August 6, 2025 • 55 mins
Get ready to dive into the thrilling world of Kyle Mills and his latest book, FADE IN!
This 237TH episode of The Thriller Zone with Dave Temple is packed with all sorts of fun and insightful chatter as we explore the fascinating themes of power dynamics and the influence of AI on society.
We kick things off with some light banter, but don't worry, we get down to the nitty-gritty of his new protagonist, who is a bit of a wild card himself. As always, it’s a delightful mix of humor and deep conversation that keeps things lively.
Kyle shares his thoughts on how the world is changing faster than we can keep up with, and why he believes that the biggest threats to humanity are now coming from within.
So grab your favorite drink, settle in, and let’s unravel the complexities of today’s world through the lens of a gripping thriller!
Takeaways:
- In this episode, we dive into the summer vibes, reflecting on the warmth of August and the changes it brings, both in weather and life.
- Kyle Mills shares his insights on writing his latest book 'Fade In', which tackles timely issues like technology and power dynamics in society.
- The conversation explores how characters evolve and how Kyle's protagonist differs from his previous works, lending depth to the narrative.
- We chat about the challenges and nuances of learning a new language while living abroad, which adds a personal touch to the discussion.
- The podcast touches on the rapid advancements of AI and its implications for humanity, sparking a lively debate on the future of technology and ethics.
- Dave Temple shares his own writing journey, hinting at his upcoming book while navigating the balance between personal and professional life.
Links referenced in this episode:
Mentions in this episode:
- Kyle Mills
- Vince Flynn
- Mitch Rapp
- Elon Musk
- Zuckerberg
KEYWORDS: thriller podcast, Kyle Mills interview, Fade In book, summer reading recommendations, author conversations, writing advice, thriller novels, best-selling authors, publishing insights, AI in storytelling, contemporary thrillers, conversation with authors, book promotion strategies, character development in thrillers, writing trends 2023, suspenseful fiction, engaging podcast episodes, literary discussions, genre exploration, storytelling techniques
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:18):
Hello and welcome to theThriller Zone.
I'm your host, Dave Temple.
It is so good to have you here.
Welcome to.
What is it, the middle ofsummer already?
Can you believe it?
The middle of summer.
And by the time this showdrops, it'll be the first Wednesday
in August.
So happy August to you and yours.
(00:38):
I hope it's a very pleasantsummer for you here in San Diego.
It's quite stunning in August.
I remember back home inCarolina, hot and sticky and humid.
The kudzu and the crickets andthe cicadas.
Entirely different world.
Anyway, welcome to summer.
I will be doing a littlesummer vacationing here in the next
few weeks.
(00:59):
So you may not be getting ashow every single week as per usual,
but I'm sure you understandthat and will plan accordingly.
And I thank you for your support.
On today's show is one of myfavorite guys.
He's become a favorite guysbecause he's such a great conversationalist.
I just so enjoy talking to him.
And as you'll see inside theshow, we start talking.
(01:22):
We don't even get to the bookuntil, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes
in.
And you know, honestly, I likeit that way.
I do.
I just like shooting thebreeze because that to me is real
entertainment.
I really get to know theauthors and that's key to me.
But I will tell you straightup, Kyle Mills has a new book called
Fade In.
I told him on the show, and Ithink you'll, you'll.
(01:43):
You'll hear this.
It could be in my opinion.
No, it is, in my opinion, hisbest book yet.
Did I like the Vince Flynn books?
Sure.
He did great with Match Mitch Rap.
But this one, thisprotagonist, I totally dig and we
had so much fun.
Now, as you'll notice, theshows have gone for, you know, a
(02:04):
little over an hour, hour anda half to.
Down to about 30 minutes for alot of different reasons.
I got stuff to do.
You got stuff to do.
People aren't.
You know, I started noticingpeople would drop off after a certain
amount of time.
So I just said, you know, 30minutes does it.
We went on for, I don't know,40, 45 minutes.
So hang in there.
We hung up the show and wekept talking for another hour and
almost an hour and a halfbecause we just had so much to talk
(02:26):
about and so many good insidesecrets to publishing.
I wish I could share it withyou, but all those usually, what
do we call it, overtime, oftenget requested to me to.
Yeah, let's not put that on.
It's A shame, because reallygood stuff.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but Ican because it's my show.
Welcome to the Thriller Zone.
(02:47):
As I said, Dave Temple, KyleMills today.
And fade in.
You're gonna dig it.
So let me shut up and let'sget to it.
Kyle, you ready?
Hey, Kyle, how are you, buddy?
I'm doing well.
Let me change my volume here.
How are things going?
Things are going smashingly.
You?
Yeah, not bad.
(03:07):
You know, the.
The run up to publication,it's always a little hectic.
It's.
It's always something.
Today I have this kind ofplace that I do these set up and
the painters to paint thehouse showed up, started like pressure
washing the front of the house.
So it's.
It's.
It's always something thistime of year.
Well, to.
(03:27):
Not to try to one up you, butjust before you came on, like literally
four minutes ago, my dog, whois suffering from pneumonia, goes
into a hacking cough while mywife is on a zoom call with seven
other people.
And she's like doing this tothe camera but going, come here,
(03:50):
take care of it.
Right when someone knocks atthe door, who's coming over for a
meeting because Cammie's callis going late and she showed up early
and dog is coughing.
I'm like, I got Kyle.
I got Kyle.
Oh, my God.
Honestly, you know, I'm prettyopen today, so if you want to push
off or take care of the dog,I'm fine to come back.
(04:12):
No, that is on her own.
Last time we spoke, you werein a.
You were in a room.
You were in a different room.
There was a palm tree next to you.
You were in.
I don't know.
I might have been just outwhere they're pressure washing the
(04:34):
front of my house.
Oh, I'm.
I'm stuffed in like a cornerof my bedroom now.
Oh, okay.
So you know.
Yeah.
You weren't.
You were inside.
You were.
It was not a palm tree.
It was.
You were inside.
It was a nondescript room.
There was a palmish tree upagainst the wall.
That probably was Spain.
Okay.
I probably just moved in.
We had probably just movedinto our flat and we didn't.
(04:56):
We had like two pieces of furniture.
Yeah, I remember there was.
It looked like.
Yeah.
Nothing happened.
So where are you now?
I'm in Wyoming.
Okay, gotcha.
That's right.
You're one of those.
I would say bi.
Coastal, but you're by country.
By country.
Yeah.
One year, one year there, oneyear here.
We're.
We're moving back on the 19th dude.
(05:18):
You'Re living one of mydreams, for crying out loud.
Yeah, well, maybe two of them.
I mean, you're living in twocountries, and I got a point about
that.
And you're writing books, soyou're like, you're.
You're.
You're slamming it and jammingit, and you're a world traveler.
I mean, I'm humbled.
(05:38):
I'm humbled.
Well, it's.
It's great.
I mean, I.
It is definitely great, thoughI will say it.
Sometimes the fantasy is alittle better than the.
Yeah.
Reality.
I mean, we've had seven floodsin our flat in Spain so far.
Um, and we're just at thepoint where we're just like.
(06:01):
We'll just see what.
What we find when we get back.
Wow.
But you are loving Spain,aren't you?
Yeah, yeah.
It's been a great.
It's been a great move.
I.
It.
It's really fun andchallenging and exciting and.
Yeah.
You know, sometimes hairpulling, you know, because.
(06:24):
But it's interesting becauseyou get a.
You get an opportunity to findout what it's like to be an immigrant,
so.
Which is an interesting perspective.
Yes.
And if we can take just 30more seconds on this.
I want to talk about one thingI have been watching.
My wife and I are gettingready to take off for a nice long
trip out into Europe, and we.
And we were.
(06:44):
Thank you.
We were talking about howcrazy the world is and how we see
all these people exiting stageleft because of the current regime.
We'll try to dance around someof this.
And so he said, if we weregoing to have a second residence
or a primary yet in anothercountry, where would it be?
(07:05):
And we're like, well, we'vealways dreamed of Italy, but then
I hear nothing, fan.
Nothing but fabulousness about Spain.
I mean, like, every time Iturn around and I'm like.
And then I.
And now I'm coming talking toyou, and I'm like, honey, I'm going
to ask him.
I'm going to ask him, youknow, what's it like in Spain?
What's the cost of living likeand all?
And do you have to, you know,you got to learn the language?
(07:26):
And are you treated like an immigrant?
And how does your money work?
And it's dirt cheap to live there.
I live on.
We rent our house in Jackson.
That's plenty.
To live large and have moneyleft over at the end of every month.
Now, we did buy a flat,renovate it.
That was expensive.
(07:47):
And that's, you know, I'm not Counting.
Right.
You know, like if I'd had amortgage on that or something.
Sure.
The Spanish are lovely.
Yeah.
The food ain't as good asItaly by a long shot.
And there is an anti foreignermovement there for sure.
I think it's targeted more attourists than.
(08:10):
I've never experienced it.
Learning the language is anabsolute bitch.
Like people don't tell you that.
It's language is sort of likeweight loss where people say, oh,
well, if you sign up for this,well, you know, you'll lose £100
in the next three weekswithout ever any effort.
Yeah, right, right, right.
More like it's like 10 yearsor something to, to really wrap your
(08:35):
mind around like to the pointwhere now we can have like dinner
parties with Spaniards.
Right.
Even then at the end of it,my, my wife will just go into bed
and just flop on the bed andjust say, don't, don't talk to me.
I'm going to sleep in my clothes.
You're just like concentratingso hard and so.
But a lot of people that livethere don't ever learn it.
(08:57):
It's just that, that wethought it was important.
Yeah.
And I like it.
I like studying languages, so.
Yeah.
Well, you're, you're smarterthan your average bear.
Yeah.
It's a.
Let me tell you, it's.
If I master Spanish, it'll bethe hardest thing I ever did for
sure.
Harder than writing a pageturning thriller.
(09:19):
What, by a hundred thousand times?
Yeah.
It's like writing a, writing athriller in Spanish.
It's like, hey, well look atit this way.
At least you're not learningsay German or Chinese.
Yeah.
And you know, the great thingabout Spanish is you do have this
huge Spanish community in theUnited States.
(09:40):
So you've heard it, you seeit, you know, like it's not.
Yeah.
It's not like, oh, I'm justsuddenly gonna learn Chinese.
Yeah.
But.
And it's hard.
And one more thing on Spanish,if I may.
And I'm, I'm not fluent.
Trust me.
Even living in San Diego wheresome people say, well, why aren't
you, why baking Spanish?
I'm like, it's my country isthat there are a lot of words that
(10:02):
are just very similar and it'skind of easy to pick up.
Yeah.
The grammar is really complex,whereas the grammar, English grammar
is very, very simple.
So it's simple to us.
But don't say that to peopletrying to learn it because it's pretty.
I mean, you could learn this,the English verb system, you know,
add an s To he.
(10:23):
Right.
I've just taught you theEnglish verb system.
That's three years.
You know, like, what, arethere, like, five ways you can say
a verb in English and maybe ahundred and ten.
Yeah.
In Spanish.
Yeah, it's.
It's.
Yeah, it's.
It's.
And then you got the masculineand feminine things.
You gotta remember every word.
What the.
(10:44):
Yeah.
You know, whether it'smasculine or feminine.
And at the beginning Ithought, that's not that important.
But it.
It's like nails on achalkboard to the Spanish.
Yeah.
So you actually have to get it right.
And it's.
Yeah, don't get me started.
Yeah, don't get me started.
Kyle, this is what I lovetalking about.
This is why I love talking to you.
Because you're.
(11:05):
You're just so.
You're so well read.
You're so well traveled.
You're.
And you.
And I say this with all duerespect, you don't take it all too
seriously.
That's what I love, man.
Right.
Yeah.
That'd be depressing.
You know, gotta.
You've gotta.
You gotta take it in stride.
Yeah.
Take it all in stride.
Hey, by the way, let's do this.
Welcome to Back to theThriller Zone.
(11:26):
There's your official open insert.
Dave, I love you right here.
Thank you for having me.
Dave, I love you.
Okay.
Thank you, by the way.
Fade in.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna.
It's my.
An old girlfriend of mine usedto say when I was trying to get something,
she goes, I'm not giving allmy candy in the lobby.
