08:35):
And like, just like a lot of us feel every day, Mitch always
knew what his. Role was right.
Exactly. Give me somebody to kill like
you wrote in Total Power. Just call me in when you got
somebody to kill. Fade has a little more of that.
I would say indifference is almost the perfect word.
And, and probably the same thingA lot of, you know, global war
on terrorism veterans feel aboutlike, well, it seems like the
(08:58):
terrorists are winning. It's like, what was those 2025
years for? And all the sacrifices you come
out with this dark humor, this indifference.
You, you, you almost kind of want to give up at times.
Fade is contemplating death it many, many times.
He evades it many, many times. And you had to get creative with
that. As you mentioned, the end of
(09:19):
Fade one if, if I may, he gets shot by a police sniper.
And we don't want to give too much here because you need to
buy the book, but we are going to do a spoiler section.
Kyle, you know our deal. I hope you're OK.
We'll save the last. 20 minutes or so we'll do a it will embargo
it. That episode won't come out
until post publication day. Plenty of spoiler warnings
telling the people pre-order, get your book.
(09:42):
But we're going to have to talk about that because you, you,
like I said, resurrected fade, you brought him back from the
dead. Yet the whole time he's still
thinking, do I even want to be here on this earth?
And he has to run up against a certain elite.
And I just feel like this idea of the elites is a very Kyle
Mills thing. You put a little bit of it into
the Mitch rap universe with Nicholas Ward.
(10:03):
And the hooks. And this elite ruling class, I
feel like this book lets you just go wild and play with your
imagination of what happens whenthose elites are the worst of
the worst. What happens when there are some
really good guys there, but theycan't exert their will and save
humanity even though they desperately want to?
And even a lot of those ones with the right mode of doing the
(10:24):
wrong, wrong thing for the rightreasons.
Let me guess, you have very strong opinions on this idea of
global elites running the show? It's such an interesting thing.
So part of the background of this is I live in, I split my
time, but in when I'm in the USIlive in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
which is when I moved here as a rock, young rock climber was
(10:50):
just a as a little ski town. You know, there are cows
wandering around and it has become the wealthiest county in
the United States. This is the the rich and
shameless man as they they are here.
I've gotten to know some of themand, and truth be told, some of
them are really great people, but man, they're a different
(11:12):
level. A lot of them.
I went to a party once and it was very, I mean, it's very
influential in my thinking that this guy throws every year,
drops like 250 grand on it. And I got to talking to a bunch
of young people who were kids ofthese people and I thought, Oh
my God, they're all taller. I'm almost 6 feet tall.
(11:35):
They're all taller than me, including the girls.
They're brilliant. They're all at, like, Ivy
League. You know, I'm like, what did you
do this summer? Well, I built an electrical dam
in, like, Malawi. And I'm like, I was getting
drunk, you know, in the back of a pickup truck when I was your
age. And I got to me to really
(11:56):
thinking about how much power these kids were going to have
when they got older and how muchpower their parents have, but
that it's this perpetuating likedynasty of families that they
have these brilliant, beautiful,they're all incredibly good
looking. You know, like you're just like,
(12:17):
wow, this is the master race. And I feel like an idiot just
even being here and so. That.
Really got me to thinking about the rise of the elites.
And then and then you have all the technology that now are at
their fingertips, which is just terrifying if it got in the
hands of the wrong people. I guess that begs the question,
who are the wrong people? Because explain to us who John
(12:42):
Lowe is? Because I feel like if anybody
is going to take the bull by thehorns and try to control this
future of humanity in the futurethreat, the the collision course
we're on, basically killing ourselves and our own planet.
He would be kind of the elite I would want to gamble with our
future on because he at least seems to have that grounded
base. But even questions himself
(13:03):
saying, you know, is this even afutile endeavor?
What am I even doing here? But he's doing it anyway.
And that's, you know, how he gets the team together.
So we'll talk about that more inthe spoilers.
But can you just unpack John Lowe and how how you crafted
this character who who seeminglywants to be that guy to do the
right thing? Yeah, he does.
So John Lowe's a billionaire whois really heavy in tech.
(13:28):
I'm kind of a composite of many people and he understands that
technology is the, is the futureand it's the future of power.
And we're in an unprecedented time.
I think I, I'm really cautious about saying that because
horrible things have always happened.
(13:49):
And, and you know, the, we had the Luddites, they're like, oh,
if you build a little machine, it's going to put us out of
where they're burning things. But I mean, if you think about,
I don't know, like King Louis orsomething, the incredibly
powerful ruler, but if you're the average dude, right, you're
a subsistence farmer. What what what impact does King
(14:11):
Louis have on your life or you're?
Outside of France, he's got his one Kingdom, but that's.
Yeah, he's got one. And even if you're in the
countryside, I mean, what can hedo?
Like nail a decree to the churchdoor and you're like, well, I
can't read and off you go, right.
But these people control everything we see.
They're creating algorithms to addict us to it.
(14:34):
They're using AI to craft. They can personally craft an
argument to you, right? AI can analyze your profile,
everything you've ever said, everything you've ever bought,
everything you've ever read or looked at on YouTube and craft
an argument to you. The power they have is
absolutely unprecedented and will continue to be.
(14:56):
I think it will continue to grow.
So who's in charge? I think at one point Vaid says
something to the effect that there will always be an apex
predator in society. You the best you can do is just
make sure it's not the hyenas. And that is what Lowe is trying
to do to make. He's extremely powerful and
(15:18):
technologically savvy, and he knows this is coming, and he
wants to make sure it's not the hyenas so and to create
stability. You look at how weirdly unstable
the world is becoming now. And this is, well, interesting
to play with because the threatsaren't what they used to be.
They're not individual terrorists.
They're not the Soviet Union. What is it that is the next
(15:40):
threat, And you almost can't anticipate it because it's so.
I don't know. The only word I can come up with
is stupid, like the threats are stupid, like Hamas.
That may have been the stupidestmove in modern history, right?
That's like me going into a bar and Mike Tyson is there and tell
him, slapping him and saying I want your chair, right?
(16:03):
It knew how that was going. I mean, Russia, largest country
in the world by land mass, decides what we need is more
land. They're going to go after the
Ukrainians who fight like drunk civic cats.
Everybody knows this and so you almost can't anticipate, but
like every morning I I think I'mgoing to wake up to China has
(16:24):
attacked Taiwan. I mean and and you're at. 20
million people dead. For nothing.
They don't need a tiny little out, but.
Don't the semi. Kind of the.
Semiconductors, though, they want the chip manufacturing.
But they'll be gone. It was just like burned out.
You destroyed. Like it's just not rash.
Like the things that are happening are just not rational
anymore. And so this guy wants to say
(16:48):
we're going to give these peoplewhat they want, power and
whatever, and with my technologyand bring them to heel a little
bit and see if we can do that. But on the other hand, he also
worries about himself because absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Is he becoming too powerful?
And is that a problem? And it, and he talks about this
(17:09):
with Fade, where Fade says, well, oh, you're going to take
over the world. Well, how's that going for you?
And he's like a little too well at this point, we're not ready
for how successful we've been. And that's why he's trying to
put together this team, because he knows he needs basically
enforcers because sometimes asking nice doesn't work.
Yep, Yep, Yep. The carrot in the stick.
(17:30):
You know, the carrot sounds great, but you got to carry that
big stick as as as Teddy said, as the man said.
And it's a perfect situation, right?
You're just basically like, he'slike, let me give you everything
you ever wanted. Unlimited resources, yeah.
