>> Cyndee Landrum: How's everyone? How's everybody doing? [Applause] Well, since you all know who we are, I think we'll just get down to the nitty gritty. How's that? >> James S.A. Corey: That sounds good. >> Cyndee Landrum: Awesome. So this session was called After "The Expanse," and I think we maybe want to do some what I'll call level setting, expectation, management, maybe. And so considering that this is a new venture, what can your readers expect when they think about this new work in relation to what they have loved about your wildly successful Expanse series? What should they be thinking about? Anything at all except the new series? >> James S.A. Corey: I don't know, do the pitch. >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, lower your expectations. [Laughter] The Captives War is a new project. The way that "The Expanse" was kind of our way of engaging with the, the stuff we read, like Niven and Heinlein and Bester. This is our way of kind of going to the other side of space opera and working in conversation with Frank Herbert and Ursula Le Guin. We've described this as the disappointing love child of Le Guin and Herbert. [Laughter] So, you know, it's still space opera. It's just a different part of that spectrum. >> Cyndee Landrum: So you mentioned Le Guin and Herbert, and in the book there's a lovely inscription that says they were the teachers that you never had. So I wonder what did you learn from them? What did they teach you that has impacted your writing? >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, mostly what Le Guin taught us is that we're never going to be as good as Ursula Le Guin. [Laughter] I mean, I've been a fan of hers forever. I remember getting Wizard of Earthsea when I was a little kid and reading everything she did. And of course, she had a huge range. She wrote fantasy, she wrote sci-fi. She wrote, like really far future sci-fi. But she always had this interesting way of engaging with, as all sci-fi does, current social issues using this lens of the distant future. So things like "The Dispossessed" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" really, we're talking about things like gender and the way gender affects society and those sorts of things, but using these far future things and those ideas and that really stuck with me. The power that sci-fi has to talk about current things by creating enough distance so they don't feel hurtful. But we can still look at them and talk about them and sort of learn new things about how we think about those things without it feeling like somebody is attacking us. >> Cyndee Landrum: Wonderful. Daniel, any thoughts? >> James S.A. Corey: Oh, no. I agree with him. >> Cyndee Landrum: I hate all of it. The whole thing. So that brings me to our current adventure. And so can you tell me a little bit about this story and this trilogy that is emerging? And I understand, you know, we're talking about sci-fi, but that it has some biblical roots. Can you talk about that a little bit? [Laughing] >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. So I'm the least religious person on the planet. And the reason that I am is because I grew up incredibly religious. So so my parents beat that out of me very early, but I've always had this sort of affinity for the story in the book of Daniel, not the religious parts of it, but just sort of the history that it's portraying, which is this idea of, of people being conquered by this vast military power that they have absolutely no ability to resist, and then being carried off and turned into minor functionaries in that empire. This sort of forced integration of two cultures that they were doing, and the idea of somebody like Daniel carried off to Babylon and said, oh, you work for the empire now, the empire that just conquered you and destroyed your country. You work for us now, and you're a bureaucrat in our empire. Something about that was really fascinating to me. So I pitched that to Daniel. I'm like, what if we did that, but sci-fi? >> Cyndee Landrum: And Daniel, you said yes. >> James S.A. Corey: Yes, I did. [Laughter] Yeah. My relationship to the Bible is largely as kind of one of the foundational documents of Western literature. And when I pitched this, the thing that occurred to me was that the Book of Daniel is, among other things, kind of the Orwell's 1984 of the Bible. It's this story about being subsumed within a totalitarian culture, absolutist culture, and still keeping something of yourself in that situation. I don't know something about that spoke to me. >> Just a little bit. >> A little bit. >> Just a little bit. >> A little bit. A little bit, kind of. >> Cyndee Landrum: One of the things I find intriguing about what you just said, Daniel, about keeping a little bit of yourself, is that, and I don't want to give too much away, but that the characters, the human characters in the book there is an aspect of them sort of being disconnected from their history. And can you talk a little bit