(11:49):
So I'm going to give you allthe candy.
The lobby.
This is your best book yet.
I'm going to start with that.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
And.
Sure, sure.
I was a big Vince Flynn fanwhen you filled in that sandbox.
Sure.
And I liked your.
I've liked your otherstandalones, but this one, I don't
know what it was.
(12:09):
This comes out of the gatewith a bitch slap and surprises,
and it's so timely.
I'm like, wow, his finger isright on that frigging pulse, man.
Yeah, that's what I was going for.
You know, after nine books inthe Mitch Rap series, which was super
(12:29):
fun to do, I wanted to kind ofmove away from, you know, kind of
the Islamic terrorism andstuff that.
That's really the focus ofthat series and talk a lot about,
I mean, the weird stuff that'shappening today.
You know, it's not like theold days of, oh, the Soviet Union's
the bad guy or the, you know,the Islamic terrorists are the bad
(12:50):
guys.
Now it's coming at us fromevery direction and including inside
the house.
Yeah.
I mean, you've got all thesedivisions inside the country, which
is massive problems.
I mean, it's funny to thinkhow many weird things are going on.
Anything from climate changeto, you know, the internal division
(13:11):
of the United States to thiscrazy war in, in Russia.
America trying to completelysort of reinvent itself and its place
in the world.
I mean, it's like every, oh,you know, Israel, it's everything
all like, it feels like it'slike everything all at once.
And technology, I mean, forgetabout that.
It's crazy to think that whenI started fade in, like when I started
(13:34):
fade in, AI wasn't really a thing.
Like when I first put pen to paper.
Now here I am on pub day andit's just blown up.
So it's like a year and ahalf, dude.
If I can, if I can insertsomething here.
I have been telling my wifeI'm working on a book, by the way.
I'm not going to bore you with the.
I want to show you my notes,Mr. Mills.
(13:55):
I'm really where I have, Ihave many words.
I know you're working on it.
I do know.
Been working on it.
I've been working on for too long.
But I'm really in the thick ofit right now.
And it is involving AI.
But here's my point.
I say to my wife every motherfreaking day, honey, I know you're
getting tired of hearing this,but AI is coming.
(14:17):
Few days go by.
No, honey, AI is coming inlike a tsunami.
Few days go by.
I'm like, honey, we're goingto be drowning in AI very soon.
And she's like, she's alwayslike this, and this is, I love her
more than my next breath, butshe's like, AI shmai.
You know, I'm like, okay,okay, okay.
Honey, every time you downloadan app on your phone, check and see
(14:41):
what they're getting from you.
Oh, I, I, it's probably, theyhave it anyway.
I need that app.
I'm like, but you're givingthis stuff anyway, my point being,
and it can.
Be analyzed now at the speedof light, which was not possible
before, when.
AI shifts into agentic AI andfolks, for, for those at home who
(15:02):
are going, dang, what are youtalking about?
It is basically the nextlevel, like about 20 stories up,
but the way it's processing.
Oh, Jesus, it's, it's mindnumbing, isn't it, Kyle.
It really is.
And then there's such a goodplatform to.
I mean, it's terrible becauseAI, the possibilities of it to help
(15:26):
humanity are endless.
But if we know anything abouthumanity, we'll skip those and go
straight to the bad stuff.
And I mean, you know,everybody looks at their phone eight
hours a day.
And now AI can.
Has all that data on you every.
It knows everything about youand can and can use that, sift through
all that data and targetthings right at you, you know, I
(15:48):
mean, it can convince you of anything.
And so what?
You don't know what's real,what's not.
I mean, yeah, I mean, justrecently, you know, that video of
Obama being arrested gotforwarded around, and it was forwarded
around by the president.
And you kind of like, oh, man.
I mean, the floodgates couldbe open now for just deep fakes being,
(16:13):
you know, forward around by the.
By governments and.
And how do you know what'sreal anymore?
And then the AI can make themspecifically to you.
So, yeah, I don't know whereit's going, but that's.
That was kind of the point ofwriting this book and starting this
series is it gives me anexcuse to, you know, explore it.
(16:34):
You and I could literally takean entire hour on just the topic
of AI and I. I'm not going todo it because we do have your book
to talk about, Mr. New YorkTimes bestselling author.
And I got a few questions, youknow, to make you show that I'm a
smart guy.
But I got to tell you something.
(16:56):
I am so.
I'm more than fascinated.
I'm.
I'm like.
I'm crawling into addiction territory.
I'm so.
I am so consumed with the possibilities.
And you've made a good point.
There is good and there is bad.
Well, you know, us as humanbeings, we're gonna go.
(17:17):
We're gonna go straight to thebad, for crying out loud.
It's just gonna happen.
Oh, wait, if I can use thisfor good, what if I could use it
for bad?
And then you're gonna do it.
Next of all, do.
Should we be using it in our.
In our common.
In our creating stories?
I say yes.
I'm not saying go take Kyle'sbooks and.
(17:38):
And upload them and analyzethem and copy a book like that because
he's such a huge number onehit writer, but how about if you
had a little bit of help like.
Like asking, hey, are my beats.
I made my beats.
Are they.
Do they work?
Well, does this.
Is this story Timely.
(17:58):
How much that is happening inthe world today reflects what I'm
toying with.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, I think it's inevitable.
Yeah, it's probably.
I'm sure it's happening now.
Yeah.
But the.
I'm not that interested in itin that realm.
I mean, I played with it once.
I don't know, it was like ayear ago or something, and I think
(18:18):
I had put in one of my roughdraft of a chapter and said, rewrite
this chapter into a final inthe style of Kyle Mills, and definitely
cleaned it up, but it wasn'tsomething I'd have ever written.
Yeah.
And I'm kind of at the pointin my career where I do it for the
joy of it.
I like, really like writing books.
(18:40):
So the idea of having AI do itand then what would I do all day?
You know, so for me, itdoesn't work.
If I had to, you know, if Iwas in one of those poor guys, that
I'd do five books a year orsomething, you know, then it might
be a really good aid, but Ilike sitting there and, you know,
crafting sentences and, youknow, things like that.
So it's, it's kind of my.
(19:02):
It's my job, but it's also my entertainment.
Yeah, well.
And you're good at it.
All right, let's.
Let's, let's do this.
First of all, I broke this upin a couple of things because I want
to go back in your backgrounda little bit, and I'm watching the
clock.
I'm going to try to get youout in about, you know, half hour.
Ish.
Ish.
And then I want to get into.
Fade in, of course, but I wantto go back a little bit.
(19:24):
Growing up as a. I guess you could.
I guess you could be called abureau kid.
Right.
You.
Your pop was in the FBI, soyou grew up in that whole world,
did.
Moving around the country,which I have to assume you did, and,
and probably served you verywell as we just started the conversation
about.
And, you know, absorbing allthat inside knowledge.
Now, I'm not saying that yourdad said, let me tell you what I
(19:47):
did today, but did that.
And I hope this doesn't feellike Captain Obvious, but did that
insider knowledge kind ofshape your writing and your worldview?
Yeah, certainly my writing.
I mean, just from the very beginning.
So I started, as much as Ihate dating myself before the Internet,
and I wanted to write a book,but I read really widely.
(20:10):
I love thrillers, but I readall kinds of stuff.
And I had to actually sit downand decide what genre I was going
to write in.
And now to be clear, I neverin a million years thought this book
was going to get published.
It's just a project.
And so I wasn't setting out tohave a career but get published or
anything like that.
And I thought, oh well, I knowall these people in this, in the
(20:34):
intelligence community and FBIand stuff and I mean, how could you
couldn't look stuff up on the Internet?
It didn't exist.
So I thought kind of out ofsheer laziness, I'll write a thriller
and, and you know, if I needto know what the, I don't know, the
director of the CIA's officelooked like, I can call him.
I've known him since I was alittle kid.
Wow.
So that was kind of what setme off on the thriller path.
(20:58):
And yeah, like I said, I meanhere I am, 25 or something books
later having no, not startedout with that plan whatsoever.
And yeah, you get to absorball that stuff.
You know, I was around specops, CIA, FBI, MI6, you know, those
were the friends of the family.
So yeah, it was great, dude.
(21:20):
I, I'm.
I'm sure I knew some of this.
I'm sure.
I don't think I knew it tothat degree, but I'm just trying
to see, I'm trying to pictureyoung Kyle.
Gee, dad can have some moremashed potatoes.
Yo.
What did you do today, Mr. Black?
You know.
It is those early.
It's funny, the.
The early memories are still there.
My, My father come in fromwork and.
(21:42):
Yeah.
That he was the Hoover erawith the, the suit and the big old
wing tips.
Oh yeah.
And he'd immediately go in andtake his gun off and put it in the
drawer.
And then dinner would be ready.
You know, it was back in the70s, right mom?
And dinner on the table.
And he would sit down andyaffle it all down still like in
his suit pants and, and shirt.
(22:02):
Super.
Remember those shirts, man?
Starched.
And they'd.
My mom, when, when she'd ironthem, they'd be lined up against
the wall.
They'd stand.
Oh yeah.
Against the wall.
Because man, if you were inthe FBI, you had to be perfect back
then.
God, I remember those days.
Niagara, I think it was calledNiagara it.
(22:23):
Because that was back.
I would spray.
I would, you know, dampen yourshirt then spray the out of it and
then put it on that heartbecause I wanted to be able to lean
up against the wall.
I.
For some reason that was cool.
I don't know.
Anyway, so, so I'm trying topicture that.
And that in, in and of itselfis fascinating.
But now I want to go forward alittle bit.
(22:44):
So now you've spent all thistime in the Vince Flynn world, which
you, you nailed perfectly.
I don't want to spend too muchtime blowing smoke up your skirt,
but have.
What's it like having steppedaway from that and, and, and being
able to just kind of go, youknow what?
I'm back to just doing whatDaddy Kyle wants to do.
(23:07):
It's been really fun.
I mean, I, I really likedwriting the Mitch rap stuff, so it
was a really hard decision to stop.
I mean, I like, I, I felt likeI was at a good stopping point.
I, for a number of reasons.
And I had this character who'sgot the same deadly skills as Mitch
(23:27):
Rapp, but is a very different personality.
He's a little gonzo, littlemanic depressive.
He has a weird sense of humor.
He's kind of a little bit of apop philosopher.
And I thought he was the rightguy to tell the story because Mitch,
you know, I really obviously Iconsidered just.
I kind of had finished an arcwith the Mitch rap stuff.
(23:49):
You know, I, I won't get itbore anybody with it, but I had this
very arc where I would starthim here when I took over and I Would
you leave him here?
And then it was time foranother arc.
And the question was, do Iexplore all these things that I'm
exploring now in the kind ofthe modern world through the eyes
of Mitch?
And I didn't think it wasquite right for him because he's
(24:11):
the master of his own universe.
Too powerful.
I wanted a guy who could feellike we do every day, who's like
dragged along and doesn'tunderstand it and it's changing too
fast and he's not sure heshould be involved and all these
doubts and things so fade.
Which is a character Iintroduced 20 years ago and left
(24:32):
alone for 20 years.
Seemed like the perfect guy toobserve this world and interact with
this world and it would be ina really fun and interesting way.
So you gotta, you've gottahave the, you've gotta match your
character to the story to some extent.
And he seemed perfect for that.
Yeah.
You made me think of aconversation that I had recently
(24:54):
with Megan Abbott, which she'sjust so friggin delightful.
Oh my God, I could talk to herall day long.
But we were talking about howfunny it is we as writers.
I think I used the phrase,Megan, do you ever feel like you're
you're laying on your owncouch, sitting in the.
Laying on your own couch whileyour other part of yourself is sitting
in the chair going, tell meabout that.
(25:16):
Where do you think you can't.
That came from?
Right.
So when I hear you.
Yeah, when I hear you talkabout Fade, I'm like to myself, what's
Kyle?
What's he working out in hismind as far as fate is concerned?
Because this guy's a littlebit of a loose cannon and.
Which is what I love about him.
(25:37):
Yeah.
It's weird because he's.
If.
If you write kind of like Ido, when I write a character from
a character's point of view, Ikind of inhabit that character.
I don't plan what they say.
I sort of become thatcharacter and, you know, fades.