Yeah, or your head's going to explode.
Right. Well, and it's interesting about
(17:51):
some of these movements being very irrational, these attacks,
what you know, you can become soindifferent towards all of it.
But The thing is, even the most irrational, illogical among it,
you can still get the masses on your side.
And that's the power. You know, you think in the Roman
Empire, that was a speech you give on the steps of a theater.
And now the crowds behind you, they're fickle.
(18:13):
You can get them to do anything.We have not learned 2000 years
later about that. The only thing is now you can
amplify the message to 8 billionpeople, reach essentially
everyone. And you could blame, apparently.
Yeah, that's exactly I think theproblem, and it's interesting,
but a huge influence on me has been George Orwell.
And one thing I love about his books or his stories is the
(18:38):
interplay between the ruling class and their subjects.
Because it takes 2 to tango. You know, one guy can't take
over the world. That's just, that's absolutely
impossible. You could just, or you could
rush him and kill him, right? You some, there's to be a large
group of people willing to give up their power to that person in
(19:01):
order to worship him or whatever.
You know, whatever reason they have, they don't want to think
so hard because, you know, shit's complicated or whatever.
And so that's what I'm playing with here is that John Lowe
realizes that there's there's a group of people who desire power
more than anything, and then there's a group of people who
(19:23):
will tend to cede that power andbecome a downtrodden, but almost
like they did it to themselves to some extent.
You know the guy, The guy's basically like, I'm going to
screw you. And they say, I like that kind
of straight talk, right? Whatever.
Well, there's a huge generational gap as well,
because that's almost the way the old guard would approach it.
(19:45):
And so I think a theme you bringup in the book a lot, and we'll
get to it in spoilers again, butthere's so much about the young
people doing maybe the unpredictable thing or going a
certain way that becomes chaos. If there's a theme of this book,
you said the word healing before, I think it's healing and
chaos or healing amidst chaos. And that's true for Fade and his
(20:06):
recovery. That's true for the world.
That's true for a couple of female characters in the book
here, which definitely spoilers.I want to ask you about some
moves you made, because in the Mitrap series maybe the best
thing. The longest lasting legacy you
gave to us was the transformation of Claudia and
Anna and bringing them into Mitch's world.
So you can you can write female characters, you can have an arc
(20:28):
for female characters. And the same way fate is very
different than Mitch rap, we have some females who are way
different than any other characters I've ever read.
So I want to talk to you about that.
I'm glad to hear you feel that way.
I like I like quirky characters and I love writing women because
I think the fun child, one of the fun challenges of being a an
(20:51):
author is to try to write peoplewho are nothing like you because
it's just an incredible challenge.
You're like, what, you know, what are these people thinking?
When a woman's looking at you and you just said something,
what's going on in her mind? What's she thinking?
(21:12):
And that's writing, you know, I mean, that's that's empathy,
that like, can you put yourself in somebody else's shoes?
And sometimes it's weird. Sometimes it's like you've got
to write a serial killer. And so you have to put yourself
in that guy's shoes and think why does he feel justified in
killings? Bunch of women or whatever.
(21:33):
And you you have to get into their heads.
And it's, I think, yeah, it's myfavorite thing about writing
because I mean, you, you'll maybe you'll write about.
I remember I wrote an Iranian, an Iranian character in a Mitch
Rapp book. And I was just kind of spewing
from his point of view, which issuper interesting to do.
(21:55):
And I remember the my editor said, well, you can't write that
because you're kind of like scoring points.
This guy's scoring points. But I'm like, but that's his
point of view about America and the history.
And I, I absolutely love doing that.
Well, that's the number one skill in debate, right, is that
you have to put yourself in yourinterlocutor's shoes, and in
(22:17):
your interlocutor's mind, you have to reason the way they
reason. And the strongest thing to do in
a debate is to take their position and attempt to defend
it. Exactly.
And when? You totally don't agree.
Yeah, you, you really for. Well, I mean, I think people
probably write characters in different ways.
Some people calculate them, I'm sure, but I can't.
I have to inhabit them. And then they just sort of speak
(22:38):
through me. So, you know, if I'm writing
whatever, a terrorist or a serial killer, I become, you
know, that killer or that, you know, person who hates America
for the time that I'm writing from that character's point of
view. And to me, that makes them feel
real, you know? And that's like an actor, you
(22:59):
know, I said Heath Ledger before, like with, you know,
Joker and look at what, you know, the effects that it had.
That's the creative risk almost of that could be a slippery
slope, you know, putting yourself in someone's shoes to
the point of thinking how they think.
And then when you're an author or creative, you got to make
villains. So you have to do the same for
villains who are people you probably personally completely
(23:22):
would disagree with. You have to find what makes them
human. You have to find what motivates
them and I think that what that makes a strong villain as
someone you can understand. And in this book we have a clash
of villain and hero, the two elites.
And they have a very interestingconversation towards the end of
the book. So maybe one more thing we'll
put on the the spoiler chat for the next episode once the book
comes out. But you've loved writing
(23:45):
villains. I actually found this quote you
put on your blog for Rising Phoenix.
You were thinking back and reflecting back on your first
book you ever wrote, and you said you can see the beginnings
of what has evolved into my writing style.
Moral ambiguity, moral ambiguity, conventional heroes,
a fascination with villains, anda passion for realism.
(24:08):
I think those are the four things that make a Kyle Mills
book a Kyle Mills book. I I think absolutely they are.
And it was really funny because all that moral ambiguity I had
to put aside, you know, for the Mitch rap stuff, because it's
very different. It's.
Black and white, yeah. It's really good guy, bad guy,
right? To me, they're never good guy,
bad guy thing. You know, even if you think
(24:30):
about the villain in this book and he's kind of spewing his
manifesto every once in a while,you think he's got a little
point there. Yeah.
And I love that in a villain like a a very clever villain who
I almost kind of want you to be able to see from his point of
view where you think, well, I can.
(24:52):
I mean, what he's doing is wrongis terrible and everything like
this and he must be stopped. But it's an he has an
interesting he's coming at it from a from an angle that I can
see why he was motivated to do that.
I don't like really flat kind ofwhat why are you bad?
I mean, people have done it well, You know, it was like
(25:15):
Hannibal Lecter. Why are you bad?
Because I was born that way. Right, right.
But and you could do that, but to me, I want to know what makes
that character do the things they do.
And I'm and villains are just fun.
Right. And I think you also have the
effects of that on the people around them with a number of
(25:36):
other side villains or mini villains who when we actually
capture them or when we are interrogating them or hearing
their side of the story, you realize maybe they didn't know
what they were doing. Maybe they went along because
they're forced to go along with it.
And you even reveal the humanityof the the people who propped up
that villain who who helped the big bad become the big bad.
And they even have their humanity shine through when we
(25:58):
encounter them. Yeah, because I think a lot of
people get sucked into those, I don't know, into the orbit of
these people who are very charismatic but very
destructive. And maybe they don't.
They're blinded to what they thebig picture, to what they're
doing. And in this book, it was very
(26:19):
much about the big picture and John Lowe, who's were struggling
with his own humanity. And that's why Fayed becomes
such a pivotal character in this, because while fate is, you
know, you could describe him maybe as an unrepentant mass
murderer and etcetera, etcetera,he has a great deal of humanity.
(26:44):
And that John Lowe almost is attracted to like a moth, you
know, 'cause fate, while he's done terrible things, as a moral
compass, that's very steady. He does, yeah.