about why you made that particular choice and in sort of developing the story? >> James S.A. Corey: Dear boy. I mean. >> James S.A. Corey: A couple of white guys talking about what happens with history when you get enslaved. Yeah, that sounds fun. [Laughter] >> Cyndee Landrum: You did it. >> James S.A. Corey: I did it. I know it's my fault. I did it. [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, there are plot reasons we think. I mean, there are things about the fact that they've lost track of their history that will affect the future plot. But also there's just a, this idea of this, you know, in this in this galaxy filled with vast empires and alien races and all of the enormous things, there's something just, like very lonely about one little planet that doesn't know how it got there. And the people don't-- They're not sure how they got there. And it seemed like a good starting point for the story we wanted to tell. And I promise, we didn't have any political reasons beyond that. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. >> Cyndee Landrum: I think we could explore them. [Laughing] And I think that something that sort of stands out when you talk about, you know, this small little planet that seems just sort of out there. It's starts out as a very intimate story in many ways. And can you so, you know, the relational parts of the characters is where we start, not necessarily in the action, which comes later. Can you sort of talk about those relationships and why you thought it was important to start sort of there? >> James S.A. Corey: Well, going back to the idea of history, all of these people have a personal history. All of these people have relationships. All of these people have a world that they know and spoilers, they lose that. And it doesn't have as much weight when you don't feel that loss. You can tell people that the loss exists. You can you can tell people that these people had a life before this. They had a culture before this. They had a place before this and that that place is gone and that they have an emptiness because of that. But if you haven't experienced that with them it's kind of empty knowledge. It's kind of a way of, you know, telling a story, but not having the heart of it. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. I mean, if you're going to tell a story about people who go to great lengths to avenge the thing that they've lost, you have to have the audience understand what it is that they lost and why they care about it, and why they want it back, or why they want to hurt the people who took it from them. >> Cyndee Landrum: Conversely, and also a point of personal privilege, I think I told you all backstage, I am a librarian. Woo hoo! >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. [Applause] >> Cyndee Landrum: And that's why I have, like, a lot of notes. But one of the things that stood out to me made me very happy, but also very sad, was that we hear the voice of a librarian in this work. And of course, it makes me happy because, you know, I've been told that the internet has everything and that I should not expect to have a job one day in the future. So it's nice to know in other worlds, librarians actually still exist and have jobs. And you know the librarian is referred to as the keeper, but they are the really the keeper of the conquerors, knowledge, experience and culture. And can you talk about your relationship with librarians and why that felt like a good place for that person to sort of be a informal narrator, maybe a send us a few plot twists as we go along in the work. >> James S.A. Corey: Do you want that one? >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, so the reason why that cast, the conquerors are very caste based society. The reason why that caste is called librarians is really specific and will be more examined in the later books. You'll get to see what it is about them that makes them librarians. But, I mean, obviously the librarians, I think are the keepers of knowledge. And I think in the very near future, we're going to need librarians who are trained to dig through the mountains of AI garbage to get to the actual facts hiding underneath them. [Applause] >> James S.A. Corey: And there's a-- when you have a librarian, you have somebody who is in charge of a certain body of knowledge. And how you curate that body of knowledge can do a lot of different things. I mean, it can be a bulwark against tyranny, or it can be an instrument of tyranny, or it can be any number of things. And in our guy, he's kind of the bulwark of tyranny. He's not going for, you know, freedom and self-determination for anybody. So, yeah, he's he's a bad guy. But the fact that librarians have that potential is also a statement of the power. >> Cyndee Landrum: We all know that we use it for good. We will use our powers for good. I promise. >> James S.A. Corey: Use your power only for good. >> Cyndee Landrum: Only for good. Only for good. So some question that