Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm so happy to welcome back to the show my
good friend, former Navy seal, best selling author Jack Carr,
who has been a very busy guy. He's always busy,
but maybe even busier than usual. Maybe that's why your
beard is a little gray now. But dude, you've been
You've got a lot going on.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I should have gone into radio. I wouldn't have any
of these gray hairs. You know, listening can't see us.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
But yeah, you are a little older than I am,
and no gray hairs.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
And I didn't. We were talking earlier. I didn't. I
didn't really ever feel stressed in.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
The military downrange in Iracer Afana, I said, I can't
remember it anyway. Of course, there's some benefit of hindsight there,
and you know, rose colored glasses and all.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
That, but I don't remember the pressures.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You know, the pressure was all essentially put on me
by me to be the best operator, best leader I
could be, so that if something happened, I wouldn't be
sitting on my couch years later like wondering if I
could have prepared myself better to make a better decision.
So that's why I was always working so hard, always studying, warfare,
always training, and now there's pressures from everywhere for everything,
so many.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I mean, it's all wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I don't want to come off as complaining, so I'll
probably just stop right now, but certainly a lot more
stressful in this life as an author versus going down
range to rock and Afghanis as a seal.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So you've got an Amazon Prime series that was just
released a couple of days ago, Terminal List Dark Wolf,
and you also have a book coming out in a
couple of months called cry Havoc, And we'll talk about
them separately, but I want to join them together just
for a moment, because they're both prequels and I'm really
(01:37):
interested in that. Is it a coincidence that you're doing
two prequels or did you want to do prequels? And
maybe in your answer you can talk about how much
or how little you had to do with the writing
of the Amazon Prime series.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well, is a coincidence only in that we got delayed
by about a year for the Terminalist Dark Wolf that
just came out on Wednesday, and that was because of
a writers strike followed by an actor's strike, followed by
what happened in Israel and we were planning on filming
in the Middle East, so we had to scramble for
a new filming location. So all of those things together
pushed the show about a year to the right, so
(02:12):
it should have been out last summer.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
It's now out.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Here came out on August twenty seventh, so that means
it would have been about a year away from Croy Havoc,
which comes out October seventh, and that is a prequel
as well. James Reese's father, Tom Reese Jungles of Vietnam
Mountains of Laos nineteen sixty eight, and that one was
supposed to come out in June, but it's coming out
in October because it took a lot longer than I
anticipated at the outset. Because I thought I knew a
(02:36):
lot about Vietnam. I thought I'd studied a lot about Vietnam.
I've watched every more movie you could possibly watch documentaries.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I thought I had a solid.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Foundation, and then I got into the research and realized
that I'd really just scratched the surface before. And then
also what happened was I had to write every single
character through the Lens of nineteen sixty eight, every single
sentence to the lens of nineteen sixty eight. But a
person's perspective could only be their life experience up until
nineteen sixty eight for that event or whatever they're commenting
(03:04):
or thinking about. So that proved to be a lot
more time consuming than I initially saw. So essentially turned
into historical fiction, also military thriller, also espionage thriller. And
that was what I wanted to do, was take an
espionage thriller and drop it into the heart of the
Vietnam War.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Drop it into Saigon nineteen sixty eight, the.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Most blood of the bloodiest year of the Vietnam conflicts,
and that's what we have cry Havoc.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think jeckcar fans would have anticipated for a long
time that you would write a book about Tom Reef's right,
and you haven't made a secret in our conversations and
in other things you've done that you've been interested in that.
I was a little bit more surprised to learn that
the second series on Amazon Prime was not going to
(03:49):
be the second Terminalist book or the third or whatever,
but rather that that one was a prequel. How did
prequel come about as an idea for that?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, we're filming True Believer the second novel right now,
filming that overseas, so that should come out next summer.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I'm not positive.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I don't know any thing about release dates yet, but
from what I but I understand it should come out
next summer if I were to guess. But yeah, Chris
Pratz booked out a few years in advance. That might
come as a surprise to some, but he's booked out
for a few years. So we got to the end
of The Terminalist. A couple of weeks later, the data
comes into Amazon. They want more, but Chris has already
booked out for.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
A few years.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So that means we have to either wait or we
can pivot and explore some other characters in the universe.