And he's not. Sure, he's doing the right
thing, but he tries. But that's what's so interesting
is because we're in this character's head who is so dark,
(27:06):
who is the ultimate pessimist, one could say, yeah, he just
finds this silver lining in people and their situations.
And maybe because he's been there and he's hit the lowest of
lows, and he actually, he's constantly living the lowest of
lows. And I think that gives him this.
It's wild to say, but it gives him this.
He sees this grace in people andin creation, even though he
(27:28):
desperately kind of hates it at the same time.
He hates existence, even. He hates the fact that he's
alive. Yet he, like you said, he finds
that moral compass and he's trueto it no matter what.
And he almost wants to help other people more than he wants
to help himself. And that drive, I think, is what
heals him or will heal him. I feel like he's not done.
His arc is not complete. In him.
(27:50):
I said healing and chaos. There's still chaos and there's
still healing to be done. He's a work in progress.
Yeah. He's yeah.
But yeah, I mean, early on he has a relationship with a woman.
Not, it's not a relationship, but they're they're not to be a
spoiler, but they're working together.
And yeah, she ends up in kind ofa bind.
And he's basically sees her as this person that's good that
(28:16):
wants to help people and, you know, maybe that he maybe want
admires and he live, wants to live up to that.
And he's thinking if she exists in the world, maybe it's not all
bad. And then there's nothing he
won't do to protect her. And at some point makes the
point that basically, if anything ever happens, Theresa's
(28:38):
going to kill everybody that wasinvolved, their families,
everybody they've ever met, you know, And because she's like
this shining light to him, you know, and I think that's what
he's looking for. And, you know, hopefully over
the as the series develops, maybe he'll find and even John
(28:58):
Lowe he's attracted to because the guy's so fascinating, but
also because, you know, the guy seems to want to do the right
thing, but like, fade, he's not 100% sure what the right thing
is. And that's the world we live in,
right? Like what's right?
I, you know, what side should you be on?
(29:19):
I I like, I don't know, I I wonder every morning.
But that's perhaps the biggest commonality with Mitch Rapp.
And I bet this part of writing the two characters aligned as
much does not align about tryingto write and craft and think
like these two heroes and protagonists.
I think what aligns is that loyalty.
And if you don't know right fromwrong, if the world doesn't seem
(29:42):
to know right from wrong, and even if there is chaos, what's
always the one true path is loyalty and honesty.
And I feel like they're both brutally loyal and brutally
honest to the people that matterto them.
So. Yeah.
And this is something that really comes from the military
tradition. You know, you talk about, you
know, you talk to guys who've, you know, been down range for a
(30:04):
lot of, a lot of their careers. And that's, that's the theme.
It's very much like, you know, like, well, what about the big
picture and the should we have attacked this country?
Wherever they're like me, it's Igot me, I got my mates and we're
going to survive. And it's 100% about that every
(30:25):
day. And that's fate.
I mean, former Seal, like he is,it's him.
It's the people he loves and he is, he finds those the things to
cling to. They keep him alive because like
you said, otherwise he's pretty indifferent to like he's he's
(30:47):
died a couple of times. He's been clinically dead a
couple of times more than a couple.
And he always comes back and he's always found that death was
pretty attractive. He's disappointed, yeah.
Yeah, it doesn't bother him at all.
He likes it. The darkness, you know.
That's too funny. Well, since we want to jump into
a spoiler section just to wrap this up, for anybody who heard
(31:09):
this and is not yet pre-ordered the book, make sure you go
ahead. And there's even a couple of
special Nuggets. I heard you announce an
alternate ending if you pre-order through certain
booksellers that are on your website.
Can you tell us how that? So there's some some small some
Indies on my website and if you order from them they will stick
(31:32):
my alternate ending to the book in there and so you can read the
other idea I have for the end ofit.
Were these two competing ideas? Is it you?
Just not really the the other one was not a great beginning to
a a series. So it probably would not have
(31:53):
worked in the book. But it's fun and it's something
I thought about a lot when they said when they said that, oh,
would you do? Do you?
Can you come up with an alternate ending?
I was like, Oh yeah, I already have.
It I got that. It's like 10 minutes.
This is Ryan Mills we're talkingto.
(32:14):
And the, the other one is the audiobook, right?
There's a, a bonus feature in that one and it's me in
conversation with the guy who did it, who did the audio, which
was super fun. And I had asked to do that.
He's a really cool guy, but alsobecause like, I don't never knew
how that sausage was made. And it's super interesting, like
(32:38):
how these guys do it and how they come up with all the
characters and, and do all this stuff.
And his name's Will Dameron. And he's really, really, really
engaging and he's great because it's interesting that you, when
you do those with the Mitch Wrapstep, I never, you know,
George Goodall did it and he's amazing.
(33:00):
But this one, it was like, you can have any anybody, anything.
So they, we did all these auditions and they were all
really different. It was super fun to listen to
how people interpreted that character.
Did you have full choice? Yeah.
And then, well, I mean, we were talking with the, we were all
like doing ballots, right? And we all really, most of us
(33:26):
came down on this guy's either being first or second.
And when he spoke, I was like, OK, now I hear, you know, I hear
that character. So anyway, if you so if you get
the audio, you get this and he tells you I got to ask him every
question I'd ever wanted. Like, do you sit in your closet?
You know I got all these and so super fun.
(33:46):
That's so interesting, I didn't plan on owning 3 versions of
this book. I got the advanced one, need the
hardcover and now I also need the audio book because of that
extra chapter. Super interesting.
We're huge audio book fans on the podcast.
I would 9 out of 10 books that we cover on the pod, both Chris
and I listen to on the audio book so we have a lot of
opinions and takes on narration and.
(34:08):
Don't you, you. I remember you guys.
You, you assholes, read the Yeah, we listened to the Fade
abridged audio book. Yes, 'cause it's all there was.
Wait, what is with that? Yeah, we all can only find a
four and a half hour abridged version.
Yeah, once we. Read the book our our opinion
changed completely. You guys are too young to
(34:30):
remember that audio used to be heavily abridged, so it was only
about 1/3 of the book. Because the cassettes you can't
have. You can't have like cassettes
like this stacked up your entireback seat.
Right. No, I checked those out of the
library when I was in elementaryschool, so I do remember the
cassettes, but yeah. Well, yeah, so so there was no.
(34:51):
Full audio book of Fade 1. I don't think there was ever.
I don't even think books on maybe books on tape did it,
which is who used to do the unabridged audio books, but it
was, but I don't think so. I don't think they ever did
fade. So we had just had the abridged.
We scoured the Internet looking forward the full audio book and
I don't think if anybody, any one of our listeners has some
(35:12):
Fade cassette tapes, we will getthem digitally recorded and
definitely listen to the full fade one on audiobook.
But that's great to hear about. Will Dameron, I, I hadn't heard
any of his work, but I've heard he's done a Michael Connolly
book, Carl Hiaasen, hundreds of others and has a great website.
I was doing some research, so I'm, yeah, very excited.
(35:33):
He's a great. Writer in himself and actor and.
Yes. Such a cool thing because I
can't imagine doing it like trying to read one of my books
and do all the characters and everything in the accents.
Poor guy made him do cartoon characters for God's sakes.
He had to do like Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, and and like Marvin
(35:56):
the Martian. Well, Speaking of my childhood
in the 90s, you bring up a lot of a pop fiction, whether it's
cartoons, like you mentioned. There's even a Charlotte's Web
reference. Like these are the things
running through Fade's mind. That's got to be a tough haul
for a a narrator. But we actually had George
Goodell on the podcast. He doesn't do many interviews,
really. Yeah, we were.