emerged about name pronunciation. So there's a lot of Welsh names in this work. And so someone wanted to know. I was reading online. How should we be pronouncing our main character's name? Is David? >> James S.A. Corey: Any way. Any way you want. >> Cyndee Landrum: Any way-- >> James S.A. Corey: Any way you like. >> Cyndee Landrum: Okay, so let's talk about him because I'm going to tell you my first experience of him was like, OMG, Nepo baby. [Laughter] I mean, I sort of changed, but like, that's where we start with him, you know, that's how he feels and he doesn't feel very useful, which is interesting given the context of this story. Can you tell me where does where does he come from? What do you see-- You know, how did you sort of formulate that character? >> James S.A. Corey: Well, I mean, yeah, he is a bit of a nepo baby, but he's also an academic, which a lot of people would argue are the useless people. I do not, I do not. I'm married to a PhD, so I do not make that argument. But, you know, he's a cog in the machine of academia and he is a very specific cog. He's the cog who can get attention to things by having his rich relatives pay attention to those things which as you know, if anybody in here works in academia, the only thing you ever care about is funding. So the people with control of the purse strings have enormous power. And so in that way he has sort of the soft power of access to funding, but also coming out of that world being somebody who, you know, I can say this is absolutely true of my wife. When she focuses on something in her discipline, she doesn't see anything else. It's that one thing, right? I mean, that's what PhDs are. They're the world's leading expert in one tiny thing, and she's very much that way. And so I often have to point out to her, well, you're doing this thing and there's going to be these repercussions. She hasn't even paid any attention to that. So you have a character who is by family association and by training more, he pays attention to all the things that are going on. He pays attention to the politics. And again, the academics I know hate the politics of academia. He doesn't. He's used to it. So he becomes useful in that way because he's the one who can kind of notice what's going on and go, oh, I get what's happening here, and we should all change our behavior in this way. Whereas everybody else is like, no, we're focusing on a tiny problem, so we don't see that. So yeah, I mean, part of it is based on our experience in dealing with people who are very job focused. >> James S.A. Corey: Well, and, having somebody who kind of doesn't belong in that space, somebody who way of approaching the world is a little bit out of sync with the people who are around him, because the ways that he makes sense of things, systems are what give him kind of the edge that he wouldn't have had otherwise. And yeah, and he's there because it looked like a high status thing, and he's not really well suited to it. But he got the job. And so he's meant to be an outsider. >> Cyndee Landrum: And he has a crush. >> James S.A. Corey: You know, we all do, don't we? I mean, we all have. >> Cyndee Landrum: Yeah. But, you know, not to give anything away. But that's not. Yeah. That crush, you know, I mean-- >> James S.A. Corey: Blame that on Daniel. Daniel is the guy who has a biology degree because the cute girl was in biology. >> James S.A. Corey: Yes. [Laughter] That is true. >> Cyndee Landrum: Yeah, but I don't think the cute girl in biology was like dating your professor or anything like that. I don't know. Was she? >> James S.A. Corey: She was not. She was not. But if she had been, I still would have taken the class. [Laughter] >> Cyndee Landrum: So, you know, these folks, their world is, like, literally, you know, there's a lot of, you know, we're introduced to characters and then sort of out of nowhere, but kind of not out of nowhere, a thing starts to happen and folks are ripped from what they know into kind of put and I won't call it the Borg because I already know it's really not the Borg, but they are put into to this new world. How would you go about describing their experience? >> James S.A. Corey: Okay, so when Ty was pitching this, he was talking about the book of Daniel, and he was talking about being this kind of subsistence farmer in the Middle East who's lived a very simple life, being swept away to a place that has five story buildings for the first, seeing multiple story buildings for the first time in your life, seeing places that have like waterworks and infrastructure and a city and gardens. And that sense of absolute awe that comes from, from stepping into that new context. And we wanted that. But in science fiction. So it's, it's somebody who has lived in a world that looks like ours, that kind of feels like ours, that has some issues like ours, being transported to a place that is so overwhelmingly advanced and alien and amazing and horrifying, and it's it's just the translation of that experience in our history into this new context. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah, the idea of being somebody who's never seen a building more than two stories in your life, it didn't even know buildings could be built higher than that. And then you get drug off to Babylon, where the walls surrounding the city are 40 feet high. Just the awe of that. Like there's a line in Gladiator where somebody says, I didn't know men could build such things. It's that aha moment of like, I didn't know this was possible. And having characters who are dealing with that, and as Daniel brought out, dealing with that in the context of trying to hang on to some sense of yourself. How do you hang on to your own sense of value that you matter when you're suddenly confronted with the vastness of this new thing? Do I still matter now? >> Cyndee Landrum: And how do you not get sucked into, as you said, becoming basically, not necessarily a cog in the wheel, but, you know, just part of the mechanism. >> James S.A. Corey: Well, and the-- The drive, the seductive feeling of being part of this thing that is huge. The thing that has already shown that it has power over you. Why would you not want to be part of this amazing, great, huge thing that is already proven it can take everything from you? >> Cyndee Landrum: Okay. >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, it's a protective coloring thing. You say, oh, no, I'm one of the-- I'm with you guys. >> Cyndee Landrum: I'm the good one. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Cyndee Landrum: I'm the nice one. >> James S.A. Corey: Don't kill me. >> Cyndee Landrum: so you all, as we have talked, you all have talked about who pitches an idea and who comes in and says, okay, yeah, I'll do that idea. That sounds like a good idea. Can you all talk about your collaborative writing process? Because I think it sounds like it's very interesting. Is there like a place where one of you stops and one starts? Is there-- I understand that you're good at that and I'm better at this, and we just sort of exchange or what does that look like? Is it, you know, we get on Zoom. How does it work? >> James S.A. Corey: Complicated. [Laughing] In broad terms, we outline everything together. We spend a lot of time talking about what a project is before we start doing it, so that we know that we're we're kind of running down the same road. We outline in great broad terms what the book is going to be, what the sections are going to be, what, what the, the things are that are going to happen. And then even down to, in a chapter, what are the things that are going to happen within that chapter? And then one of us writes the first draft and because Ty didn't have a lot of experience writing books when we started, I got to kind of convince him that all chapters are 3000 words long, which is really convenient for me. And he didn't know any better, so we kept that. [Laughter] And then once he has finished the first draft, he hands it to the other guy. The other guy goes through and makes all of the changes he wants to make, and then we put it at the back of the master document. We just keep going until we have a book. And then one of us gets to go through the final draft and make any changes he wants. And then the other guy, the other guy goes through all the changes he wants, and we send that off to the editor. So that by the end of the process, we can tell you who wrote the first draft of any given chapter, but we can't tell you who wrote which sentence. >> Cyndee Landrum: So, Ty, clearly, now you know that, that what he told you wasn't completely 100% true. That you don't need-- >> James S.A. Corey: Completely 100% true. >> James S.A. Corey: 100% of the time, following his rules has produced a string of bestsellers. So I just assume that his rules must be right because, you know, just doing what he tells me to do. It worked out great. >> Cyndee Landrum: But you've written for television before, right? And so and I will say that when I read it, I can see it in a very vivid way. I can almost project, like, projected on my wall and imagine what it what it looks like. And so when you're-- I mean, obviously. Well, I won't say obviously, I don't know. That's why I'm asking you. When you're writing, when you all are writing, are you thinking about, well, what will it look like if it ever makes it to a screen? >> James S.A. Corey: If we were thinking about that, it would be so much less expensive to produce. [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: No, I don't think either of us pictures an adaptation when we're writing. I mean, we were fortunate enough to have a lot of our previous work adapted, but that was years after we had written it, so it didn't really affect the work that we were doing. So, no, I don't think either of us do that. But I will say, though, that I have to see the scene before I can write it. So I kind of do that anyway. I just picture what-- I have to see what everything