A weird guy to spend your dayin his head, you know, so Mitch Rapp,
at least, you know, he was astraight shooter, like, you know,
(26:00):
really kind of hard charging.
You knew he knew what hebelieved in.
He knew.
And the faze is all over the place.
That guy, you know, he's justchasing every squirrel.
So, um, it's.
That's really fun thing to dobecause he's particularly.
I've always been fascinatedwith writing characters really different
than me.
Yeah.
So, I mean, like, whatever itis, women, terrorists, in this case,
(26:24):
fade.
You know, it's.
It's fun to get into otherpeople's heads and see their perspectives.
What does your.
I can't.
I have to ask this.
And if you don't want to, ifit's too private, you can tell me.
But what does your wife.
When you talk about.
Oh, I get to like to get inthat head, and I live in that character.
It's kind of like, you know,you hear actors, method actors who
will get into a character andthey'll live in that character while
(26:46):
they're shooting the movie.
So I wonder how much of thatintegration of fade into yourself
do you have?
And do you.
Does it stick with you?
And on top of that, does yourwife go, you're Kyle, babe.
You're not fade.
So pump the brakes.
Fade isn't too bad.
I wrote a serial killer bookonce, though, years ago, where I
was writing a lot from thepoint of view of the serial killer.
(27:10):
And my wife at the end of itsaid, that's your last serial killer
book.
And it was.
What was that book?
I want to read it.
Burn Factor.
Oh, okay.
And did you.
And we're.
All right.
I'm.
I'll.
I don't.
I could go down that Rabbit hole.
I won't do it.
All right, let's get back to here.
All right.
Without spoiling things forfolks who have yet to read Fade in
(27:33):
fades takes aim at how wemanipulate the perception.
And we talk, we start off theshow about this, but did today's
media ecosystem influence thisplot line?
And to what degree what.
What was about, what is itthat was going on that you went,
now I'm gonna weave this intoa story.
It really was just like whatwas right around the corner.
(27:56):
And you could see it with A.I.
i mean, I said it wasn'treally a thing, but you could tell
it was coming when I startedthat book.
And just the, the incrediblepower of the billionaire and elite
class and how they're becomingmore and more powerful.
And, you know, you think aboutElon Musk.
I think I, I talk about this alittle bit in the book and I use
(28:18):
real world examples of, youknow, you can't shoot anything into
space without him.
You can't talk from oversatellite without his satellite constitution,
his power over the government.
And, and you saw it.
It's funny that he ended up inthis feud with Donald Trump, which
I did not foresee at thebeginning of this book.
Even Elon Musk gettinginvolved with the government, but
(28:38):
you know, him talking about,well, then you can't use my rocket.
You're gonna get up in my grill.
You know, I'm not.
You can't use my rocketsanymore or I'll shut off my satellites
or whatever you think.
No, I mean, not since like theJP Morgan days has have individuals
unelected into wealthyindividuals have this kind of power.
I mean, Zuckerberg or Googlethat can manipulate everything we
(29:02):
see with their algorithms and stuff.
So it's something that I saw coming.
And it's just one of the major threats.
I mean, humanity now is itsown threat.
That's kind of the weird thing.
Now it's not famine we canprobably handle.
(29:22):
We didn't handle it very well,but we can handle, you know, Covid,
we can feed ourselves, we canstay safe.
And the problem is we don't.
I think it's almost like weget bored.
So you think about, I mean,the perfect example of this would
be Russia, right?
The largest country in the world.
And what do they decide?
We need more land, you know,and we're going to go in and just
(29:45):
get completely bloodied andtrash our country, Trash their country.
Why?
I don't know.
We were bored.
You really can't, you can'teven come up with a decent reason
well yeah, you know, those arethe kinds of things now that have
we, have we moved into ourself destructive phase and on, on
an existential sense which Ithink is an interesting thing that
(30:08):
people don't talk about withAI as that gets better and better.
Humans have been real.
I've always prided ourselveson being special.
Right.
We're, we're smarter than anyother thing.
We can do these amazing thingsand I think it's going to come out
pretty soon that we're notthat amazing, that AI can probably
do it better.
Where does that leave us?
(30:29):
What's our purpose?
And it could be breaking intotribes and fighting amongst each
other to find an identitywhich is important to humans to have
an identity that could besomething that, you know, really
causes us problems thatnobody's talking about.
This is so, so.
You're so on point.
(30:49):
This is so.
It's such, it's such.
I don't want to say scary timebut it is an alarming time.
And I could, God, I could gooff on like five different tangents.
I'll try to stay focused itreal just being.
And, and I say this to mywife, we are getting closer and closer
and closer.
I mean, I don't mean like oh,it's going to be like in another
(31:12):
five or 10 years.
No, every day AI is improvingand the deep fake ability, both voice
face turning photographs intovideo is mind boggling.
But to your point, and Ithought about this the other day,
when you see the robots, I'mlike, I was talking to Tammy, I'm
(31:32):
like, you know, think about this.
Let's use Amazon as a case.
Why wouldn't you want it fullof robots that don't complain, don't
break down, don't take pottybreaks, work 24 7.
All you gotta do is make surethe batteries are charged and they're
with precision and so forth.
I mean we're, it's not gonnatake us long to get there, right?
(31:54):
No.
And it really is worryingbecause even if you create this utopian
scenario which a lot of peoplehave that they say, well let's say
all those robots have theirown economy, it's great.
And they pay us to sit around like.
Right.
And you could see thathappening, right?
Amazon still makes a bunch ofmoney, the robots pay us.
(32:17):
And then they say, well thenyou're going to.
People will be able to readthe classics and do all these creative
things and all this.
No, they're not.
They're going to find a way tofight among.
We're going to Find a way tofight amongst ourselves.
Right.
We're going to break intoreligious groups and racial groups
and political groups andeverything in a desperate attempt
to find some purpose now thatwe don't go to the factory all day
(32:39):
and build our widgets for the world.
Right.
We all feel that.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel that.
I think about retirement andI, I, it scares me because I'm like,
well, what do I do all day,like when I wander around in my slippers?
And so, you know, now you havethe whole world rounding around their
slippers, particularly youngmen who have access to a lot of weapons.
(33:01):
Like that's, that's just not agood formula.
You're hired at the end of the day.
Yes, yes.
Between weapons and money and power.
Oh, again, go down a rabbit hole.
I'm not going to do it.
All right.
One thing I particularly foundfascinating about Fade in, how it
tackles themes of a coupledifferent things.
Power brokers operate in the shadows.
(33:23):
Question of whether fate issaving humanity or helping to enslave
it.
Kind of like we're dabbling inthe AI conversation.
How much do you think of that?
Current global politicsinfluenced shadowy organizations
that recruits fate.
Because that's one thing I dugabout this.
So fades like, I'm going to godo this thing.
No, we want you to come backin now.
I'm going to do now, come onback in.
(33:44):
Because if you do, we got alittle favor to ask, but you're going
to do this thing.
So, like, how does that allcome together?
Yeah.
So, you know, John Lowe is thecharacter here who's this billionaire.
He's extraordinarily powerfuland he's essentially trying to create
a situation, a system in whichhe gathers all these very powerful
billionaires and somepoliticians together and says, what
(34:07):
we're doing is really not that productive.
If you're worth $200 billion,what's another billion dollars to
you?
It's nothing.
Should we maybe try to thinkabout on a larger scale what the
good of society, what thedangers are here?
Because politicians havebecome power hungry and useless to
a large extent.
They, they don't want to solveproblems or better off creating them
(34:29):
and, you know, using them tohype up their base.
So that is the idea.
And he's not a boy scout, youknow, he understands that there's
a dark side of humanity andthat's why he needs a few people
like fate who have certainskill set that, you know, problem
solving methods that wouldn'tnormally be available to billionaires.
(34:51):
But he understands that that'sNecessary component two.
He jokes around rule the worldbut in a way he kind of wants to
do that just.
And an example of this thatthey talk about in the book, not
to be a spoiler but to justkind of give you an example.
What I'm talking about on onescale is simply there's a guy that
has cracked driverless carslike he's got a system, it's going
(35:13):
to work perfectly and in a fewyears they, they're going to, they'll
take over everything.
Nobody will be driving anymore.
Right.
The problem with that is thenumber one job for male Americans
is driving in some capacity,whether it's trucks or cabs or whatever
traffic.
And so they say, well that'sgoing to put over the course of the
(35:37):
next three years absolutelyenormous amounts of young men, as
we were just talking about outof work out.
That is a really bad idea.
What's the benefit to this?
And so they say we're going toput the brakes on that and just make
it a safety feature.
But you'll still have theillusion that you're driving.
(35:57):
If you're going to drive intoa wall, it'll stop you or over a
little League team, butotherwise it's not going to work
that way.
So that's one of the thingsthey do that they see these technologies
potentially becoming reallydestructive to society in.
Even though maybe they're thebest intentions.
So it's.
But they can act on a globallevel in a way that really before
(36:21):
only the United States could.
And particularly as the UnitedStates kind of pulls back from its
global role that it's had for,you know, since the war, Since World
War II, they see that as apower vacuum that absolutely needs
to be filled otherwise you'regoing to end up with chaos.
Let's take a short break andwe'll be back with more Kyle Mills
(36:43):
in just a moment.
(37:52):
That's the other thing aboutthis book.
It is so today.
I mean it's like you have toread this book today and by the end
of next week you'll go, oh,that book was great.
But that is so yesterdaybecause look what's happening now.
Hopefully they'll say, yeah,all that happened and now it's worse.
Yeah.
And they'll have to read mynext book.
Yeah, well, and that's theperfect tee up for me.
(38:15):
Do you, looking ahead, do yousee fade, especially in this particular
case, do you see this as a oneoff or maybe a beginning of a new
series?
No, definitely the beginningof a new series.
I've actually Finished thefirst draft of the next Fade book.
So this is just somebody, likeI said, that's just a great set of
eyes to see how the world isso quickly evolving and where it
(38:38):
could fall apart.
And there are so many places.
It used to be the Soviet Union.
How could it fall apart?
One way the Soviets shoot abunch of nukes at us.
That was pretty much your onlychoice right now.
It can come at you from anydirection and in directions that
now, like you were saying nextyear things could be happening next
year that we couldn't evenimagine were going to happen.
(39:01):
Sitting right here today.
Dude, this is a little bit ofa tangent, but I was watching a conference
on AI yesterday and this guycomes out with this, this drone.
Let me see if I can find.
The drone was literally thesize of this little book in my hand.
(39:22):
It was that small.
And he's getting ready to talkto the audience and he goes, hey,
watch this.
And there's a dummy at the endof the stage, just a mannequin.
A mannequin, not an idiot.
And he's standing, you know,and he goes, watch this.
And he takes the, the dronethrows out in the audience and he
goes, comes up targetaccuracy, puts a bullet through the
(39:47):
guy's head and flies away.
Yep.
And that's going to completelychange warfare and the way that,
that countries, you know,fight with each other.
I mean, you just.
These swarm, like these swarmtechnologies and AI and stuff, it's
just completely going tochange everything.
So to that point, it was nobigger than this and it put a bullet.
(40:12):
He goes, that's just, that's nothing.
He goes, you can put a payloadof, we'll call it C4, you know, and,
and have this thing fly,whisper, quiet, miles away, drops
a bomb.
We kind of learned this inUkraine etc, right?
But that technology, when it'sthat, that drone technology.
(40:36):
And then on top of that, andthen with this, I'll stop.
Then I saw something out ofChina where they had hundreds, thousands
of these perfectly lined upand they all flew up like a massive
cloud, but in perfect uniformfashion and went off and did their
thing and then came back inperfect fashion and landed.
(40:57):
I was like, that's when Iwent, oh, this shit's about to get
real.
Yeah, it's crazy.
I wrote a book years agocalled the Patriot Attack and it
was about a military conflictbetween Japan and China.
And the Japanese were built,had built this massive military capability,
but their motto was like,small, autonomous and cheap.
(41:20):
And so.
And that's what they did.
And it was just lots of crappythings that swarmed and, and stuff
like that.
And now we're moving in that direction.
And, you know, there's hugedangers to that too.