(36:16):
Really. I haven't heard that one.
We had him on the Mitch Rap podcast.
The very, very ironic thing is his audio wasn't great on the
recording. So perhaps the most well known
audiobook recorder in the universe, we get on with him and
I think he's talking into a phone that may or may not also
have been from the 1990s. So we, we did, we did scrub the
(36:39):
audio best we could and he had some really insightful things.
But yeah, he told us he fixed the windows up at his house and
got this whole recording studio and actually had part of it in a
closet for the acoustics and everything.
So I'm curious to hear from Willwhat the what the recording
world is like now. But George had the one thing I
remember George saying that really stuck with me was he
(36:59):
doesn't like being called a voice actor because he's an
actor and it has to be a full body kind of get into character.
You're not just manipulating your voice.
You're you're reading as if you are a person, full person.
So you have to be a full actor and not just a voice actor.
And I thought that was very insightful.
I'm sure Will would would have similar feelings about that.
(37:19):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting.
So for all those audiobook aficionados, you'll get that
bonus great, which is definitelygo past the end and listen to it
because it's super fun. Sure.
And last thing about the coming release, Fade Nation has been a
lot of fun. You have a mini ambassador
(37:40):
program and a lot of influencersout there.
I mean, Twitter and all the social medias have been all over
Fade since these copies came out.
Seems like it took a page out ofthe Mystery Buses playbook.
Yeah, because it, and it's superfun because it, I mean, it felt
a little bit like when I wrote the survivor, the first MIT trap
(38:00):
book because they decided that they were going to do that
program, which was funny becauselike they didn't announce it
until they read the book. Because I think they were like,
oh, if this, if the survivor sucks, we won't do it.
And so they decided it was, you know, it was good.
And then they went out and and did this program, but I had no
(38:23):
idea what the reaction would be because, you know, it's the
first Mitch wrap book not written by Vince.
And so it was really nerve racking.
And then it's kind of the same thing here.
We've got this character that's very different than Mitch, but a
very a similar vein. And what are how are people
(38:43):
going to react to it? You know, like I very much like
the survivor. I thought, well, maybe everybody
will hate it. You know, I mean, I've no idea.
And so everybody's been, I really loved it and it had been
super positive, which is great because, man, I'll tell you, you
sweat a little bit when you sendthose things out.
Yeah, particularly, particularlyto a lot of fans of Mitch Rapp.
(39:05):
And, you know, you're like, well, this is a very different
kind of character, a different kind of challenges.
Are they going to like it? Yeah, I get that.
But Fade Nation is, you know, they got your back.
Fade Nation is standing by. I feel like it's could be called
the Kyle Mills. You know, it's like Kyle Mills
cult. It's great.
I mean, you know, my fans have been with me forever.
I mean, you know, since, I mean,I've been doing this for almost
(39:26):
30 years and Vince's have been amazing, you know, in their
acceptance of me, in their willingness to follow me into my
next adventure. And it's, it's really been
great. I mean, I've, I've, it was such
a blessing to be able to do thatand, and connect with all those
people. That's great.
(39:48):
Well, Kyle, Congrats on Fade in after a 20 year journey to
resurrect Fade, literally and figuratively because Fade is
back. And I'm glad you mentioned there
will be more Fade to come. This will be a continuing series
and he's definitely one of, if not the quirkiest character I've
ever read in a thriller. So hats off, Well done.
Good. Thank you.
(40:09):
Got to thank our patrons including our special, our
deputy director, special deputy director Sherry F, our special
operator Jason C, our special agents, Ben, Darrell, Kevin,
George, Matt, Don, Peggy, Mark and Chris.
Subscribe rate, interview to allthree seasons of No Limits.
You can find us at Third pod.comor on Twitter and Instagram.
All right. Today we welcome a friend of the
podcast, Dear Friend of the Podcast for I believe his fifth
appearance on No Limits the Thriller podcast.
Welcome back Kyle Mills. Thank you.
Thank you. It's good.
A fifth. Wow, that's amazing. 5 or 6?
Is that like, is that the record?
Has anybody been on more than me?
I think you've got the title. You're the heavyweight champion
(00:38):
I think right now, so congratulations.
I know that's a bigger accomplishment than your pub day
and your hardcovers unboxing. We saw you unboxing the
hardcovers, a fade in. How did that feel?
Good. Good.
I mean, yeah, it feels done. It feels real at that point.
And I don't know why you never get over that sensation, but
(01:01):
yeah, it's that's always a good day.
And honestly, you know, you never see the cover before that.
You see digital mock ups of it. But then you ask him, well, is
it going to be, you know, it's going to be shiny here and matte
there and everything. You don't know until you see it
so turned out beautiful. It's a beautiful cover.
Yeah, we just have the advanced reader copy, which is very
(01:22):
matte, very, very, very dull in its appearance.
I can imagine a hardcover just with a little bit of that gloss
just really popping with those Reds and that orange.
We're big on covers here on the podcast so.
I know. Yeah, you rate.
Them, right, yeah. And my favorite part about fade
in is the crosshairs. I just think that's a phenomenal
touch there on the cover. Yeah, that looks really good and
(01:42):
it's interesting. I'd sent that to my.
I don't know why I was even sending it to him, but I think
he asked my gun consultant who'sa friend of mine and he he's
actually also a designer and he changed the crosshairs on that.
So the ones you see he actually the like I think for accuracy in
the way that they were with thatthey were done should be
(02:03):
accurate now. Yeah, and is that Rod 'cause I
know with the Mish Rap series you were?
Leaning on, wasn't he? Yeah.
Yeah, good friend of the pod. Yeah, he's one of our patrons.
He came on the pod to talk guns and how, you know, the authors
incorporate weapons into their books and some do it better than
others. And when you can lean on someone
like that, it just shines through.
Like in this book, not only traditional weapons, but you've
(02:25):
got high tech next generation weapons, which we're going to
have to talk about. That's always a part of a Kyle
Mills book is you're always pushing the envelope about what
the world's going to look like in 1020, fifty years from now,
and whether it's your plots trying to guess at that, whether
it's the technology that's to come.
It feels like you and Brad Thoreare competing for who gets the
most amount of headlines in their books, and you're a year
(02:46):
or two ahead of the curve. You did that.
Here with this one, it's fun to do.
You know, I've, I've gotten usedto that over the years.
Like, you know, I, I, I write books because there are subjects
that interest me. I mean, it's great.
I, you know, it's an excuse to do a deep dive into something
that's really interesting to you.
And so all that technology that's right around the corner
(03:08):
or maybe is being developed now or even implemented now, but you
don't know, I love that stuff. It's sort of like when I first
met Tom Clancy, he'd go through,you know, Boeing's, you know,
financial statements, they wouldtalk about projects and he'd
figure out what they were doing from all these different places
and put it all together. I just love stuff like that.
(03:30):
It is like a puzzle and Someone Like You who's so in tune and
well read and keep up with current events.
You could put the puzzle together.
It seems faster than us mere mortals.
Hopefully that's all I think about all day, yeah.
And then you get to put in plots, you get to exercise that
creative muscle. So and Speaking of that creative
muscle, this is a story that's been lingering fade one we
(03:51):
covered on the podcast a few years ago, but you wrote it.
How many years ago was that published?