looks like. I have to see what the people look like. I have to understand that stuff before I can write anything. Daniel is much more comfortable sort of writing his way into it and having it start out as a bit of a mystery and just sort of discovering it as he goes. I'm not comfortable with that. I have to know. >> James S.A. Corey: We are not actually the same person. It turns out we're not. It's a surprise sometimes. >> James S.A. Corey: But because of that, you know, I mean, Daniel, at this point, you've written like 370 books. >> Yeah, sure. >> Something like that. So he's written like a vast number of books. And when we started writing for screenplays, it was harder for him to make the transition. >> It was terrible. Ty could just do it. Ty didn't have a bunch of bad habits, right? So I was in there going, okay, but how are you going to know what this person is feeling if I don't explain their interior life throughout this entire chapter? And, I know the camera can't see it, but they have to know. It's like they don't. They need to know what's on the screen and then the rest of it, there's this whole other process that I didn't understand. I was not a great screenwriter to start. I got better, but Ty could just kind of learned it afresh and do it. I'm not jealous. >> James S.A. Corey: Well, I like screenwriting because I like delegating, and screenwriting is delegating. Screenwriting is like then he pulled out the prop and did a thing, and somebody else is going to figure out what that prop is. Somebody else is going to design it. They're going to bring me a picture, go, can it look like this? I'm like, yeah, it sounds great. Do that. Or I can say interior warehouse. That's it. I don't have to design a warehouse. Somebody else is going to design a warehouse. >> James S.A. Corey: And I'm sitting there going, oh, yes, the smell of the-- How are you going to get the smell? It's a TV show. But I got to get the smell in. [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: We kept having to do that. Like, can a camera see this, Daniel? >> But, but-- >> No. >> James S.A. Corey: Okay, I'll take it out. >> James S.A. Corey: And it's funny too, that like, all the other little bits because I watch way more screen stuff than Daniel does. I have chronic insomnia. So I've watched every movie ever made, and that sounds like an exaggeration. It is not. >> James S.A. Corey: I found one so far, one he hadn't seen. >> James S.A. Corey: But I spent a lot of time when I'm watching movies, thinking about what they're doing and why they're doing the things that they're doing. And so this sort of language of it felt very natural to me. And there was stuff in there that, like our showrunner would talk to Daniel. Daniel was like, well, how are they going to know the emotion? He's like, well, there's a soundtrack. The soundtrack will tell them that this is sad. >> James S.A. Corey: I was like, Oh, right, right. >> Music. >> Can I get that for my book? How can I get a soundtrack for my book? >> Cyndee Landrum: Well, you could get a soundtrack for your book. >> I cannot. >> I don't know, you might. >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, some writers will put, like, the music they were listening to when they wrote it. >> James S.A. Corey: You can't get the sting at the right moment. You can't get the dun dun dun. When they pat the page, you know. >> Cyndee Landrum: Well, you know, maybe in the future. >> James S.A. Corey: I think that's a terrible plan. >> James S.A. Corey: And there's other-- [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, I joke. >> James S.A. Corey: That's like books with like, scritch and sniff. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. No. The same. There was a warehouse. Sketchy. Sketchy. Sketchy. Yeah. No. [Laughter] How would that be better? >> Cyndee Landrum: I'm just trying to imagine if we had scratch and sniff books at the library. We replace them all the time. Who knows what we find in them? >> James S.A. Corey: When I was a kid, they had those. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. And now they don't. >> James S.A. Corey: No, they don't anymore. >> James S.A. Corey: There's what we've learned. All right. >> Cyndee Landrum: But they still have scented markers. So just in case. >> James S.A. Corey: Well... Got to have fun somehow. >> Cyndee Landrum: Yes you do. Yes you do. So this book, this series will be a trilogy. So quite a bit shorter than the nine previous books. And was that a sort of intentional or did you, when you started, were you like, yeah, we can do this in three. >> James S.A. Corey: I think, I think we both had PTSD. From from nine books. People always asked us like, how did it feel to finish the nine books? That was like, it felt like such a relief. [Laughing] >> James S.A. Corey: Imagine that you're crawling across a desert and you get to an oasis. That's kind of what it feels like to finish. >> James S.A. Corey: You know what it felt like. It felt like