And I think about China andTaiwan now that very much because
of exactly that technologyyou're talking about and similar
(41:41):
ones, China's window to invadeTaiwan is closing.
Oh, yeah.
With these technologies, in afew years, it will simply not be
doable.
You'd lose millions of peopleand you'd never get a foot on the,
you know, on land.
On land and survive.
And so at worries you think,you see what Russia's done.
Everything you think, God,could they get completely irrational
(42:04):
and say, if we don't do thisnow, five years.
They also have an aging population.
All this stuff, five years isjust not going to be a deal.
They're going to havethousands of drones all over this
island, underwater and everything.
So, you know, I mean, you're.
You're creating this thingwhere the world is changing so quickly.
Some people must be thinkingabout, if we don't set the world
(42:27):
order now, it's.
We're not going to be able toin a few years.
It's just gonna, you know,it's gonna set itself.
Remember the old days when youthought, oh, that country over there
is gonna send this great bigmassive missile.
You'll see it coming hundredsof miles away.
(42:50):
Watch out.
Oh, we got plenty of time.
Because we see it coming.
Those days are gone.
You're not going to see it coming.
That's the thing.
You're not going to see any ofthis shit coming.
And there's no.
It's weird because it's justthis is going back again to what
I'm talking about, that peoplegoing a little bit crazy maybe because
their needs are met and theyhave nothing else to worry about.
(43:11):
But the, I mean, this idea ofwar in the modern era is unprofitable.
You know, I mean, think aboutthe good old days, right?
You're Roman.
Go in there, kill everybody,take all their stuff.
That's a profitable war model.
I mean, you shouldn't do it,but you can see why they wanted to.
Right now there is no way youcould ever take anything that was
(43:36):
worth what you spent to get it right.
I mean, and so you know, what,what, Russia takes over Ukraine and
what, they get some rare earth mineral?
Yeah.
It's just nothing that couldeven come close to compensating them.
Same with Taiwan.
But then you think, thatdoesn't mean they're not going to
do it, though.
(43:57):
But all the Loss of lives.
That's what just.
It's crazy as I use thisphrase with my wife all the time.
I'm always.
We've lost our collectiveshit, man.
We just really have.
Why are we here?
Right?
I mean, these are.
The big people are starting toask these existential questions.
(44:17):
I think I remember when was itDeep Blue beat Kasparov and Chess
and people really freaked outbecause that computer was smarter
than the smartest human.
Yeah.
And where did that leave us inthe hierarchy?
We always thought we were here.
(44:38):
Maybe we're down here.
Yeah.
And then we've all seen this.
This barrage of videos that.
Where the robots that arehanging over there attached to this
thing goes crazy by itself,like out of nowhere and starts attacking
the guy who's just running the store.
I'm like, oh, you don't thinkthere's going to be a little bit
(44:58):
of fallout where all the a.
The robots become agentic andthen talk to each other and go, you
know, we don't really needthese guys.
They're breakable.
They bleed all over the place.
You know, we gotta.
Let's just destroy them.
Okay.
They've already also had aninstance of AI trying to delete an
AI and it protecting itself.
(45:18):
Yeah.
That'S probably not goinganywhere good.
Folks, I don't want you towalk away from this show going, geez,
I don't know that I need tolisten to this Thriller Zone anymore,
because it's just thisexistential dread is making me want
to just go drink.
Nobody needs to start tyingany nooses yet.
I think it's going to be fine.
(45:40):
Drink.
Yes.
Thai nooses.
No.
Yeah.
Take the edge off.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
What is your.
As we get ready to close, whatis your favorite take the edge off
beverage these days?
I'm a tequila guy.
Much like fade and a nicemargarita in the summer.
(46:01):
You know, you can't go wrongwith that.
You know, there's a nice thingI have learned about tequila.
I've never.
Tequila was always theAchilles heel for me.
It always got me in trouble.
Back in the day when I wascoming up in radio, we'd always go
out for beers.
Beer, let's have some beers.
But the day I discoveredshooting shots of tequila was the
day that my life changed.
(46:21):
And it did not go in a prettyway because I.
There was something about.
There was this mechanism in mybrain that said, oh, folks, all bets
are off now.
I mean, it literally was allbets are off.
So I just stopped and I walkedaway and I thought, well, I can't
no good can come from that.
Decades went by and I startedtalking to guys like yourself who
(46:44):
go, have you had any goodtequila lately?
I'm like, well, it's always,you know, I won't mention a name
because somebody will have areal fit with me.
And it was cheap.
And they go, well, there'ssome really good tequila out there
that you can drink like asingle malt scotch and really find
it to be quite enjoyable andit won't kill you.
So I have tried to come backinto your fold and how's it going?
(47:08):
Does it drive you crazy?
No, it does not drive me crazybecause I'm.
Well, first of all, I'm 30plus years older now than I was then,
so I'm drinking it, drinkingdifferently than I used to.
And it's more for the enjoyment.
And the.
You and I would sit around andhave one and we'd just talk and it
would loosen us up and we'dhave great more conversations and
(47:30):
so forth.
We're not sitting thereslamming them like you see in, you
know, movies and so forth andgetting completely black.
Blackout drunk.
Yeah, a shot of anything isprobably a bad idea.
What's the old, what's thatold saying we used to say?
Fast in, fast out.
So, yeah, yeah, it's fun whenyou're 20.
Yeah, when you're 20.
When you're 15, 20, 25.
(47:52):
But you know, when you get uparound 36, 37, like Kyle and me,
you don't want to be doingthat anymore.
You know, we got our 40s and50s to look forward to.
We want to walk into it gracefully.
Not stumble into itaccidentally and get.
Hurt on the way home.
As we wrap, I always, I gottaclose everyone, you know, they tune
(48:13):
in for, of course, greatness,like Kyle Mills and to hear what
he's writing about.
But you always, we always liketo close with.
What's your best writing advice?
I know you got a good one.
You've shared it before,you've been on the show before.
But I want to know, A, what is it?
B, has it shifted any in thiscycle of evolution that you've incurred
through in your proliferousand pontificatedness career?
(48:36):
I'll give you a new and forgetthriller romantasy.
That's the place to be.
Oh my God.
I could not actually agreewith you more when I said go ahead
and finish because I, Iinterrupted you instantly.
It's just like people love itand the authors are a lot of fun.
(48:57):
Like, like if you go to awriters conference.
Yes, and you got to pick a table.
Romantasy.
It's so funny because it usedto be when you'd hear the word romance
you'd go, oh, Harlequin, I'mnot gonna do that.
It's all sappy, right?
But then, yeah, Romantasycomes along which is basically romance
(49:17):
and fantasy.
And then it's just.
Then it just kind of.
Oh, I thought it was alreadyblown up.
Now it's blown the hail up.
Oh man, that's crazy.
And, and I thought if we cankeep on this tangent for one second
because I did ask you and itis my show when we talk about popular
books.
Thrillers have always been popular.
(49:38):
Mystery science, suspense,thriller, sure, romance has always
been popular, but romance.
I did some numbers recently, Iwon't remember them right now because
I'm on the spot, but it's like4 or 6 or 13 to 1 over thriller.
It's crazy.
I think some of these peopleout there, they're like, oh man,
(49:59):
if it only sold like TomClancy that'd be just a huge failure
for me.
Right?
Right.
Yeah.
But here's.
Let's get it down to reality.
Could you sit down, Mr. Millsand craft a really tasty little Romantasy
book?
I think I could.
I think I could.
(50:19):
I like building worlds.
Yeah.
And, and I'd have to study thegenre, but I think it'd be really
a fun challenge.
But yeah, I don't think 60year old white dude, this not, not
probably your best bet for aromantasy author.
Maybe.
However, what if you were tohave a pen name and maybe like for
(50:45):
instance, we never saw you.
I mean you're just.
You come up with a pen name.
It sounds kind of super sexy.
And you could see me, youcould interview me.
I think is.
Can I use AI to just changewhat I look and sound like while
sitting here?
I think I can 100%.
And when we, when we hang up,I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk to you
about this a little bitfurther and, and peel it away for
(51:06):
you.
But folks, once again I hopeyou enjoyed the show.
The book is fade in.
It's gonna be a long timebefore this little genre fades out.
How you doing?
Look at that.
How did I do that?
Nice ending.
Yeah.
But I mean couple.
One last closing thought.
This is my new.
This is the new thing.
New thing I'm banging on thedoor about.
(51:26):
I don't know why.
Maybe it's cause I got ashortening attention span.
Kyle.
Or I read 321.
That's just about the magicnumber that is long as the book ever
has to be.
If you want to go 321, youwant to go 291, 281, I'm still going
to be loving on you.
That's interesting becauseit's funny that when I started books
(51:48):
were much longer.
Oh yeah.
And it really has been a.
There have been many Trendsover the 30 years I've been in this
business.
But one of them is that.
I mean my contracts used tocall for much longer books than that.
Yeah.
Remember the days when they goKyla, I need about a140,160 from
you.
Can you do that?
(52:08):
That'd be really great.
Right now it's like Mr. Millscan you get this down around 95 to
99.
That would really be great.
And it's, you know in my firstdrafts are actually really long and
then I slash like 25000 wordsout of them to try to make them more
efficient.
For real.
You do you do that?
To this day.
Yeah.
To this day I don't know whyI'm really long winded in my first
(52:31):
draft.
And then I realize I couldhave said the same thing that I use
10 words and three words andso I shorten them in the second draft
though most people don't liketo do that because it is kind of
a bummer.
You think?
How long did it take me towrite those 25,000 words that I just
hit the delete button on?
It's longer than you want tothink about.
You know what?
(52:52):
I get that.
I understand that we need tolet go of that bullshit.
Here's why.
A, attention spans getting shorter.
B life's getting shorter.
We're getting closer to theend of the beginning.
Okay, how you doing?
It's just pure math.
And C, I got too many thingsto do.
Sure do.
I want to read a commils book.
(53:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
I get a lot of enjoyment outof it.
But I'd also like to read aMeg Gardner book and also like to
read a Don Winslow book.
And I'd also like to, you know.
And the list goes on.
And I just want to read someRomantasy perhaps want to tickle
my tickle myself with some romantic.
(53:34):
You and everybody else.
Anyway, dude, this was so good.
Thank you so much for takingthe time.
You're always such a friggindelight to talk to.
Same.
I appreciate you having me on.
It's always a lot of fun.
I don't know.
It'd be a lot easier to get toyou in Wyoming than it would be to
get you to you in Spain.
So if I ever make my way, isit Jackson Hole?
(53:56):
Jackson Hole ish adjacent.
Yeah, Jackson Hole.
I'm right in the middle of town.
Yeah, okay.
Never been there.
I hear nothing butfantasticness about it.
It's pretty.
And you know, we have abeautiful park, Grand Teton national
parks right outside the town.
So yeah, I'm, I've been hereover 30 years.
(54:16):
Hard to believe.
Wow.
Well, if I'm out that way,we're going to sit down with some
nice tequila, make us a fireand sit down and talk about books
and romantic and stuff.
Not that hard to get to Spain either.
They get on a plane, they'llfly right there.
Yeah, imagine that.
Kyle, thanks again, man.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
(54:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was a good conversationand a great book.
Fade in.
By the way.
Go to Kyle Mills.com if youwant to learn more.
Folks, we're only doing twoshows in August because it's summertime
and I'm working on my own bookwhich I'm going to share with you
very, very soon.
I've been working on this formonths now and I think you're gonna
like it.
You don't hear me talk aboutmy books very often.
(54:58):
As you know, I self published,what, nine books.
And I said, hey, when I get tothat 10th month, I'm gonna go, I'm
gonna go try to find an agent.
All this stuff that it stillremains to be seen because there
are other methods to do this.
Skin this cat.
But either way, I'm going totell you about it.
But here's the deal.
We only got two shows in August.
Telling you straight up.
And on next show, I got a twofer.
(55:20):
It's.
It's two of the.
Two of the smartest, funniest,best writing cats on the planet.
Who is it?
Lee and Todd Goldberg.
Yeah, they happen to be brothers.
Golly, they're so funny.
That's going to be next week's show.
Well, next week meaning twoweeks from now.
(55:41):
And I want to make sure you,you catch it.