Now it was just it. We had just had its 20th
anniversary. And and how much the world has
changed just 20 years. What was it like to sit with
this character? And as everyone who listens to
Thriller Pod knows, you were thetorch bearer of the Vince Flynn
(04:12):
series writing Mitch rap for so long.
How did it feel to in some ways or actually it literally and
figuratively resurrect, fade andcome back to it after 2 decades?
It was really fun and and it wasinteresting in that after
writing Mitch for a decade, I guess it was a decade.
I mean that I know Mitch Rapp better than any character I ever
(04:34):
created because, you know, you've got a guy who you've met,
you've known him since he was incollege, right?
I mean, huge history behind him.I mean it, there's no, I never
had to guess what Mitch Rapp would do or think about
something because man, that guy is laid out, right?
Vince did a great job of it. Then I took it over, took him in
(04:55):
a little bit of a different direction, but always based on
his history. So with Fade, it was really
interesting because I, I wasn't sure like after being in Mitch
Rapp's head for a decade, could I pick him back up again?
And I thought in a few months I'll be able to figure him out
again. And I just took a few days and I
(05:17):
was right back like in Fade's head.
And he's he's got the same sort of deadly skills set as Mitch
Rapp, but from a personality standpoint, he's like the polar.
Opposite, yeah. And I feel like, you know, the
guardrails came off a little with this one.
Since it was your own universe, your own character, your
(05:39):
brainchild, did you feel maybe aweight lifted off your
shoulders, or at least in terms of creativity?
Did you feel that creative license to play around in this
universe 'cause this is a very creative book, whether it's
traveling weapons, just bizarre action scenes.
Like it's fitting for Fade to bein some of these situations
because they're so unfamiliar to, you know, a normal person.
(06:01):
But he's such a different kind of quirky operator and
personality. It makes sense for him.
I I just feel like you could go in so many different directions
where in the Mitrap universe, you know, you already had to
find guardrails that you had to kind of stay between.
Did you feel you you would let? Loose on this one.
I mean, guardrails are the perfect.
It's the perfect word for it. So, you know, you, the, the good
(06:24):
news is, you know Mitch like nobody else.
You know his history, you know everything about him.
But you, you can't, I mean, you can't go too crazy with him,
right? He's not going to, you know, as
I've said before, he's not goingto become a hairdresser.
He's not, you know, like there'sa certain way that Mitch Rapp is
(06:45):
going to behave and you can growhim like I did over the 10
years. But, you know, that has to go
year by year plotting, just likepeople change.
Yeah. Fade is a completely, he's a
little bit of an off the wall character.
You know, he's facing kind of anoff the wall world, which is one
of the reasons I really wanted to resurrect him is because he's
(07:07):
a little bit of a pop philosopher.
He's a little, he's obviously a little bit clinically depressed,
maybe has some substance abuse problems, but he's always
thinking about like he has really interesting observations
about the world, about himself, about other people and is not
always think one of the things about Mitch Rapp is he's he is
(07:30):
the master of his universe. You know, like he is in control
and fate can get swept up in things like like everybody else,
you're overwhelmed by things or he doesn't understand, you know,
the craziness of the world or technology or whatever.
So he feels a lot like, I think you can, you can have a little
(07:53):
bit of empathy for them because we feel that same thing.
And then on top of that, the analogy I really wanted to play
with a lot of the military people that I've met that came
back from war, who'd been there for a very long time.
And they come to the United States and it's like, what now?
Like their lives are completely changed.
(08:14):
How are they going to fit into it?
How are they going to go back into normal society and all
these things? And so he comes out of a coma
after having been shot by a police sniper.
And he's feeling very much all those things of like, is this
still my world? Do I want to be in it?
What am I going to do in it? What's my role here?
(08:35):
And like, just like a lot of us feel every day, Mitch always
knew what his. Role was right.
Exactly. Give me somebody to kill like
you wrote in Total Power. Just call me in when you got
somebody to kill. Fade has a little more of that.
I would say indifference is almost the perfect word.
And, and probably the same thingA lot of, you know, global war
on terrorism veterans feel aboutlike, well, it seems like the
(08:58):
terrorists are winning. It's like, what was those 2025
years for? And all the sacrifices you come
out with this dark humor, this indifference.
You, you, you almost kind of want to give up at times.
Fade is contemplating death it many, many times.
He evades it many, many times. And you had to get creative with
that. As you mentioned, the end of
(09:19):
Fade one if, if I may, he gets shot by a police sniper.
And we don't want to give too much here because you need to
buy the book, but we are going to do a spoiler section.
Kyle, you know our deal. I hope you're OK.
We'll save the last. 20 minutes or so we'll do a it will embargo
it. That episode won't come out
until post publication day. Plenty of spoiler warnings
telling the people pre-order, get your book.
(09:42):
But we're going to have to talk about that because you, you,
like I said, resurrected fade, you brought him back from the
dead. Yet the whole time he's still
thinking, do I even want to be here on this earth?
And he has to run up against a certain elite.
And I just feel like this idea of the elites is a very Kyle
Mills thing. You put a little bit of it into
the Mitch rap universe with Nicholas Ward.
(10:03):
And the hooks. And this elite ruling class, I
feel like this book lets you just go wild and play with your
imagination of what happens whenthose elites are the worst of
the worst. What happens when there are some
really good guys there, but theycan't exert their will and save
humanity even though they desperately want to?
And even a lot of those ones with the right mode of doing the
(10:24):
wrong, wrong thing for the rightreasons.
Let me guess, you have very strong opinions on this idea of
global elites running the show? It's such an interesting thing.
So part of the background of this is I live in, I split my
time, but in when I'm in the USIlive in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
which is when I moved here as a rock, young rock climber was
(10:50):
just a as a little ski town. You know, there are cows
wandering around and it has become the wealthiest county in
the United States. This is the the rich and
shameless man as they they are here.
I've gotten to know some of themand, and truth be told, some of
them are really great people, but man, they're a different
(11:12):
level. A lot of them.
I went to a party once and it was very, I mean, it's very
influential in my thinking that this guy throws every year,
drops like 250 grand on it. And I got to talking to a bunch
of young people who were kids ofthese people and I thought, Oh
my God, they're all taller. I'm almost 6 feet tall.
(11:35):
They're all taller than me, including the girls.
They're brilliant. They're all at, like, Ivy
League. You know, I'm like, what did you
do this summer? Well, I built an electrical dam
in, like, Malawi. And I'm like, I was getting
drunk, you know, in the back of a pickup truck when I was your
age. And I got to me to really
(11:56):
thinking about how much power these kids were going to have
when they got older and how muchpower their parents have, but
that it's this perpetuating likedynasty of families that they
have these brilliant, beautiful,they're all incredibly good
looking. You know, like you're just like,
(12:17):
wow, this is the master race. And I feel like an idiot just
even being here and so. That.
Really got me to thinking about the rise of the elites.
And then and then you have all the technology that now are at
their fingertips, which is just terrifying if it got in the
hands of the wrong people. I guess that begs the question,
who are the wrong people? Because explain to us who John
(12:42):
Lowe is? Because I feel like if anybody
is going to take the bull by thehorns and try to control this
future of humanity in the futurethreat, the the collision course
we're on, basically killing ourselves and our own planet.
He would be kind of the elite I would want to gamble with our
future on because he at least seems to have that grounded
base. But even questions himself
(13:03):
saying, you know, is this even afutile endeavor?
What am I even doing here? But he's doing it anyway.
And that's, you know, how he gets the team together.
So we'll talk about that more inthe spoilers.