And Chris was really excited about exploring the Ben Edwards
character and how he got to from being a brother
teammate with these guys in the Team and the Seal
Teams and then ends up doing the things that he
does in the Terminal list, and that was something he
thought was worth exploring, and he pitched it to the
(04:47):
executive producer team and then as Taylor, and Taylor was
one hundred percent on board wanted to do it, so
off we went to the racers on that and it's
just been taking us so long because of those because
of the strike in the war.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I asked you where Terminal List Dark Wolf was filmed,
would you tell me? Oh?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, yeah, So we were in Uh it was supposed
to be Morocco. Ended up switching to Santa Clarita, California
for about two weeks, then to Budapest in Croatia. So
we walked down to those Budapest subs for a couple
other places in Europe as well.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So at some point when I was reaching out to
you and you said I'm traveling, you might have been
in some of those places.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yes, yes, depending on when you when you when you
reach out, because uh, True Believer is filming in international
locations as well, so been in Africa.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Chris Pratt talked about that already. We've been up in
Toronto or in a few other places. So it's uh, yes,
it's it's go, go go. So that's to your.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Question about how much I was involved. So yeah, it's
when I'm a co creator with the show runner David Digilio,
amazing guy. I got to write an episode this time
with him, so I got to write the finale Dark Wolf,
and then I write the pilot to True Believer, not
the pilot because it's the second season, so the first
episode of True Believer with the showrunner as well. So
and so it's great up and learning so much about
(06:01):
screenwriting over the last few years. And it's interesting because
way different than a novel where there are no constraints.
I can do anything I want now with screenwriting, and then,
obviously production you have constraints. You have time constraints, you
have actor availability constraints, obviously budgetary constraints. You have to
tell a story in a certain amount of time forty
five minutes to an hour.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
That has to have an arc.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And then, however many episodes there are, let's say eight,
then that has to have an overarching arc as well.
So there are a lot more constraints when it comes
to screenwriting, but hopefully one's making me better at the other.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Do you like having those constraints right? In a way,
the word constraint is negative but has a bit of
a negative undertone, but also it could kind of force
you to be precise, concise things like that. I'll give
you a bad analogy because I'm president of the Bad
Analogy club. When I first started getting into political writing,
(06:50):
I was working with this guy who was coaching me
on writing letters to the editor back when newspapers were
still a thing that people cared about, and he said, look,
if you you need to be able to write something
in probably one hundred and fifty words and make a
good point, and if you can't do it, then you're
not going to be successful at that, and you probably
don't know your point. So I'm kind of wondering if
(07:12):
if those constraints in a way or something you find
at least intellectually useful.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I do what Mark Twaine had that saying, and I
forget exactly what it is, but it's something along the
lines of I didn't have time to write you a
short letter, so I wrote a long one.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So there's that to it.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
But I think if I was only a screenwriter, then
I would have an issue with the constraints. But because
I have the books where I can do anything that
I want, where it's all me and if people love
them or hate them, that's all that's all on me.
If I didn't have that, then I think it'll have
a tougher time in Hollywood with the screenwriting. But because
I have that thing that's that's pure and the best
that I could do at that point in time for
(07:50):
the books. Then I feel like the constraints of screenwriting
are there for a reason, obviously, because you have to
those things that I mentioned earlier. So I do like
it because it allows you to work with a team. Again,
we have a great team working on the Terminal List.
It's just it's become a family. But then also having
the thing that I do alone is something that I
(08:13):
that I definitely a treasure having that.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
The other side of things, if.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
You don't recognize the voice and you're just joining we're
talking with Jack Carr, best selling author of both fiction
and nonfiction. Not everybody is able to say that, even
best selling authors. Not everybody writes in both categories. And
of course, forming Navy Seal sniper both as an enlisted
man and then as an officer and leader of men
in the Navy Seals. Should I expect to see a
(08:40):
brief glimpse of you in Dark Wolf the way I
did in the first series, where you were not quite
as deadly as you used to be in your day job.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Well, I had to have a talk with Chris after
he killed me in the in the first season, in
episode three, in the beginning, Ione was wondering I did
let him know that if this was real life, things
would have gone down a little differently. I was going
to keep it a secret, but the showrunner did a
post the other day that told David Degilio that let
everybody know that perhaps they can they can see me
get killed again.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Can you keep your eyes eyes open?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
That's a great way to put it. So so, folks again,
where So that last several minutes was about the new
Amazon Prime mini series called Terminalist Dark Wolf that just
came out a couple of days ago on Amazon Prime.