I probably shouldn't say intwo weeks because I might slide them
in sooner and I might slide insome other things.
I'm always trying to surpriseyou and surprise myself.
Either way, tune in for Leeand Todd Goldberg.
Their books are on the way andthey're dandies.
So any kind of.
(56:02):
Listen, you want to drop us anote, feel free to drop it@the thrillerzonemail.com
that's our email.
The thrillerzonemail.com.
you can always find us at ourwebsite, the thrillerzone.com makes
so much sense, doesn't it?
If you want to get on theshow, let us know.
A lot of inquiries coming in.
(56:23):
Some we can take, some we can't.
It's just, you know, luck ofthe draw.
You know how it works.
But feel free to reach out.
And if there's somethingyou're loving about the show, let
me know.
If there's something you'rehating about the show, let me know.
Love to hear from you.
All right, so until next time,I'm Dave Templet, your host.
I'll see you for anotherepisode of the Thriller Zone.
Happy Summer, your number onepodcast for stories that thrill the
(56:49):
Thriller Zone.
Hello and welcome to theThriller Zone.
I'm your host, Dave Temple.
It is so good to have you here.
Welcome to.
What is it, the middle ofsummer already?
Can you believe it?
The middle of summer.
And by the time this showdrops, it'll be the first Wednesday
in August.
So happy August to you and yours.
(00:38):
I hope it's a very pleasantsummer for you here in San Diego.
It's quite stunning in August.
I remember back home inCarolina, hot and sticky and humid.
The kudzu and the crickets andthe cicadas.
Entirely different world.
Anyway, welcome to summer.
I will be doing a littlesummer vacationing here in the next
few weeks.
(00:59):
So you may not be getting ashow every single week as per usual,
but I'm sure you understandthat and will plan accordingly.
And I thank you for your support.
On today's show is one of myfavorite guys.
He's become a favorite guysbecause he's such a great conversationalist.
I just so enjoy talking to him.
And as you'll see inside theshow, we start talking.
(01:22):
We don't even get to the bookuntil, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes
in.
And you know, honestly, I likeit that way.
I do.
I just like shooting thebreeze because that to me is real
entertainment.
I really get to know theauthors and that's key to me.
But I will tell you straightup, Kyle Mills has a new book called
Fade In.
I told him on the show, and Ithink you'll, you'll.
(01:43):
You'll hear this.
It could be in my opinion.
No, it is, in my opinion, hisbest book yet.
Did I like the Vince Flynn books?
Sure.
He did great with Match Mitch Rap.
But this one, thisprotagonist, I totally dig and we
had so much fun.
Now, as you'll notice, theshows have gone for, you know, a
(02:04):
little over an hour, hour anda half to.
Down to about 30 minutes for alot of different reasons.
I got stuff to do.
You got stuff to do.
People aren't.
You know, I started noticingpeople would drop off after a certain
amount of time.
So I just said, you know, 30minutes does it.
We went on for, I don't know,40, 45 minutes.
So hang in there.
We hung up the show and wekept talking for another hour and
almost an hour and a halfbecause we just had so much to talk
(02:26):
about and so many good insidesecrets to publishing.
I wish I could share it withyou, but all those usually, what
do we call it, overtime, oftenget requested to me to.
Yeah, let's not put that on.
It's A shame, because reallygood stuff.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but Ican because it's my show.
Welcome to the Thriller Zone.
(02:47):
As I said, Dave Temple, KyleMills today.
And fade in.
You're gonna dig it.
So let me shut up and let'sget to it.
Kyle, you ready?
Hey, Kyle, how are you, buddy?
I'm doing well.
Let me change my volume here.
How are things going?
Things are going smashingly.
You?
Yeah, not bad.
(03:07):
You know, the.
The run up to publication,it's always a little hectic.
It's.
It's always something.
Today I have this kind ofplace that I do these set up and
the painters to paint thehouse showed up, started like pressure
washing the front of the house.
So it's.
It's.
It's always something thistime of year.
Well, to.
(03:27):
Not to try to one up you, butjust before you came on, like literally
four minutes ago, my dog, whois suffering from pneumonia, goes
into a hacking cough while mywife is on a zoom call with seven
other people.
And she's like doing this tothe camera but going, come here,
(03:50):
take care of it.
Right when someone knocks atthe door, who's coming over for a
meeting because Cammie's callis going late and she showed up early
and dog is coughing.
I'm like, I got Kyle.
I got Kyle.
Oh, my God.
Honestly, you know, I'm prettyopen today, so if you want to push
off or take care of the dog,I'm fine to come back.
(04:12):
No, that is on her own.
Last time we spoke, you werein a.
You were in a room.
You were in a different room.
There was a palm tree next to you.
You were in.
I don't know.
I might have been just outwhere they're pressure washing the
(04:34):
front of my house.
Oh, I'm.
I'm stuffed in like a cornerof my bedroom now.
Oh, okay.
So you know.
Yeah.
You weren't.
You were inside.
You were.
It was not a palm tree.
It was.
You were inside.
It was a nondescript room.
There was a palmish tree upagainst the wall.
That probably was Spain.
Okay.
I probably just moved in.
We had probably just movedinto our flat and we didn't.
(04:56):
We had like two pieces of furniture.
Yeah, I remember there was.
It looked like.
Yeah.
Nothing happened.
So where are you now?
I'm in Wyoming.
Okay, gotcha.
That's right.
You're one of those.
I would say bi.
Coastal, but you're by country.
By country.
Yeah.
One year, one year there, oneyear here.
We're.
We're moving back on the 19th dude.
(05:18):
You'Re living one of mydreams, for crying out loud.
Yeah, well, maybe two of them.
I mean, you're living in twocountries, and I got a point about
that.
And you're writing books, soyou're like, you're.
You're.
You're slamming it and jammingit, and you're a world traveler.
I mean, I'm humbled.
(05:38):
I'm humbled.
Well, it's.
It's great.
I mean, I.
It is definitely great, thoughI will say it.
Sometimes the fantasy is alittle better than the.
Yeah.
Reality.
I mean, we've had seven floodsin our flat in Spain so far.
Um, and we're just at thepoint where we're just like.
(06:01):
We'll just see what.
What we find when we get back.
Wow.
But you are loving Spain,aren't you?
Yeah, yeah.
It's been a great.
It's been a great move.
I.
It.
It's really fun andchallenging and exciting and.
Yeah.
You know, sometimes hairpulling, you know, because.
(06:24):
But it's interesting becauseyou get a.
You get an opportunity to findout what it's like to be an immigrant,
so.
Which is an interesting perspective.
Yes.
And if we can take just 30more seconds on this.
I want to talk about one thingI have been watching.
My wife and I are gettingready to take off for a nice long
trip out into Europe, and we.
And we were.
(06:44):
Thank you.
We were talking about howcrazy the world is and how we see
all these people exiting stageleft because of the current regime.
We'll try to dance around someof this.
And so he said, if we weregoing to have a second residence
or a primary yet in anothercountry, where would it be?
(07:05):
And we're like, well, we'vealways dreamed of Italy, but then
I hear nothing, fan.
Nothing but fabulousness about Spain.
I mean, like, every time Iturn around and I'm like.
And then I.
And now I'm coming talking toyou, and I'm like, honey, I'm going
to ask him.
I'm going to ask him, youknow, what's it like in Spain?
What's the cost of living likeand all?
And do you have to, you know,you got to learn the language?
(07:26):
And are you treated like an immigrant?
And how does your money work?
And it's dirt cheap to live there.
I live on.
We rent our house in Jackson.
That's plenty.
To live large and have moneyleft over at the end of every month.
Now, we did buy a flat,renovate it.
That was expensive.
(07:47):
And that's, you know, I'm not Counting.
Right.
You know, like if I'd had amortgage on that or something.
Sure.
The Spanish are lovely.
Yeah.
The food ain't as good asItaly by a long shot.
And there is an anti foreignermovement there for sure.
I think it's targeted more attourists than.
(08:10):
I've never experienced it.
Learning the language is anabsolute bitch.
Like people don't tell you that.
It's language is sort of likeweight loss where people say, oh,
well, if you sign up for this,well, you know, you'll lose £100
in the next three weekswithout ever any effort.
Yeah, right, right, right.
More like it's like 10 yearsor something to, to really wrap your
(08:35):
mind around like to the pointwhere now we can have like dinner
parties with Spaniards.
Right.
Even then at the end of it,my, my wife will just go into bed
and just flop on the bed andjust say, don't, don't talk to me.
I'm going to sleep in my clothes.
You're just like concentratingso hard and so.
But a lot of people that livethere don't ever learn it.
(08:57):
It's just that, that wethought it was important.
Yeah.
And I like it.
I like studying languages, so.
Yeah.
Well, you're, you're smarterthan your average bear.
Yeah.
It's a.
Let me tell you, it's.
If I master Spanish, it'll bethe hardest thing I ever did for
sure.
Harder than writing a pageturning thriller.
(09:19):
What, by a hundred thousand times?
Yeah.
It's like writing a, writing athriller in Spanish.
It's like, hey, well look atit this way.
At least you're not learningsay German or Chinese.
Yeah.
And you know, the great thingabout Spanish is you do have this
huge Spanish community in theUnited States.
(09:40):
So you've heard it, you seeit, you know, like it's not.
Yeah.
It's not like, oh, I'm justsuddenly gonna learn Chinese.
Yeah.
But.
And it's hard.
And one more thing on Spanish,if I may.
And I'm, I'm not fluent.
Trust me.
Even living in San Diego wheresome people say, well, why aren't
you, why baking Spanish?
I'm like, it's my country isthat there are a lot of words that
(10:02):
are just very similar and it'skind of easy to pick up.
Yeah.
The grammar is really complex,whereas the grammar, English grammar
is very, very simple.
So it's simple to us.
But don't say that to peopletrying to learn it because it's pretty.
I mean, you could learn this,the English verb system, you know,
add an s To he.
(10:23):
Right.
I've just taught you theEnglish verb system.
That's three years.
You know, like, what, arethere, like, five ways you can say
a verb in English and maybe ahundred and ten.
Yeah.
In Spanish.
Yeah, it's.
It's.
Yeah, it's.
It's.
And then you got the masculineand feminine things.
You gotta remember every word.
What the.
(10:44):
Yeah.
You know, whether it'smasculine or feminine.
And at the beginning Ithought, that's not that important.
But it.
It's like nails on achalkboard to the Spanish.
Yeah.
So you actually have to get it right.
And it's.
Yeah, don't get me started.
Yeah, don't get me started.
Kyle, this is what I lovetalking about.
This is why I love talking to you.
Because you're.
(11:05):
You're just so.
You're so well read.
You're so well traveled.
You're.
And you.
And I say this with all duerespect, you don't take it all too
seriously.
That's what I love, man.
Right.
Yeah.
That'd be depressing.
You know, gotta.
You've gotta.
You gotta take it in stride.
Yeah.
Take it all in stride.
Hey, by the way, let's do this.
Welcome to Back to theThriller Zone.
(11:26):
There's your official open insert.
Dave, I love you right here.
Thank you for having me.
Dave, I love you.
Okay.
Thank you, by the way.
Fade in.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna.
It's my.
An old girlfriend of mine usedto say when I was trying to get something,
she goes, I'm not giving allmy candy in the lobby.
(11:49):
So I'm going to give you allthe candy.
The lobby.
This is your best book yet.
I'm going to start with that.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
And.
Sure, sure.
I was a big Vince Flynn fanwhen you filled in that sandbox.
Sure.
And I liked your.
I've liked your otherstandalones, but this one, I don't
know what it was.
(12:09):
This comes out of the gatewith a bitch slap and surprises,
and it's so timely.
I'm like, wow, his finger isright on that frigging pulse, man.
Yeah, that's what I was going for.
You know, after nine books inthe Mitch Rap series, which was super
(12:29):
fun to do, I wanted to kind ofmove away from, you know, kind of
the Islamic terrorism andstuff that.
That's really the focus ofthat series and talk a lot about,
I mean, the weird stuff that'shappening today.
You know, it's not like theold days of, oh, the Soviet Union's
the bad guy or the, you know,the Islamic terrorists are the bad
(12:50):
guys.
Now it's coming at us fromevery direction and including inside
the house.