But can you just unpack John Lowe and how how you crafted
this character who who seeminglywants to be that guy to do the
right thing? Yeah, he does.
So John Lowe's a billionaire whois really heavy in tech.
(13:28):
I'm kind of a composite of many people and he understands that
technology is the, is the futureand it's the future of power.
And we're in an unprecedented time.
I think I, I'm really cautious about saying that because
horrible things have always happened.
(13:49):
And, and you know, the, we had the Luddites, they're like, oh,
if you build a little machine, it's going to put us out of
where they're burning things. But I mean, if you think about,
I don't know, like King Louis orsomething, the incredibly
powerful ruler, but if you're the average dude, right, you're
a subsistence farmer. What what what impact does King
(14:11):
Louis have on your life or you're?
Outside of France, he's got his one Kingdom, but that's.
Yeah, he's got one. And even if you're in the
countryside, I mean, what can hedo?
Like nail a decree to the churchdoor and you're like, well, I
can't read and off you go, right.
But these people control everything we see.
They're creating algorithms to addict us to it.
(14:34):
They're using AI to craft. They can personally craft an
argument to you, right? AI can analyze your profile,
everything you've ever said, everything you've ever bought,
everything you've ever read or looked at on YouTube and craft
an argument to you. The power they have is
absolutely unprecedented and will continue to be.
(14:56):
I think it will continue to grow.
So who's in charge? I think at one point Vaid says
something to the effect that there will always be an apex
predator in society. You the best you can do is just
make sure it's not the hyenas. And that is what Lowe is trying
to do to make. He's extremely powerful and
(15:18):
technologically savvy, and he knows this is coming, and he
wants to make sure it's not the hyenas so and to create
stability. You look at how weirdly unstable
the world is becoming now. And this is, well, interesting
to play with because the threatsaren't what they used to be.
They're not individual terrorists.
They're not the Soviet Union. What is it that is the next
(15:40):
threat, And you almost can't anticipate it because it's so.
I don't know. The only word I can come up with
is stupid, like the threats are stupid, like Hamas.
That may have been the stupidestmove in modern history, right?
That's like me going into a bar and Mike Tyson is there and tell
him, slapping him and saying I want your chair, right?
(16:03):
It knew how that was going. I mean, Russia, largest country
in the world by land mass, decides what we need is more
land. They're going to go after the
Ukrainians who fight like drunk civic cats.
Everybody knows this and so you almost can't anticipate, but
like every morning I I think I'mgoing to wake up to China has
(16:24):
attacked Taiwan. I mean and and you're at. 20
million people dead. For nothing.
They don't need a tiny little out, but.
Don't the semi. Kind of the.
Semiconductors, though, they want the chip manufacturing.
But they'll be gone. It was just like burned out.
You destroyed. Like it's just not rash.
Like the things that are happening are just not rational
anymore. And so this guy wants to say
(16:48):
we're going to give these peoplewhat they want, power and
whatever, and with my technologyand bring them to heel a little
bit and see if we can do that. But on the other hand, he also
worries about himself because absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Is he becoming too powerful?
And is that a problem? And it, and he talks about this
(17:09):
with Fade, where Fade says, well, oh, you're going to take
over the world. Well, how's that going for you?
And he's like a little too well at this point, we're not ready
for how successful we've been. And that's why he's trying to
put together this team, because he knows he needs basically
enforcers because sometimes asking nice doesn't work.
Yep, Yep, Yep. The carrot in the stick.
(17:30):
You know, the carrot sounds great, but you got to carry that
big stick as as as Teddy said, as the man said.
And it's a perfect situation, right?
You're just basically like, he'slike, let me give you everything
you ever wanted. Unlimited resources, yeah.
Yeah, or your head's going to explode.
Right. Well, and it's interesting about
(17:51):
some of these movements being very irrational, these attacks,
what you know, you can become soindifferent towards all of it.
But The thing is, even the most irrational, illogical among it,
you can still get the masses on your side.
And that's the power. You know, you think in the Roman
Empire, that was a speech you give on the steps of a theater.
And now the crowds behind you, they're fickle.
(18:13):
You can get them to do anything.We have not learned 2000 years
later about that. The only thing is now you can
amplify the message to 8 billionpeople, reach essentially
everyone. And you could blame, apparently.
Yeah, that's exactly I think theproblem, and it's interesting,
but a huge influence on me has been George Orwell.
And one thing I love about his books or his stories is the
(18:38):
interplay between the ruling class and their subjects.
Because it takes 2 to tango. You know, one guy can't take
over the world. That's just, that's absolutely
impossible. You could just, or you could
rush him and kill him, right? You some, there's to be a large
group of people willing to give up their power to that person in
(19:01):
order to worship him or whatever.
You know, whatever reason they have, they don't want to think
so hard because, you know, shit's complicated or whatever.
And so that's what I'm playing with here is that John Lowe
realizes that there's there's a group of people who desire power
more than anything, and then there's a group of people who
(19:23):
will tend to cede that power andbecome a downtrodden, but almost
like they did it to themselves to some extent.
You know the guy, The guy's basically like, I'm going to
screw you. And they say, I like that kind
of straight talk, right? Whatever.
Well, there's a huge generational gap as well,
because that's almost the way the old guard would approach it.
(19:45):
And so I think a theme you bringup in the book a lot, and we'll
get to it in spoilers again, butthere's so much about the young
people doing maybe the unpredictable thing or going a
certain way that becomes chaos. If there's a theme of this book,
you said the word healing before, I think it's healing and
chaos or healing amidst chaos. And that's true for Fade and his
(20:06):
recovery. That's true for the world.
That's true for a couple of female characters in the book
here, which definitely spoilers.I want to ask you about some
moves you made, because in the Mitrap series maybe the best
thing. The longest lasting legacy you
gave to us was the transformation of Claudia and
Anna and bringing them into Mitch's world.
So you can you can write female characters, you can have an arc
(20:28):
for female characters. And the same way fate is very
different than Mitch rap, we have some females who are way
different than any other characters I've ever read.
So I want to talk to you about that.
I'm glad to hear you feel that way.
I like I like quirky characters and I love writing women because
I think the fun child, one of the fun challenges of being a an
(20:51):
author is to try to write peoplewho are nothing like you because
it's just an incredible challenge.
You're like, what, you know, what are these people thinking?
When a woman's looking at you and you just said something,
what's going on in her mind? What's she thinking?
(21:12):
And that's writing, you know, I mean, that's that's empathy,
that like, can you put yourself in somebody else's shoes?
And sometimes it's weird. Sometimes it's like you've got
to write a serial killer. And so you have to put yourself
in that guy's shoes and think why does he feel justified in
killings? Bunch of women or whatever.
(21:33):
And you you have to get into their heads.
And it's, I think, yeah, it's myfavorite thing about writing
because I mean, you, you'll maybe you'll write about.
I remember I wrote an Iranian, an Iranian character in a Mitch
Rapp book. And I was just kind of spewing
from his point of view, which issuper interesting to do.
(21:55):
And I remember the my editor said, well, you can't write that
because you're kind of like scoring points.
This guy's scoring points. But I'm like, but that's his
point of view about America and the history.
And I, I absolutely love doing that.
Well, that's the number one skill in debate, right, is that
you have to put yourself in yourinterlocutor's shoes, and in
(22:17):
your interlocutor's mind, you have to reason the way they
reason. And the strongest thing to do in
a debate is to take their position and attempt to defend
it. Exactly.