There are a few episodes out already and then they're
dropping one a week in for roughly the next the
next month, and I'm I'm trying to decid because I
(09:37):
haven't started watching yet, and I'm trying to decide whether
to watch all the way up to you know where
I have to stop now and then watch one a week,
or wait until they're all there and then like binge,
watch the whole thing in two days. And I haven't
decided yet. What would you do if it were you, I.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Would watch them now.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But full disclosure, that's because I want a second season,
and we need to get those We need those numbers.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
In the first in the first two weeks.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So okay, I'll turn on your TVs and let it
run in the background.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, all right, I'll do that just for you. Okay,
let's switch over now to to Cry Havoc, and I'll
probably have you on again, like right when the book
is out. But since you're here with me now, so so,
Jack's upcoming novel, going to be released in early October,
is called cry Havoc, and it's a prequel that goes
(10:24):
much further back in time than Darkwolf does, and it's
about his main terminalist protagonist, Dad being Tom Reese. And
I want to go back to something you said earlier.
You said you thought you knew a lot about Vietnam,
but you realized there was a lot you didn't know.
I find that very interesting in part because you have
(10:47):
spent so much time talking with David Morrell, right, who
is like one of the biggest influences in this part
of your life as far as I can tell. So
for those who don't know who is David Morrel, tell
us a little bit about how he's an influence on
you and then I'm very curious whether you talk to
him specifically as you were writing this book.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Ah well, I certainly let him know I was writing it.
But he wrote First Blood back in nineteen seventy two.
It's been has never been out of print since then.
Of course, we have a movie in the early eighties
with Sylvester Stallone, and then the book and the film
are both wonderful, well fantastic, but both very different. And
so that's another lesson I took in Hollywood was that
I knew that the books were going to change because
(11:31):
you're telling it through this different medium. And I thought
of First Blood the book, which I love, First Blood
the movie, which I love, and how different they are.
So that's I think really really helped me be more
open minded as I walked in to Hollywood. And the
goal really there is to just make the best show
we possibly can.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
No you go involved, this idea always wins. And David's
become a friend over the years. Incredible guy. How We're
going to kick off my book tour in at Poison
Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona, on the fifth of October and
we'll be there together.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
He'll be signing First Blood, I'll be signing cry Havoc.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
We'll do pictures together and all that, so it should
be an amazing, fun conversation and we'll do a Q
and A for everybody and all that, so it'll be
it'll be amazing. If people haven't read First Blood, they
should the novelizations of Rambo First Blood Part two and
Rambo three and Brother of the Rose for Trinity, The Stone,
The Leg of Knight, and Fog. If you're a fan
of thrillers and haven't read those books, you should add
them to your library most most certainly. But yeah, the
(12:21):
influencers for this one were probably three books, not probably,
they were three books, Graham Green's The Quiet American, The
Teers of Autumn by Charles McCarey, and then Jean mcare
is The Honorable Schoolboy, And all those are essentially espionage
thrillers set in Southeast Asia, and I wanted.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
To do that again. I hadn't really, no one had
really done that since the seventies.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
One of those books with late fifties, two of them
are are the seventies, and no one had really done
it since. And I also wanted to take a break
from having to consider cell phones and cameras and GPS's
and vehicles and all of those state facial recognition technology
and all emails, text messages, all of those things that
you have to consider when you're writing a thriller in
contemporary times. I wanted to go back to the old
(13:03):
school spycraft. I wanted to follow someone from from the
jungles of Vietnam into the CIA and what that would
what that would look like, what that transition would look
like back in the sixties, And also wanted to explore
the Vietnam War and its bloodiest year. So all that
came together, and what we have is cry Havoc.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
All right, I think I'll make this the last question.
We'll keep it on cry Havoc. You said you thought
you knew a lot, but you didn't as you think
back on that, or you didn't know as much as
you thought. What's something that you learned that became part
of the book somehow, not necessarily a plot point, but
even like an overall vibe to use an overused word
these days, that you learned while you were researching the
(13:43):
book and talking with people or talking with older veterans,
that that you're like, Wow, I really didn't know that,
and that's important and I'm going to work that into
the book.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Well, there's so much on the tactic side, for sure,
and that probably made it into the book. That'll be
very recognizable out of the gate, just how detailed I
am with the gear and the tactics and what units
were involved in certain operations and that sort of a thing.