Yeah.
I mean, you've got all thesedivisions inside the country, which
is massive problems.
I mean, it's funny to thinkhow many weird things are going on.
Anything from climate changeto, you know, the internal division
(13:11):
of the United States to thiscrazy war in, in Russia.
America trying to completelysort of reinvent itself and its place
in the world.
I mean, it's like every, oh,you know, Israel, it's everything
all like, it feels like it'slike everything all at once.
And technology, I mean, forgetabout that.
It's crazy to think that whenI started fade in, like when I started
(13:34):
fade in, AI wasn't really a thing.
Like when I first put pen to paper.
Now here I am on pub day andit's just blown up.
So it's like a year and ahalf, dude.
If I can, if I can insertsomething here.
I have been telling my wifeI'm working on a book, by the way.
I'm not going to bore you with the.
I want to show you my notes,Mr. Mills.
(13:55):
I'm really where I have, Ihave many words.
I know you're working on it.
I do know.
Been working on it.
I've been working on for too long.
But I'm really in the thick ofit right now.
And it is involving AI.
But here's my point.
I say to my wife every motherfreaking day, honey, I know you're
getting tired of hearing this,but AI is coming.
(14:17):
Few days go by.
No, honey, AI is coming inlike a tsunami.
Few days go by.
I'm like, honey, we're goingto be drowning in AI very soon.
And she's like, she's alwayslike this, and this is, I love her
more than my next breath, butshe's like, AI shmai.
You know, I'm like, okay,okay, okay.
Honey, every time you downloadan app on your phone, check and see
(14:41):
what they're getting from you.
Oh, I, I, it's probably, theyhave it anyway.
I need that app.
I'm like, but you're givingthis stuff anyway, my point being,
and it can.
Be analyzed now at the speedof light, which was not possible
before, when.
AI shifts into agentic AI andfolks, for, for those at home who
(15:02):
are going, dang, what are youtalking about?
It is basically the nextlevel, like about 20 stories up,
but the way it's processing.
Oh, Jesus, it's, it's mindnumbing, isn't it, Kyle.
It really is.
And then there's such a goodplatform to.
I mean, it's terrible becauseAI, the possibilities of it to help
(15:26):
humanity are endless.
But if we know anything abouthumanity, we'll skip those and go
straight to the bad stuff.
And I mean, you know,everybody looks at their phone eight
hours a day.
And now AI can.
Has all that data on you every.
It knows everything about youand can and can use that, sift through
all that data and targetthings right at you, you know, I
(15:48):
mean, it can convince you of anything.
And so what?
You don't know what's real,what's not.
I mean, yeah, I mean, justrecently, you know, that video of
Obama being arrested gotforwarded around, and it was forwarded
around by the president.
And you kind of like, oh, man.
I mean, the floodgates couldbe open now for just deep fakes being,
(16:13):
you know, forward around by the.
By governments and.
And how do you know what'sreal anymore?
And then the AI can make themspecifically to you.
So, yeah, I don't know whereit's going, but that's.
That was kind of the point ofwriting this book and starting this
series is it gives me anexcuse to, you know, explore it.
(16:34):
You and I could literally takean entire hour on just the topic
of AI and I. I'm not going todo it because we do have your book
to talk about, Mr. New YorkTimes bestselling author.
And I got a few questions, youknow, to make you show that I'm a
smart guy.
But I got to tell you something.
(16:56):
I am so.
I'm more than fascinated.
I'm.
I'm like.
I'm crawling into addiction territory.
I'm so.
I am so consumed with the possibilities.
And you've made a good point.
There is good and there is bad.
Well, you know, us as humanbeings, we're gonna go.
(17:17):
We're gonna go straight to thebad, for crying out loud.
It's just gonna happen.
Oh, wait, if I can use thisfor good, what if I could use it
for bad?
And then you're gonna do it.
Next of all, do.
Should we be using it in our.
In our common.
In our creating stories?
I say yes.
I'm not saying go take Kyle'sbooks and.
(17:38):
And upload them and analyzethem and copy a book like that because
he's such a huge number onehit writer, but how about if you
had a little bit of help like.
Like asking, hey, are my beats.
I made my beats.
Are they.
Do they work?
Well, does this.
Is this story Timely.
(17:58):
How much that is happening inthe world today reflects what I'm
toying with.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, I think it's inevitable.
Yeah, it's probably.
I'm sure it's happening now.
Yeah.
But the.
I'm not that interested in itin that realm.
I mean, I played with it once.
I don't know, it was like ayear ago or something, and I think
(18:18):
I had put in one of my roughdraft of a chapter and said, rewrite
this chapter into a final inthe style of Kyle Mills, and definitely
cleaned it up, but it wasn'tsomething I'd have ever written.
Yeah.
And I'm kind of at the pointin my career where I do it for the
joy of it.
I like, really like writing books.
(18:40):
So the idea of having AI do itand then what would I do all day?
You know, so for me, itdoesn't work.
If I had to, you know, if Iwas in one of those poor guys, that
I'd do five books a year orsomething, you know, then it might
be a really good aid, but Ilike sitting there and, you know,
crafting sentences and, youknow, things like that.
So it's, it's kind of my.
(19:02):
It's my job, but it's also my entertainment.
Yeah, well.
And you're good at it.
All right, let's.
Let's, let's do this.
First of all, I broke this upin a couple of things because I want
to go back in your backgrounda little bit, and I'm watching the
clock.
I'm going to try to get youout in about, you know, half hour.
Ish.
Ish.
And then I want to get into.
Fade in, of course, but I wantto go back a little bit.
(19:24):
Growing up as a. I guess you could.
I guess you could be called abureau kid.
Right.
You.
Your pop was in the FBI, soyou grew up in that whole world,
did.
Moving around the country,which I have to assume you did, and,
and probably served you verywell as we just started the conversation
about.
And, you know, absorbing allthat inside knowledge.
Now, I'm not saying that yourdad said, let me tell you what I
(19:47):
did today, but did that.
And I hope this doesn't feellike Captain Obvious, but did that
insider knowledge kind ofshape your writing and your worldview?
Yeah, certainly my writing.
I mean, just from the very beginning.
So I started, as much as Ihate dating myself before the Internet,
and I wanted to write a book,but I read really widely.
(20:10):
I love thrillers, but I readall kinds of stuff.
And I had to actually sit downand decide what genre I was going
to write in.
And now to be clear, I neverin a million years thought this book
was going to get published.
It's just a project.
And so I wasn't setting out tohave a career but get published or
anything like that.
And I thought, oh well, I knowall these people in this, in the
(20:34):
intelligence community and FBIand stuff and I mean, how could you
couldn't look stuff up on the Internet?
It didn't exist.
So I thought kind of out ofsheer laziness, I'll write a thriller
and, and you know, if I needto know what the, I don't know, the
director of the CIA's officelooked like, I can call him.
I've known him since I was alittle kid.
Wow.
So that was kind of what setme off on the thriller path.
(20:58):
And yeah, like I said, I meanhere I am, 25 or something books
later having no, not startedout with that plan whatsoever.
And yeah, you get to absorball that stuff.
You know, I was around specops, CIA, FBI, MI6, you know, those
were the friends of the family.
So yeah, it was great, dude.
(21:20):
I, I'm.
I'm sure I knew some of this.
I'm sure.
I don't think I knew it tothat degree, but I'm just trying
to see, I'm trying to pictureyoung Kyle.
Gee, dad can have some moremashed potatoes.
Yo.
What did you do today, Mr. Black?
You know.
It is those early.
It's funny, the.
The early memories are still there.
My, My father come in fromwork and.
(21:42):
Yeah.
That he was the Hoover erawith the, the suit and the big old
wing tips.
Oh yeah.
And he'd immediately go in andtake his gun off and put it in the
drawer.
And then dinner would be ready.
You know, it was back in the70s, right mom?
And dinner on the table.
And he would sit down andyaffle it all down still like in
his suit pants and, and shirt.
(22:02):
Super.
Remember those shirts, man?
Starched.
And they'd.
My mom, when, when she'd ironthem, they'd be lined up against
the wall.
They'd stand.
Oh yeah.
Against the wall.
Because man, if you were inthe FBI, you had to be perfect back
then.
God, I remember those days.
Niagara, I think it was calledNiagara it.
(22:23):
Because that was back.
I would spray.
I would, you know, dampen yourshirt then spray the out of it and
then put it on that heartbecause I wanted to be able to lean
up against the wall.
I.
For some reason that was cool.
I don't know.
Anyway, so, so I'm trying topicture that.
And that in, in and of itselfis fascinating.
But now I want to go forward alittle bit.
(22:44):
So now you've spent all thistime in the Vince Flynn world, which
you, you nailed perfectly.
I don't want to spend too muchtime blowing smoke up your skirt,
but have.
What's it like having steppedaway from that and, and, and being
able to just kind of go, youknow what?
I'm back to just doing whatDaddy Kyle wants to do.
(23:07):
It's been really fun.
I mean, I, I really likedwriting the Mitch rap stuff, so it
was a really hard decision to stop.
I mean, I like, I, I felt likeI was at a good stopping point.
I, for a number of reasons.
And I had this character who'sgot the same deadly skills as Mitch
(23:27):
Rapp, but is a very different personality.
He's a little gonzo, littlemanic depressive.
He has a weird sense of humor.
He's kind of a little bit of apop philosopher.
And I thought he was the rightguy to tell the story because Mitch,
you know, I really obviously Iconsidered just.
I kind of had finished an arcwith the Mitch rap stuff.
(23:49):
You know, I, I won't get itbore anybody with it, but I had this
very arc where I would starthim here when I took over and I Would
you leave him here?
And then it was time foranother arc.
And the question was, do Iexplore all these things that I'm
exploring now in the kind ofthe modern world through the eyes
of Mitch?
And I didn't think it wasquite right for him because he's
(24:11):
the master of his own universe.
Too powerful.
I wanted a guy who could feellike we do every day, who's like
dragged along and doesn'tunderstand it and it's changing too
fast and he's not sure heshould be involved and all these
doubts and things so fade.
Which is a character Iintroduced 20 years ago and left
(24:32):
alone for 20 years.
Seemed like the perfect guy toobserve this world and interact with
this world and it would be ina really fun and interesting way.
So you gotta, you've gottahave the, you've gotta match your
character to the story to some extent.
And he seemed perfect for that.
Yeah.
You made me think of aconversation that I had recently
(24:54):
with Megan Abbott, which she'sjust so friggin delightful.
Oh my God, I could talk to herall day long.
But we were talking about howfunny it is we as writers.
I think I used the phrase,Megan, do you ever feel like you're
you're laying on your owncouch, sitting in the.
Laying on your own couch whileyour other part of yourself is sitting
in the chair going, tell meabout that.
(25:16):
Where do you think you can't.
That came from?
Right.
So when I hear you.
Yeah, when I hear you talkabout Fade, I'm like to myself, what's
Kyle?
What's he working out in hismind as far as fate is concerned?
Because this guy's a littlebit of a loose cannon and.
Which is what I love about him.
(25:37):
Yeah.
It's weird because he's.
If.
If you write kind of like Ido, when I write a character from
a character's point of view, Ikind of inhabit that character.
I don't plan what they say.
I sort of become thatcharacter and, you know, fades.
A weird guy to spend your dayin his head, you know, so Mitch Rapp,
at least, you know, he was astraight shooter, like, you know,
(26:00):
really kind of hard charging.
You knew he knew what hebelieved in.
He knew.
And the faze is all over the place.
That guy, you know, he's justchasing every squirrel.
So, um, it's.
That's really fun thing to dobecause he's particularly.
I've always been fascinatedwith writing characters really different
than me.
Yeah.
So, I mean, like, whatever itis, women, terrorists, in this case,
(26:24):
fade.
You know, it's.
It's fun to get into otherpeople's heads and see their perspectives.
What does your.
I can't.
I have to ask this.
And if you don't want to, ifit's too private, you can tell me.
But what does your wife.
When you talk about.
Oh, I get to like to get inthat head, and I live in that character.
It's kind of like, you know,you hear actors, method actors who
will get into a character andthey'll live in that character while
(26:46):
they're shooting the movie.
So I wonder how much of thatintegration of fade into yourself
do you have?