And when? You totally don't agree.
Yeah, you, you really for. Well, I mean, I think people
probably write characters in different ways.
Some people calculate them, I'm sure, but I can't.
I have to inhabit them. And then they just sort of speak
(22:38):
through me. So, you know, if I'm writing
whatever, a terrorist or a serial killer, I become, you
know, that killer or that, you know, person who hates America
for the time that I'm writing from that character's point of
view. And to me, that makes them feel
real, you know? And that's like an actor, you
(22:59):
know, I said Heath Ledger before, like with, you know,
Joker and look at what, you know, the effects that it had.
That's the creative risk almost of that could be a slippery
slope, you know, putting yourself in someone's shoes to
the point of thinking how they think.
And then when you're an author or creative, you got to make
villains. So you have to do the same for
villains who are people you probably personally completely
(23:22):
would disagree with. You have to find what makes them
human. You have to find what motivates
them and I think that what that makes a strong villain as
someone you can understand. And in this book we have a clash
of villain and hero, the two elites.
And they have a very interestingconversation towards the end of
the book. So maybe one more thing we'll
put on the the spoiler chat for the next episode once the book
comes out. But you've loved writing
(23:45):
villains. I actually found this quote you
put on your blog for Rising Phoenix.
You were thinking back and reflecting back on your first
book you ever wrote, and you said you can see the beginnings
of what has evolved into my writing style.
Moral ambiguity, moral ambiguity, conventional heroes,
a fascination with villains, anda passion for realism.
(24:08):
I think those are the four things that make a Kyle Mills
book a Kyle Mills book. I I think absolutely they are.
And it was really funny because all that moral ambiguity I had
to put aside, you know, for the Mitch rap stuff, because it's
very different. It's.
Black and white, yeah. It's really good guy, bad guy,
right? To me, they're never good guy,
bad guy thing. You know, even if you think
(24:30):
about the villain in this book and he's kind of spewing his
manifesto every once in a while,you think he's got a little
point there. Yeah.
And I love that in a villain like a a very clever villain who
I almost kind of want you to be able to see from his point of
view where you think, well, I can.
(24:52):
I mean, what he's doing is wrongis terrible and everything like
this and he must be stopped. But it's an he has an
interesting he's coming at it from a from an angle that I can
see why he was motivated to do that.
I don't like really flat kind ofwhat why are you bad?
I mean, people have done it well, You know, it was like
(25:15):
Hannibal Lecter. Why are you bad?
Because I was born that way. Right, right.
But and you could do that, but to me, I want to know what makes
that character do the things they do.
And I'm and villains are just fun.
Right. And I think you also have the
effects of that on the people around them with a number of
(25:36):
other side villains or mini villains who when we actually
capture them or when we are interrogating them or hearing
their side of the story, you realize maybe they didn't know
what they were doing. Maybe they went along because
they're forced to go along with it.
And you even reveal the humanityof the the people who propped up
that villain who who helped the big bad become the big bad.
And they even have their humanity shine through when we
(25:58):
encounter them. Yeah, because I think a lot of
people get sucked into those, I don't know, into the orbit of
these people who are very charismatic but very
destructive. And maybe they don't.
They're blinded to what they thebig picture, to what they're
doing. And in this book, it was very
(26:19):
much about the big picture and John Lowe, who's were struggling
with his own humanity. And that's why Fayed becomes
such a pivotal character in this, because while fate is, you
know, you could describe him maybe as an unrepentant mass
murderer and etcetera, etcetera,he has a great deal of humanity.
(26:44):
And that John Lowe almost is attracted to like a moth, you
know, 'cause fate, while he's done terrible things, as a moral
compass, that's very steady. He does, yeah.
And he's not. Sure, he's doing the right
thing, but he tries. But that's what's so interesting
is because we're in this character's head who is so dark,
(27:06):
who is the ultimate pessimist, one could say, yeah, he just
finds this silver lining in people and their situations.
And maybe because he's been there and he's hit the lowest of
lows, and he actually, he's constantly living the lowest of
lows. And I think that gives him this.
It's wild to say, but it gives him this.
He sees this grace in people andin creation, even though he
(27:28):
desperately kind of hates it at the same time.
He hates existence, even. He hates the fact that he's
alive. Yet he, like you said, he finds
that moral compass and he's trueto it no matter what.
And he almost wants to help other people more than he wants
to help himself. And that drive, I think, is what
heals him or will heal him. I feel like he's not done.
His arc is not complete. In him.
(27:50):
I said healing and chaos. There's still chaos and there's
still healing to be done. He's a work in progress.
Yeah. He's yeah.
But yeah, I mean, early on he has a relationship with a woman.
Not, it's not a relationship, but they're they're not to be a
spoiler, but they're working together.
And yeah, she ends up in kind ofa bind.
And he's basically sees her as this person that's good that
(28:16):
wants to help people and, you know, maybe that he maybe want
admires and he live, wants to live up to that.
And he's thinking if she exists in the world, maybe it's not all
bad. And then there's nothing he
won't do to protect her. And at some point makes the
point that basically, if anything ever happens, Theresa's
(28:38):
going to kill everybody that wasinvolved, their families,
everybody they've ever met, you know, And because she's like
this shining light to him, you know, and I think that's what
he's looking for. And, you know, hopefully over
the as the series develops, maybe he'll find and even John
(28:58):
Lowe he's attracted to because the guy's so fascinating, but
also because, you know, the guy seems to want to do the right
thing, but like, fade, he's not 100% sure what the right thing
is. And that's the world we live in,
right? Like what's right?
I, you know, what side should you be on?
(29:19):
I I like, I don't know, I I wonder every morning.
But that's perhaps the biggest commonality with Mitch Rapp.
And I bet this part of writing the two characters aligned as
much does not align about tryingto write and craft and think
like these two heroes and protagonists.
I think what aligns is that loyalty.
And if you don't know right fromwrong, if the world doesn't seem
(29:42):
to know right from wrong, and even if there is chaos, what's
always the one true path is loyalty and honesty.
And I feel like they're both brutally loyal and brutally
honest to the people that matterto them.
So. Yeah.
And this is something that really comes from the military
tradition. You know, you talk about, you
know, you talk to guys who've, you know, been down range for a
(30:04):
lot of, a lot of their careers. And that's, that's the theme.
It's very much like, you know, like, well, what about the big
picture and the should we have attacked this country?
Wherever they're like me, it's Igot me, I got my mates and we're
going to survive. And it's 100% about that every
(30:25):
day. And that's fate.
I mean, former Seal, like he is,it's him.
It's the people he loves and he is, he finds those the things to
cling to. They keep him alive because like
you said, otherwise he's pretty indifferent to like he's he's
(30:47):
died a couple of times. He's been clinically dead a
couple of times more than a couple.
And he always comes back and he's always found that death was
pretty attractive. He's disappointed, yeah.
Yeah, it doesn't bother him at all.
He likes it. The darkness, you know.
That's too funny. Well, since we want to jump into
a spoiler section just to wrap this up, for anybody who heard
(31:09):
this and is not yet pre-ordered the book, make sure you go
ahead. And there's even a couple of
special Nuggets. I heard you announce an
alternate ending if you pre-order through certain
booksellers that are on your website.
Can you tell us how that? So there's some some small some
Indies on my website and if you order from them they will stick
(31:32):
my alternate ending to the book in there and so you can read the
other idea I have for the end ofit.
Were these two competing ideas? Is it you?