The planning for TET, what Ho Chi Minh and General
Gap thought about that, what their input was. I had
no idea on that side of the house, the DM
(14:13):
assassinations and the intrigue behind the scenes between the Department
of State and the Kennedy administration.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And all that stuff was.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I had no idea all that was going on behind
the scenes, and it really took me doing a deep
dive into the era to find that out, because usually
I'm focused, once again on those more strategic level decisions
and then the tactical level decisions or maybe some operational
level ones as well, but certainly not intrigue behind the
scenes within our own government, and that part certainly plays
a part of the novel.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
All Right, I lied when I said that was the
last question, but the actual last question is pretty short.
When is your next non fiction book like in the
Targeted series. When's that coming?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Well, working on it right now.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Has some trips planned here for the fall and winter
that are going to take me to a couple of
places to research.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Haven't announced when.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
What it is yet, but I don't think i'll be
done and working with James Scott again, Pulcher Prize finalist,
amazing guy.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Don't think we'll be done for it to come out
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I think it'll be twenty twenty seven, but possible twenty
twenty six, but if not, then yeah, twenty twenty seven
for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Folks. You can go to wherever you buy your books
and pre order Jack Carr's new novel, Cry Havoc, coming
out in must call it a month and a half
you've or take Cry Havoc and go to Amazon Prime
and watch Terminal List Dark Wolf. The first three or
four episodes are out already. Then they're dropping one a
week for about a month, and I can't wait to
(15:38):
watch it. I'm just such a huge fan Jack. It's
just a pleasure and an honor to have been with
you since before your very first book Crazy. Congratulations on
your sayings.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So much appreciate that. And the shot through copies are
out too.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Those are the ones that I shoot through, and this
time I shot through with occult clone of a car fifteen.
So that's what the Macvie sad guys primarily carried in Vietnam,
and so I shot through the title pages with that
rifle little nod to the era, and people can find
those on my website.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Go to support independent bookstores.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
That's why I do it, because you can only get
them from independent bookstores, so I try to push people
to those as much as I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
There you go officialjackcar dot com to learn more. Thanks Jack,
keep up the good work, get a little rest, and
maybe some of the gray will go out of your beard.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I think we're past that, but thank you so much.
Really appreciate everything.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Good seeing you
All right.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm so happy to welcome back to the show my
good friend, former Navy seal, best selling author Jack Carr,
who has been a very busy guy. He's always busy,
but maybe even busier than usual. Maybe that's why your
beard is a little gray now. But dude, you've been
You've got a lot going on.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I should have gone into radio. I wouldn't have any
of these gray hairs. You know, listening can't see us.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
But yeah, you are a little older than I am,
and no gray hairs.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
And I didn't. We were talking earlier. I didn't. I
didn't really ever feel stressed in.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
The military downrange in Iracer Afana, I said, I can't
remember it anyway. Of course, there's some benefit of hindsight there,
and you know, rose colored glasses and all.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
That, but I don't remember the pressures.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You know, the pressure was all essentially put on me
by me to be the best operator, best leader I
could be, so that if something happened, I wouldn't be
sitting on my couch years later like wondering if I
could have prepared myself better to make a better decision.
So that's why I was always working so hard, always studying, warfare,
always training, and now there's pressures from everywhere for everything,
so many.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I mean, it's all wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I don't want to come off as complaining, so I'll
probably just stop right now, but certainly a lot more
stressful in this life as an author versus going down
range to rock and Afghanis as a seal.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So you've got an Amazon Prime series that was just
released a couple of days ago, Terminal List Dark Wolf,
and you also have a book coming out in a
couple of months called cry Havoc, And we'll talk about
them separately, but I want to join them together just
for a moment, because they're both prequels and I'm really
(01:37):
interested in that. Is it a coincidence that you're doing
two prequels or did you want to do prequels? And
maybe in your answer you can talk about how much
or how little you had to do with the writing
of the Amazon Prime series.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well, is a coincidence only in that we got delayed
by about a year for the Terminalist Dark Wolf that
just came out on Wednesday, and that was because of
a writers strike followed by an actor's strike, followed by
what happened in Israel and we were planning on filming
in the Middle East, so we had to scramble for
a new filming location. So all of those things together
pushed the show about a year to the right, so
(02:12):
it should have been out last summer.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
It's now out.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Here came out on August twenty seventh, so that means
it would have been about a year away from Croy Havoc,
which comes out October seventh, and that is a prequel
as well. James Reese's father, Tom Reese Jungles of Vietnam
Mountains of Laos nineteen sixty eight, and that one was
supposed to come out in June, but it's coming out
in October because it took a lot longer than I
anticipated at the outset. Because I thought I knew a
(02:36):
lot about Vietnam. I thought I'd studied a lot about Vietnam.