And do you.
Does it stick with you?
And on top of that, does yourwife go, you're Kyle, babe.
You're not fade.
So pump the brakes.
Fade isn't too bad.
I wrote a serial killer bookonce, though, years ago, where I
was writing a lot from thepoint of view of the serial killer.
(27:10):
And my wife at the end of itsaid, that's your last serial killer
book.
And it was.
What was that book?
I want to read it.
Burn Factor.
Oh, okay.
And did you.
And we're.
All right.
I'm.
I'll.
I don't.
I could go down that Rabbit hole.
I won't do it.
All right, let's get back to here.
All right.
Without spoiling things forfolks who have yet to read Fade in
(27:33):
fades takes aim at how wemanipulate the perception.
And we talk, we start off theshow about this, but did today's
media ecosystem influence thisplot line?
And to what degree what.
What was about, what is itthat was going on that you went,
now I'm gonna weave this intoa story.
It really was just like whatwas right around the corner.
(27:56):
And you could see it with A.I.
i mean, I said it wasn'treally a thing, but you could tell
it was coming when I startedthat book.
And just the, the incrediblepower of the billionaire and elite
class and how they're becomingmore and more powerful.
And, you know, you think aboutElon Musk.
I think I, I talk about this alittle bit in the book and I use
(28:18):
real world examples of, youknow, you can't shoot anything into
space without him.
You can't talk from oversatellite without his satellite constitution,
his power over the government.
And, and you saw it.
It's funny that he ended up inthis feud with Donald Trump, which
I did not foresee at thebeginning of this book.
Even Elon Musk gettinginvolved with the government, but
(28:38):
you know, him talking about,well, then you can't use my rocket.
You're gonna get up in my grill.
You know, I'm not.
You can't use my rocketsanymore or I'll shut off my satellites
or whatever you think.
No, I mean, not since like theJP Morgan days has have individuals
unelected into wealthyindividuals have this kind of power.
I mean, Zuckerberg or Googlethat can manipulate everything we
(29:02):
see with their algorithms and stuff.
So it's something that I saw coming.
And it's just one of the major threats.
I mean, humanity now is itsown threat.
That's kind of the weird thing.
Now it's not famine we canprobably handle.
(29:22):
We didn't handle it very well,but we can handle, you know, Covid,
we can feed ourselves, we canstay safe.
And the problem is we don't.
I think it's almost like weget bored.
So you think about, I mean,the perfect example of this would
be Russia, right?
The largest country in the world.
And what do they decide?
We need more land, you know,and we're going to go in and just
(29:45):
get completely bloodied andtrash our country, Trash their country.
Why?
I don't know.
We were bored.
You really can't, you can'teven come up with a decent reason
well yeah, you know, those arethe kinds of things now that have
we, have we moved into ourself destructive phase and on, on
an existential sense which Ithink is an interesting thing that
(30:08):
people don't talk about withAI as that gets better and better.
Humans have been real.
I've always prided ourselveson being special.
Right.
We're, we're smarter than anyother thing.
We can do these amazing thingsand I think it's going to come out
pretty soon that we're notthat amazing, that AI can probably
do it better.
Where does that leave us?
(30:29):
What's our purpose?
And it could be breaking intotribes and fighting amongst each
other to find an identitywhich is important to humans to have
an identity that could besomething that, you know, really
causes us problems thatnobody's talking about.
This is so, so.
You're so on point.
(30:49):
This is so.
It's such, it's such.
I don't want to say scary timebut it is an alarming time.
And I could, God, I could gooff on like five different tangents.
I'll try to stay focused itreal just being.
And, and I say this to mywife, we are getting closer and closer
and closer.
I mean, I don't mean like oh,it's going to be like in another
(31:12):
five or 10 years.
No, every day AI is improvingand the deep fake ability, both voice
face turning photographs intovideo is mind boggling.
But to your point, and Ithought about this the other day,
when you see the robots, I'mlike, I was talking to Tammy, I'm
(31:32):
like, you know, think about this.
Let's use Amazon as a case.
Why wouldn't you want it fullof robots that don't complain, don't
break down, don't take pottybreaks, work 24 7.
All you gotta do is make surethe batteries are charged and they're
with precision and so forth.
I mean we're, it's not gonnatake us long to get there, right?
(31:54):
No.
And it really is worryingbecause even if you create this utopian
scenario which a lot of peoplehave that they say, well let's say
all those robots have theirown economy, it's great.
And they pay us to sit around like.
Right.
And you could see thathappening, right?
Amazon still makes a bunch ofmoney, the robots pay us.
(32:17):
And then they say, well thenyou're going to.
People will be able to readthe classics and do all these creative
things and all this.
No, they're not.
They're going to find a way tofight among.
We're going to Find a way tofight amongst ourselves.
Right.
We're going to break intoreligious groups and racial groups
and political groups andeverything in a desperate attempt
to find some purpose now thatwe don't go to the factory all day
(32:39):
and build our widgets for the world.
Right.
We all feel that.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel that.
I think about retirement andI, I, it scares me because I'm like,
well, what do I do all day,like when I wander around in my slippers?
And so, you know, now you havethe whole world rounding around their
slippers, particularly youngmen who have access to a lot of weapons.
(33:01):
Like that's, that's just not agood formula.
You're hired at the end of the day.
Yes, yes.
Between weapons and money and power.
Oh, again, go down a rabbit hole.
I'm not going to do it.
All right.
One thing I particularly foundfascinating about Fade in, how it
tackles themes of a coupledifferent things.
Power brokers operate in the shadows.
(33:23):
Question of whether fate issaving humanity or helping to enslave
it.
Kind of like we're dabbling inthe AI conversation.
How much do you think of that?
Current global politicsinfluenced shadowy organizations
that recruits fate.
Because that's one thing I dugabout this.
So fades like, I'm going to godo this thing.
No, we want you to come backin now.
I'm going to do now, come onback in.
(33:44):
Because if you do, we got alittle favor to ask, but you're going
to do this thing.
So, like, how does that allcome together?
Yeah.
So, you know, John Lowe is thecharacter here who's this billionaire.
He's extraordinarily powerfuland he's essentially trying to create
a situation, a system in whichhe gathers all these very powerful
billionaires and somepoliticians together and says, what
(34:07):
we're doing is really not that productive.
If you're worth $200 billion,what's another billion dollars to
you?
It's nothing.
Should we maybe try to thinkabout on a larger scale what the
good of society, what thedangers are here?
Because politicians havebecome power hungry and useless to
a large extent.
They, they don't want to solveproblems or better off creating them
(34:29):
and, you know, using them tohype up their base.
So that is the idea.
And he's not a boy scout, youknow, he understands that there's
a dark side of humanity andthat's why he needs a few people
like fate who have certainskill set that, you know, problem
solving methods that wouldn'tnormally be available to billionaires.
(34:51):
But he understands that that'sNecessary component two.
He jokes around rule the worldbut in a way he kind of wants to
do that just.
And an example of this thatthey talk about in the book, not
to be a spoiler but to justkind of give you an example.
What I'm talking about on onescale is simply there's a guy that
has cracked driverless carslike he's got a system, it's going
(35:13):
to work perfectly and in a fewyears they, they're going to, they'll
take over everything.
Nobody will be driving anymore.
Right.
The problem with that is thenumber one job for male Americans
is driving in some capacity,whether it's trucks or cabs or whatever
traffic.
And so they say, well that'sgoing to put over the course of the
(35:37):
next three years absolutelyenormous amounts of young men, as
we were just talking about outof work out.
That is a really bad idea.
What's the benefit to this?
And so they say we're going toput the brakes on that and just make
it a safety feature.
But you'll still have theillusion that you're driving.
(35:57):
If you're going to drive intoa wall, it'll stop you or over a
little League team, butotherwise it's not going to work
that way.
So that's one of the thingsthey do that they see these technologies
potentially becoming reallydestructive to society in.
Even though maybe they're thebest intentions.
So it's.
But they can act on a globallevel in a way that really before
(36:21):
only the United States could.
And particularly as the UnitedStates kind of pulls back from its
global role that it's had for,you know, since the war, Since World
War II, they see that as apower vacuum that absolutely needs
to be filled otherwise you'regoing to end up with chaos.
Let's take a short break andwe'll be back with more Kyle Mills
(36:43):
in just a moment.
(37:52):
That's the other thing aboutthis book.
It is so today.
I mean it's like you have toread this book today and by the end
of next week you'll go, oh,that book was great.
But that is so yesterdaybecause look what's happening now.
Hopefully they'll say, yeah,all that happened and now it's worse.
Yeah.
And they'll have to read mynext book.
Yeah, well, and that's theperfect tee up for me.
(38:15):
Do you, looking ahead, do yousee fade, especially in this particular
case, do you see this as a oneoff or maybe a beginning of a new
series?
No, definitely the beginningof a new series.
I've actually Finished thefirst draft of the next Fade book.
So this is just somebody, likeI said, that's just a great set of
eyes to see how the world isso quickly evolving and where it
(38:38):
could fall apart.
And there are so many places.
It used to be the Soviet Union.
How could it fall apart?
One way the Soviets shoot abunch of nukes at us.
That was pretty much your onlychoice right now.
It can come at you from anydirection and in directions that
now, like you were saying nextyear things could be happening next
year that we couldn't evenimagine were going to happen.
(39:01):
Sitting right here today.
Dude, this is a little bit ofa tangent, but I was watching a conference
on AI yesterday and this guycomes out with this, this drone.
Let me see if I can find.
The drone was literally thesize of this little book in my hand.
(39:22):
It was that small.
And he's getting ready to talkto the audience and he goes, hey,
watch this.
And there's a dummy at the endof the stage, just a mannequin.
A mannequin, not an idiot.
And he's standing, you know,and he goes, watch this.
And he takes the, the dronethrows out in the audience and he
goes, comes up targetaccuracy, puts a bullet through the
(39:47):
guy's head and flies away.
Yep.
And that's going to completelychange warfare and the way that,
that countries, you know,fight with each other.
I mean, you just.
These swarm, like these swarmtechnologies and AI and stuff, it's
just completely going tochange everything.
So to that point, it was nobigger than this and it put a bullet.
(40:12):
He goes, that's just, that's nothing.
He goes, you can put a payloadof, we'll call it C4, you know, and,
and have this thing fly,whisper, quiet, miles away, drops
a bomb.
We kind of learned this inUkraine etc, right?
But that technology, when it'sthat, that drone technology.
(40:36):
And then on top of that, andthen with this, I'll stop.
Then I saw something out ofChina where they had hundreds, thousands
of these perfectly lined upand they all flew up like a massive
cloud, but in perfect uniformfashion and went off and did their
thing and then came back inperfect fashion and landed.
(40:57):
I was like, that's when Iwent, oh, this shit's about to get
real.
Yeah, it's crazy.
I wrote a book years agocalled the Patriot Attack and it
was about a military conflictbetween Japan and China.
And the Japanese were built,had built this massive military capability,
but their motto was like,small, autonomous and cheap.
(41:20):
And so.
And that's what they did.
And it was just lots of crappythings that swarmed and, and stuff
like that.
And now we're moving in that direction.
And, you know, there's hugedangers to that too.
And I think about China andTaiwan now that very much because
of exactly that technologyyou're talking about and similar
(41:41):
ones, China's window to invadeTaiwan is closing.
Oh, yeah.
With these technologies, in afew years, it will simply not be
doable.
You'd lose millions of peopleand you'd never get a foot on the,
you know, on land.
On land and survive.
And so at worries you think,you see what Russia's done.
Everything you think, God,could they get completely irrational
(42:04):
and say, if we don't do thisnow, five years.
They also have an aging population.
All this stuff, five years isjust not going to be a deal.
They're going to havethousands of drones all over this
island, underwater and everything.
So, you know, I mean, you're.
You're creating this thingwhere the world is changing so quickly.
Some people must be thinkingabout, if we don't set the world
(42:27):
order now, it's.
We're not going to be able toin a few years.
It's just gonna, you know,it's gonna set itself.
Remember the old days when youthought, oh, that country over there
is gonna send this great bigmassive missile.
You'll see it coming hundredsof miles away.
(42:50):
Watch out.