Just not really the the other one was not a great beginning to
a a series. So it probably would not have
(31:53):
worked in the book. But it's fun and it's something
I thought about a lot when they said when they said that, oh,
would you do? Do you?
Can you come up with an alternate ending?
I was like, Oh yeah, I already have.
It I got that. It's like 10 minutes.
This is Ryan Mills we're talkingto.
(32:14):
And the, the other one is the audiobook, right?
There's a, a bonus feature in that one and it's me in
conversation with the guy who did it, who did the audio, which
was super fun. And I had asked to do that.
He's a really cool guy, but alsobecause like, I don't never knew
how that sausage was made. And it's super interesting, like
(32:38):
how these guys do it and how they come up with all the
characters and, and do all this stuff.
And his name's Will Dameron. And he's really, really, really
engaging and he's great because it's interesting that you, when
you do those with the Mitch Wrapstep, I never, you know,
George Goodall did it and he's amazing.
(33:00):
But this one, it was like, you can have any anybody, anything.
So they, we did all these auditions and they were all
really different. It was super fun to listen to
how people interpreted that character.
Did you have full choice? Yeah.
And then, well, I mean, we were talking with the, we were all
like doing ballots, right? And we all really, most of us
(33:26):
came down on this guy's either being first or second.
And when he spoke, I was like, OK, now I hear, you know, I hear
that character. So anyway, if you so if you get
the audio, you get this and he tells you I got to ask him every
question I'd ever wanted. Like, do you sit in your closet?
You know I got all these and so super fun.
(33:46):
That's so interesting, I didn't plan on owning 3 versions of
this book. I got the advanced one, need the
hardcover and now I also need the audio book because of that
extra chapter. Super interesting.
We're huge audio book fans on the podcast.
I would 9 out of 10 books that we cover on the pod, both Chris
and I listen to on the audio book so we have a lot of
opinions and takes on narration and.
(34:08):
Don't you, you. I remember you guys.
You, you assholes, read the Yeah, we listened to the Fade
abridged audio book. Yes, 'cause it's all there was.
Wait, what is with that? Yeah, we all can only find a
four and a half hour abridged version.
Yeah, once we. Read the book our our opinion
changed completely. You guys are too young to
(34:30):
remember that audio used to be heavily abridged, so it was only
about 1/3 of the book. Because the cassettes you can't
have. You can't have like cassettes
like this stacked up your entireback seat.
Right. No, I checked those out of the
library when I was in elementaryschool, so I do remember the
cassettes, but yeah. Well, yeah, so so there was no.
(34:51):
Full audio book of Fade 1. I don't think there was ever.
I don't even think books on maybe books on tape did it,
which is who used to do the unabridged audio books, but it
was, but I don't think so. I don't think they ever did
fade. So we had just had the abridged.
We scoured the Internet looking forward the full audio book and
I don't think if anybody, any one of our listeners has some
(35:12):
Fade cassette tapes, we will getthem digitally recorded and
definitely listen to the full fade one on audiobook.
But that's great to hear about. Will Dameron, I, I hadn't heard
any of his work, but I've heard he's done a Michael Connolly
book, Carl Hiaasen, hundreds of others and has a great website.
I was doing some research, so I'm, yeah, very excited.
(35:33):
He's a great. Writer in himself and actor and.
Yes. Such a cool thing because I
can't imagine doing it like trying to read one of my books
and do all the characters and everything in the accents.
Poor guy made him do cartoon characters for God's sakes.
He had to do like Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, and and like Marvin
(35:56):
the Martian. Well, Speaking of my childhood
in the 90s, you bring up a lot of a pop fiction, whether it's
cartoons, like you mentioned. There's even a Charlotte's Web
reference. Like these are the things
running through Fade's mind. That's got to be a tough haul
for a a narrator. But we actually had George
Goodell on the podcast. He doesn't do many interviews,
really. Yeah, we were.
(36:16):
Really. I haven't heard that one.
We had him on the Mitch Rap podcast.
The very, very ironic thing is his audio wasn't great on the
recording. So perhaps the most well known
audiobook recorder in the universe, we get on with him and
I think he's talking into a phone that may or may not also
have been from the 1990s. So we, we did, we did scrub the
(36:39):
audio best we could and he had some really insightful things.
But yeah, he told us he fixed the windows up at his house and
got this whole recording studio and actually had part of it in a
closet for the acoustics and everything.
So I'm curious to hear from Willwhat the what the recording
world is like now. But George had the one thing I
remember George saying that really stuck with me was he
(36:59):
doesn't like being called a voice actor because he's an
actor and it has to be a full body kind of get into character.
You're not just manipulating your voice.
You're you're reading as if you are a person, full person.
So you have to be a full actor and not just a voice actor.
And I thought that was very insightful.
I'm sure Will would would have similar feelings about that.
(37:19):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting.
So for all those audiobook aficionados, you'll get that
bonus great, which is definitelygo past the end and listen to it
because it's super fun. Sure.
And last thing about the coming release, Fade Nation has been a
lot of fun. You have a mini ambassador
(37:40):
program and a lot of influencersout there.
I mean, Twitter and all the social medias have been all over
Fade since these copies came out.
Seems like it took a page out ofthe Mystery Buses playbook.
Yeah, because it, and it's superfun because it, I mean, it felt
a little bit like when I wrote the survivor, the first MIT trap
(38:00):
book because they decided that they were going to do that
program, which was funny becauselike they didn't announce it
until they read the book. Because I think they were like,
oh, if this, if the survivor sucks, we won't do it.
And so they decided it was, you know, it was good.
And then they went out and and did this program, but I had no
(38:23):
idea what the reaction would be because, you know, it's the
first Mitch wrap book not written by Vince.
And so it was really nerve racking.
And then it's kind of the same thing here.
We've got this character that's very different than Mitch, but a
very a similar vein. And what are how are people
(38:43):
going to react to it? You know, like I very much like
the survivor. I thought, well, maybe everybody
will hate it. You know, I mean, I've no idea.
And so everybody's been, I really loved it and it had been
super positive, which is great because, man, I'll tell you, you
sweat a little bit when you sendthose things out.
Yeah, particularly, particularlyto a lot of fans of Mitch Rapp.
(39:05):
And, you know, you're like, well, this is a very different
kind of character, a different kind of challenges.
Are they going to like it? Yeah, I get that.
But Fade Nation is, you know, they got your back.
Fade Nation is standing by. I feel like it's could be called
the Kyle Mills. You know, it's like Kyle Mills
cult. It's great.
I mean, you know, my fans have been with me forever.
I mean, you know, since, I mean,I've been doing this for almost
(39:26):
30 years and Vince's have been amazing, you know, in their
acceptance of me, in their willingness to follow me into my
next adventure. And it's, it's really been
great. I mean, I've, I've, it was such
a blessing to be able to do thatand, and connect with all those
people. That's great.
(39:48):
Well, Kyle, Congrats on Fade in after a 20 year journey to
resurrect Fade, literally and figuratively because Fade is
back. And I'm glad you mentioned there
will be more Fade to come. This will be a continuing series
and he's definitely one of, if not the quirkiest character I've
ever read in a thriller. So hats off, Well done.
Good. Thank you.
(40:09):
Got to thank our patrons including our special, our
deputy director, special deputy director Sherry F, our special
operator Jason C, our special agents, Ben, Darrell, Kevin,
George, Matt, Don, Peggy, Mark and Chris.
Subscribe rate, interview to allthree seasons of No Limits.
You can find us at Third pod.comor on Twitter and Instagram.
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