I've watched every more movie you could possibly watch documentaries.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I thought I had a solid.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Foundation, and then I got into the research and realized
that I'd really just scratched the surface before. And then
also what happened was I had to write every single
character through the Lens of nineteen sixty eight, every single
sentence to the lens of nineteen sixty eight. But a
person's perspective could only be their life experience up until
nineteen sixty eight for that event or whatever they're commenting
(03:04):
or thinking about. So that proved to be a lot
more time consuming than I initially saw. So essentially turned
into historical fiction, also military thriller, also espionage thriller. And
that was what I wanted to do, was take an
espionage thriller and drop it into the heart of the
Vietnam War.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Drop it into Saigon nineteen sixty eight, the.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Most blood of the bloodiest year of the Vietnam conflicts,
and that's what we have cry Havoc.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think jeckcar fans would have anticipated for a long
time that you would write a book about Tom Reef's right,
and you haven't made a secret in our conversations and
in other things you've done that you've been interested in that.
I was a little bit more surprised to learn that
the second series on Amazon Prime was not going to
(03:49):
be the second Terminalist book or the third or whatever,
but rather that that one was a prequel. How did
prequel come about as an idea for that?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, we're filming True Believer the second novel right now,
filming that overseas, so that should come out next summer.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I'm not positive.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I don't know any thing about release dates yet, but
from what I but I understand it should come out
next summer if I were to guess. But yeah, Chris
Pratz booked out a few years in advance. That might
come as a surprise to some, but he's booked out
for a few years. So we got to the end
of The Terminalist. A couple of weeks later, the data
comes into Amazon. They want more, but Chris has already
booked out for.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
A few years.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So that means we have to either wait or we
can pivot and explore some other characters in the universe.
And Chris was really excited about exploring the Ben Edwards
character and how he got to from being a brother
teammate with these guys in the Team and the Seal
Teams and then ends up doing the things that he
does in the Terminal list, and that was something he
thought was worth exploring, and he pitched it to the
(04:47):
executive producer team and then as Taylor, and Taylor was
one hundred percent on board wanted to do it, so
off we went to the racers on that and it's
just been taking us so long because of those because
of the strike in the war.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I asked you where Terminal List Dark Wolf was filmed,
would you tell me? Oh?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, yeah, So we were in Uh it was supposed
to be Morocco. Ended up switching to Santa Clarita, California
for about two weeks, then to Budapest in Croatia. So
we walked down to those Budapest subs for a couple
other places in Europe as well.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So at some point when I was reaching out to
you and you said I'm traveling, you might have been
in some of those places.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yes, yes, depending on when you when you when you
reach out, because uh, True Believer is filming in international
locations as well, so been in Africa.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Chris Pratt talked about that already. We've been up in
Toronto or in a few other places. So it's uh, yes,
it's it's go, go go. So that's to your.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Question about how much I was involved. So yeah, it's
when I'm a co creator with the show runner David Digilio,
amazing guy. I got to write an episode this time
with him, so I got to write the finale Dark Wolf,
and then I write the pilot to True Believer, not
the pilot because it's the second season, so the first
episode of True Believer with the showrunner as well. So
and so it's great up and learning so much about
(06:01):
screenwriting over the last few years. And it's interesting because
way different than a novel where there are no constraints.
I can do anything I want now with screenwriting, and then,
obviously production you have constraints. You have time constraints, you
have actor availability constraints, obviously budgetary constraints. You have to
tell a story in a certain amount of time forty
five minutes to an hour.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
That has to have an arc.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And then, however many episodes there are, let's say eight,
then that has to have an overarching arc as well.