Oh, we got plenty of time.
Because we see it coming.
Those days are gone.
You're not going to see it coming.
That's the thing.
You're not going to see any ofthis shit coming.
And there's no.
It's weird because it's justthis is going back again to what
I'm talking about, that peoplegoing a little bit crazy maybe because
their needs are met and theyhave nothing else to worry about.
(43:11):
But the, I mean, this idea ofwar in the modern era is unprofitable.
You know, I mean, think aboutthe good old days, right?
You're Roman.
Go in there, kill everybody,take all their stuff.
That's a profitable war model.
I mean, you shouldn't do it,but you can see why they wanted to.
Right now there is no way youcould ever take anything that was
(43:36):
worth what you spent to get it right.
I mean, and so you know, what,what, Russia takes over Ukraine and
what, they get some rare earth mineral?
Yeah.
It's just nothing that couldeven come close to compensating them.
Same with Taiwan.
But then you think, thatdoesn't mean they're not going to
do it, though.
(43:57):
But all the Loss of lives.
That's what just.
It's crazy as I use thisphrase with my wife all the time.
I'm always.
We've lost our collectiveshit, man.
We just really have.
Why are we here?
Right?
I mean, these are.
The big people are starting toask these existential questions.
(44:17):
I think I remember when was itDeep Blue beat Kasparov and Chess
and people really freaked outbecause that computer was smarter
than the smartest human.
Yeah.
And where did that leave us inthe hierarchy?
We always thought we were here.
(44:38):
Maybe we're down here.
Yeah.
And then we've all seen this.
This barrage of videos that.
Where the robots that arehanging over there attached to this
thing goes crazy by itself,like out of nowhere and starts attacking
the guy who's just running the store.
I'm like, oh, you don't thinkthere's going to be a little bit
(44:58):
of fallout where all the a.
The robots become agentic andthen talk to each other and go, you
know, we don't really needthese guys.
They're breakable.
They bleed all over the place.
You know, we gotta.
Let's just destroy them.
Okay.
They've already also had aninstance of AI trying to delete an
AI and it protecting itself.
(45:18):
Yeah.
That'S probably not goinganywhere good.
Folks, I don't want you towalk away from this show going, geez,
I don't know that I need tolisten to this Thriller Zone anymore,
because it's just thisexistential dread is making me want
to just go drink.
Nobody needs to start tyingany nooses yet.
I think it's going to be fine.
(45:40):
Drink.
Yes.
Thai nooses.
No.
Yeah.
Take the edge off.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
What is your.
As we get ready to close, whatis your favorite take the edge off
beverage these days?
I'm a tequila guy.
Much like fade and a nicemargarita in the summer.
(46:01):
You know, you can't go wrongwith that.
You know, there's a nice thingI have learned about tequila.
I've never.
Tequila was always theAchilles heel for me.
It always got me in trouble.
Back in the day when I wascoming up in radio, we'd always go
out for beers.
Beer, let's have some beers.
But the day I discoveredshooting shots of tequila was the
day that my life changed.
(46:21):
And it did not go in a prettyway because I.
There was something about.
There was this mechanism in mybrain that said, oh, folks, all bets
are off now.
I mean, it literally was allbets are off.
So I just stopped and I walkedaway and I thought, well, I can't
no good can come from that.
Decades went by and I startedtalking to guys like yourself who
(46:44):
go, have you had any goodtequila lately?
I'm like, well, it's always,you know, I won't mention a name
because somebody will have areal fit with me.
And it was cheap.
And they go, well, there'ssome really good tequila out there
that you can drink like asingle malt scotch and really find
it to be quite enjoyable andit won't kill you.
So I have tried to come backinto your fold and how's it going?
(47:08):
Does it drive you crazy?
No, it does not drive me crazybecause I'm.
Well, first of all, I'm 30plus years older now than I was then,
so I'm drinking it, drinkingdifferently than I used to.
And it's more for the enjoyment.
And the.
You and I would sit around andhave one and we'd just talk and it
would loosen us up and we'dhave great more conversations and
(47:30):
so forth.
We're not sitting thereslamming them like you see in, you
know, movies and so forth andgetting completely black.
Blackout drunk.
Yeah, a shot of anything isprobably a bad idea.
What's the old, what's thatold saying we used to say?
Fast in, fast out.
So, yeah, yeah, it's fun whenyou're 20.
Yeah, when you're 20.
When you're 15, 20, 25.
(47:52):
But you know, when you get uparound 36, 37, like Kyle and me,
you don't want to be doingthat anymore.
You know, we got our 40s and50s to look forward to.
We want to walk into it gracefully.
Not stumble into itaccidentally and get.
Hurt on the way home.
As we wrap, I always, I gottaclose everyone, you know, they tune
(48:13):
in for, of course, greatness,like Kyle Mills and to hear what
he's writing about.
But you always, we always liketo close with.
What's your best writing advice?
I know you got a good one.
You've shared it before,you've been on the show before.
But I want to know, A, what is it?
B, has it shifted any in thiscycle of evolution that you've incurred
through in your proliferousand pontificatedness career?
(48:36):
I'll give you a new and forgetthriller romantasy.
That's the place to be.
Oh my God.
I could not actually agreewith you more when I said go ahead
and finish because I, Iinterrupted you instantly.
It's just like people love itand the authors are a lot of fun.
(48:57):
Like, like if you go to awriters conference.
Yes, and you got to pick a table.
Romantasy.
It's so funny because it usedto be when you'd hear the word romance
you'd go, oh, Harlequin, I'mnot gonna do that.
It's all sappy, right?
But then, yeah, Romantasycomes along which is basically romance
(49:17):
and fantasy.
And then it's just.
Then it just kind of.
Oh, I thought it was alreadyblown up.
Now it's blown the hail up.
Oh man, that's crazy.
And, and I thought if we cankeep on this tangent for one second
because I did ask you and itis my show when we talk about popular
books.
Thrillers have always been popular.
(49:38):
Mystery science, suspense,thriller, sure, romance has always
been popular, but romance.
I did some numbers recently, Iwon't remember them right now because
I'm on the spot, but it's like4 or 6 or 13 to 1 over thriller.
It's crazy.
I think some of these peopleout there, they're like, oh man,
(49:59):
if it only sold like TomClancy that'd be just a huge failure
for me.
Right?
Right.
Yeah.
But here's.
Let's get it down to reality.
Could you sit down, Mr. Millsand craft a really tasty little Romantasy
book?
I think I could.
I think I could.
(50:19):
I like building worlds.
Yeah.
And, and I'd have to study thegenre, but I think it'd be really
a fun challenge.
But yeah, I don't think 60year old white dude, this not, not
probably your best bet for aromantasy author.
Maybe.
However, what if you were tohave a pen name and maybe like for
(50:45):
instance, we never saw you.
I mean you're just.
You come up with a pen name.
It sounds kind of super sexy.
And you could see me, youcould interview me.
I think is.
Can I use AI to just changewhat I look and sound like while
sitting here?
I think I can 100%.
And when we, when we hang up,I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk to you
about this a little bitfurther and, and peel it away for
(51:06):
you.
But folks, once again I hopeyou enjoyed the show.
The book is fade in.
It's gonna be a long timebefore this little genre fades out.
How you doing?
Look at that.
How did I do that?
Nice ending.
Yeah.
But I mean couple.
One last closing thought.
This is my new.
This is the new thing.
New thing I'm banging on thedoor about.
(51:26):
I don't know why.
Maybe it's cause I got ashortening attention span.
Kyle.
Or I read 321.
That's just about the magicnumber that is long as the book ever
has to be.
If you want to go 321, youwant to go 291, 281, I'm still going
to be loving on you.
That's interesting becauseit's funny that when I started books
(51:48):
were much longer.
Oh yeah.
And it really has been a.
There have been many Trendsover the 30 years I've been in this
business.
But one of them is that.
I mean my contracts used tocall for much longer books than that.
Yeah.
Remember the days when they goKyla, I need about a140,160 from
you.
Can you do that?
(52:08):
That'd be really great.
Right now it's like Mr. Millscan you get this down around 95 to
99.
That would really be great.
And it's, you know in my firstdrafts are actually really long and
then I slash like 25000 wordsout of them to try to make them more
efficient.
For real.
You do you do that?
To this day.
Yeah.
To this day I don't know whyI'm really long winded in my first
(52:31):
draft.
And then I realize I couldhave said the same thing that I use
10 words and three words andso I shorten them in the second draft
though most people don't liketo do that because it is kind of
a bummer.
You think?
How long did it take me towrite those 25,000 words that I just
hit the delete button on?
It's longer than you want tothink about.
You know what?
(52:52):
I get that.
I understand that we need tolet go of that bullshit.
Here's why.
A, attention spans getting shorter.
B life's getting shorter.
We're getting closer to theend of the beginning.
Okay, how you doing?
It's just pure math.
And C, I got too many thingsto do.
Sure do.
I want to read a commils book.
(53:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
I get a lot of enjoyment outof it.
But I'd also like to read aMeg Gardner book and also like to
read a Don Winslow book.
And I'd also like to, you know.
And the list goes on.
And I just want to read someRomantasy perhaps want to tickle
my tickle myself with some romantic.
(53:34):
You and everybody else.
Anyway, dude, this was so good.
Thank you so much for takingthe time.
You're always such a friggindelight to talk to.
Same.
I appreciate you having me on.
It's always a lot of fun.
I don't know.
It'd be a lot easier to get toyou in Wyoming than it would be to
get you to you in Spain.
So if I ever make my way, isit Jackson Hole?
(53:56):
Jackson Hole ish adjacent.
Yeah, Jackson Hole.
I'm right in the middle of town.
Yeah, okay.
Never been there.
I hear nothing butfantasticness about it.
It's pretty.
And you know, we have abeautiful park, Grand Teton national
parks right outside the town.
So yeah, I'm, I've been hereover 30 years.
(54:16):
Hard to believe.
Wow.
Well, if I'm out that way,we're going to sit down with some
nice tequila, make us a fireand sit down and talk about books
and romantic and stuff.
Not that hard to get to Spain either.
They get on a plane, they'llfly right there.
Yeah, imagine that.
Kyle, thanks again, man.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
(54:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was a good conversationand a great book.
Fade in.
By the way.
Go to Kyle Mills.com if youwant to learn more.
Folks, we're only doing twoshows in August because it's summertime
and I'm working on my own bookwhich I'm going to share with you
very, very soon.
I've been working on this formonths now and I think you're gonna
like it.
You don't hear me talk aboutmy books very often.
(54:58):
As you know, I self published,what, nine books.
And I said, hey, when I get tothat 10th month, I'm gonna go, I'm
gonna go try to find an agent.
All this stuff that it stillremains to be seen because there
are other methods to do this.
Skin this cat.
But either way, I'm going totell you about it.
But here's the deal.
We only got two shows in August.
Telling you straight up.
And on next show, I got a twofer.
(55:20):
It's.
It's two of the.
Two of the smartest, funniest,best writing cats on the planet.
Who is it?
Lee and Todd Goldberg.
Yeah, they happen to be brothers.
Golly, they're so funny.
That's going to be next week's show.
Well, next week meaning twoweeks from now.
(55:41):
And I want to make sure you,you catch it.
I probably shouldn't say intwo weeks because I might slide them
in sooner and I might slide insome other things.
I'm always trying to surpriseyou and surprise myself.
Either way, tune in for Leeand Todd Goldberg.
Their books are on the way andthey're dandies.
So any kind of.
(56:02):
Listen, you want to drop us anote, feel free to drop it@the thrillerzonemail.com
that's our email.
The thrillerzonemail.com.
you can always find us at ourwebsite, the thrillerzone.com makes
so much sense, doesn't it?
If you want to get on theshow, let us know.
A lot of inquiries coming in.
(56:23):
Some we can take, some we can't.
It's just, you know, luck ofthe draw.
You know how it works.
But feel free to reach out.
And if there's somethingyou're loving about the show, let
me know.
If there's something you'rehating about the show, let me know.
Love to hear from you.
All right, so until next time,I'm Dave Templet, your host.
I'll see you for anotherepisode of the Thriller Zone.
Happy Summer, your number onepodcast for stories that thrill the
(56:49):
Thriller Zone.
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