So there are a lot more constraints when it comes
to screenwriting, but hopefully one's making me better at the other.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Do you like having those constraints right? In a way,
the word constraint is negative but has a bit of
a negative undertone, but also it could kind of force
you to be precise, concise things like that. I'll give
you a bad analogy because I'm president of the Bad
Analogy club. When I first started getting into political writing,
(06:50):
I was working with this guy who was coaching me
on writing letters to the editor back when newspapers were
still a thing that people cared about, and he said, look,
if you you need to be able to write something
in probably one hundred and fifty words and make a
good point, and if you can't do it, then you're
not going to be successful at that, and you probably
don't know your point. So I'm kind of wondering if
(07:12):
if those constraints in a way or something you find
at least intellectually useful.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I do what Mark Twaine had that saying, and I
forget exactly what it is, but it's something along the
lines of I didn't have time to write you a
short letter, so I wrote a long one.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So there's that to it.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
But I think if I was only a screenwriter, then
I would have an issue with the constraints. But because
I have the books where I can do anything that
I want, where it's all me and if people love
them or hate them, that's all that's all on me.
If I didn't have that, then I think it'll have
a tougher time in Hollywood with the screenwriting. But because
I have that thing that's that's pure and the best
that I could do at that point in time for
(07:50):
the books. Then I feel like the constraints of screenwriting
are there for a reason, obviously, because you have to
those things that I mentioned earlier. So I do like
it because it allows you to work with a team. Again,
we have a great team working on the Terminal List.
It's just it's become a family. But then also having
the thing that I do alone is something that I
(08:13):
that I definitely a treasure having that.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
The other side of things, if.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
You don't recognize the voice and you're just joining we're
talking with Jack Carr, best selling author of both fiction
and nonfiction. Not everybody is able to say that, even
best selling authors. Not everybody writes in both categories. And
of course, forming Navy Seal sniper both as an enlisted
man and then as an officer and leader of men
in the Navy Seals. Should I expect to see a
(08:40):
brief glimpse of you in Dark Wolf the way I
did in the first series, where you were not quite
as deadly as you used to be in your day job.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Well, I had to have a talk with Chris after
he killed me in the in the first season, in
episode three, in the beginning, Ione was wondering I did
let him know that if this was real life, things
would have gone down a little differently. I was going
to keep it a secret, but the showrunner did a
post the other day that told David Degilio that let
everybody know that perhaps they can they can see me
get killed again.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Can you keep your eyes eyes open?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
That's a great way to put it. So so, folks again,
where So that last several minutes was about the new
Amazon Prime mini series called Terminalist Dark Wolf that just
came out a couple of days ago on Amazon Prime.
There are a few episodes out already and then they're
dropping one a week in for roughly the next the
next month, and I'm I'm trying to decid because I
(09:37):
haven't started watching yet, and I'm trying to decide whether
to watch all the way up to you know where
I have to stop now and then watch one a week,
or wait until they're all there and then like binge,
watch the whole thing in two days. And I haven't
decided yet. What would you do if it were you, I.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Would watch them now.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But full disclosure, that's because I want a second season,
and we need to get those We need those numbers.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
In the first in the first two weeks.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So okay, I'll turn on your TVs and let it
run in the background.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, all right, I'll do that just for you. Okay,
let's switch over now to to Cry Havoc, and I'll
probably have you on again, like right when the book
is out. But since you're here with me now, so so,
Jack's upcoming novel, going to be released in early October,
is called cry Havoc, and it's a prequel that goes
(10:24):
much further back in time than Darkwolf does, and it's
about his main terminalist protagonist, Dad being Tom Reese. And
I want to go back to something you said earlier.
You said you thought you knew a lot about Vietnam,
but you realized there was a lot you didn't know.
I find that very interesting in part because you have
(10:47):
spent so much time talking with David Morrell, right, who
is like one of the biggest influences in this part
of your life as far as I can tell. So
for those who don't know who is David Morrel, tell
us a little bit about how he's an influence on
you and then I'm very curious whether you talk to
him specifically as you were writing this book.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Ah well, I certainly let him know I was writing it.
But he wrote First Blood back in nineteen seventy two.
It's been has never been out of print since then.
Of course, we have a movie in the early eighties
with Sylvester Stallone, and then the book and the film
are both wonderful, well fantastic, but both very different. And
so that's another lesson I took in Hollywood was that
I knew that the books were going to change because
(11:31):
you're telling it through this different medium. And I thought
of First Blood the book, which I love, First Blood
the movie, which I love, and how different they are.
So that's I think really really helped me be more
open minded as I walked in to Hollywood. And the
goal really there is to just make the best show
we possibly can.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
No you go involved, this idea always wins. And David's
become a friend over the years. Incredible guy. How We're
going to kick off my book tour in at Poison
Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona, on the fifth of October and
we'll be there together.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
He'll be signing First Blood, I'll be signing cry Havoc.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
We'll do pictures together and all that, so it should
be an amazing, fun conversation and we'll do a Q
and A for everybody and all that, so it'll be
it'll be amazing. If people haven't read First Blood, they
should the novelizations of Rambo First Blood Part two and
Rambo three and Brother of the Rose for Trinity, The Stone,
The Leg of Knight, and Fog. If you're a fan
of thrillers and haven't read those books, you should add
them to your library most most certainly. But yeah, the
(12:21):
influencers for this one were probably three books, not probably,
they were three books, Graham Green's The Quiet American, The
Teers of Autumn by Charles McCarey, and then Jean mcare
is The Honorable Schoolboy, And all those are essentially espionage
thrillers set in Southeast Asia, and I wanted.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
To do that again. I hadn't really, no one had
really done that since the seventies.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
One of those books with late fifties, two of them
are are the seventies, and no one had really done
it since. And I also wanted to take a break
from having to consider cell phones and cameras and GPS's
and vehicles and all of those state facial recognition technology
and all emails, text messages, all of those things that
you have to consider when you're writing a thriller in
contemporary times. I wanted to go back to the old
(13:03):
school spycraft. I wanted to follow someone from from the
jungles of Vietnam into the CIA and what that would
what that would look like, what that transition would look
like back in the sixties, And also wanted to explore
the Vietnam War and its bloodiest year. So all that
came together, and what we have is cry Havoc.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
All right, I think I'll make this the last question.
We'll keep it on cry Havoc. You said you thought
you knew a lot, but you didn't as you think
back on that, or you didn't know as much as
you thought. What's something that you learned that became part
of the book somehow, not necessarily a plot point, but
even like an overall vibe to use an overused word
these days, that you learned while you were researching the
(13:43):
book and talking with people or talking with older veterans,
that that you're like, Wow, I really didn't know that,
and that's important and I'm going to work that into
the book.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Well, there's so much on the tactic side, for sure,
and that probably made it into the book. That'll be
very recognizable out of the gate, just how detailed I
am with the gear and the tactics and what units
were involved in certain operations and that sort of a thing.
The planning for TET, what Ho Chi Minh and General
Gap thought about that, what their input was. I had
no idea on that side of the house, the DM
(14:13):
assassinations and the intrigue behind the scenes between the Department
of State and the Kennedy administration.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And all that stuff was.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I had no idea all that was going on behind
the scenes, and it really took me doing a deep
dive into the era to find that out, because usually
I'm focused, once again on those more strategic level decisions
and then the tactical level decisions or maybe some operational
level ones as well, but certainly not intrigue behind the
scenes within our own government, and that part certainly plays
a part of the novel.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
All Right, I lied when I said that was the
last question, but the actual last question is pretty short.
When is your next non fiction book like in the
Targeted series. When's that coming?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Well, working on it right now.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Has some trips planned here for the fall and winter
that are going to take me to a couple of
places to research.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Haven't announced when.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
What it is yet, but I don't think i'll be
done and working with James Scott again, Pulcher Prize finalist,
amazing guy.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Don't think we'll be done for it to come out
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I think it'll be twenty twenty seven, but possible twenty
twenty six, but if not, then yeah, twenty twenty seven
for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Folks. You can go to wherever you buy your books
and pre order Jack Carr's new novel, Cry Havoc, coming
out in must call it a month and a half
you've or take Cry Havoc and go to Amazon Prime
and watch Terminal List Dark Wolf. The first three or
four episodes are out already. Then they're dropping one a
week for about a month, and I can't wait to
(15:38):
watch it. I'm just such a huge fan Jack. It's
just a pleasure and an honor to have been with
you since before your very first book Crazy. Congratulations on
your sayings.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So much appreciate that. And the shot through copies are
out too.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Those are the ones that I shoot through, and this
time I shot through with occult clone of a car fifteen.
So that's what the Macvie sad guys primarily carried in Vietnam,
and so I shot through the title pages with that
rifle little nod to the era, and people can find
those on my website.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Go to support independent bookstores.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
That's why I do it, because you can only get
them from independent bookstores, so I try to push people
to those as much as I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
There you go officialjackcar dot com to learn more. Thanks Jack,
keep up the good work, get a little rest, and
maybe some of the gray will go out of your beard.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I think we're past that, but thank you so much.
Really appreciate everything.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Good seeing you
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