when you move into that first apartment, and it's like the terrible walkup with the narrow stairs, and you spend all day lugging your furniture up five flights of stairs to your apartment, and the last thing goes up and you just want to collapse and die. That's kind of what it felt like. It drug the last book up, we set it down in the room. We were like, all right, I'm done. I'm not unpacking. I'm just going to lay on the floor until I die. >> James S.A. Corey: And so now the three book series is hopefully less arduous. The idea is we can get the whole story done. We know where we want to end. We know what the whole thing looks like. We know what the last line is. And the nine book series was in a very early version of 12 book series that had three really boring books in it that we just didn't write. So the idea here is to do the thing in the shape that it wants to be and in the length that it wants, and not spend a lot of time doing stuff that you're going to regret having read anyway. >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, are there Elmore Leonard fans? >> James S.A. Corey: Elmore Leonard fans? >> James S.A. Corey: Elmore Leonard, one of the greatest American writers. He said his process with writing was find all the places in the book that he knows readers are going to kind of skim over and not write those. So when we were looking at it, we were like, you know, these three books don't feel like necessary or important. What if we just didn't write them? >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. And so in this, it's a three book series because it wants to be three books long. That's the size of the idea. Put it that way. >> Cyndee Landrum: So book one, done out in the world. Do you write book two? When do you start book two and book three? Because you have a last line. >> James S.A. Corey: Well, we spent all summer with Ty living in my pool house, outlining exactly what happens throughout the second book and most of the third. And now we are at the part where we write the first drafts and send them to each other and edit them. >> Cyndee Landrum: And so you've done nine and I'm assuming that was the same process that you did with the nine. >> James S.A. Corey: No, no, we were ahead with "The Expanse." So I don't know if anybody in here knows a writer named Carrie Vaughn, but Carrie is a good friend of Daniel and I and he has been writing a very long time, and she is sort of the beta reader for our books and tells us all the things that we get wrong. But one of the things-- >> She's really good. >> Yeah. One of the things that she told us early on. So we sent her an early copy of the first Expanse book, Leviathan Wakes, and she read it and sent us back some notes, and she kind of sent a letter and she said, this is going to be big. Finish the second book now. Get it done before this is published. And it was the best advice because we have watched friends of ours have huge breakout first novels, and then it kills their ability to write the second book, because now there's all this pressure and all this expectation and oh my God, what if it's not as good as the first one? And everybody is over praising the first one and the second one, what if it's not as good? And then they just never write the second book. >> James S.A. Corey: Or they it comes out and it doesn't do quite as well as they had hoped in the marketplace, which is not an argument about quality. The idea that something sells well, therefore it must be good or it's something that sells poorly and therefore it must be bad. That's a lie. And somebody comes out and it doesn't do as well as people hoped. And then they're thinking, oh, I'm not good anymore. I'm not, you know, and their ego is getting involved in the writing process that way. It's just as toxic. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. So she said, make sure you write the second book before this first one is published. So we were always a book ahead with "The Expanse." This one, we are not. The first book has been published. We're just working on first drafts of the second book, so we've already failed. >> James S.A. Corey: On the other hand, we have calloused souls and decades in the industry to support us. One of the kind of insights I always had about writing was that there's this, this balance in writing between really developing an understanding, a deep understanding of your fellow human being and a deep empathy for your fellow human being, and then not caring what they think. So I can read the reviews of it. I can see it and I'm not going to take it personally anymore. >> Cyndee Landrum: So in that process of book one written, book two on the way in outline, do you ever find that you change course a little bit like you thought we were going to go down this path, but then, you know, in the process, we're like, oh, we're going to take a left now. >> James S.A. Corey: Sure. I mean, you're always going to find little things that don't make sense anymore. Things in the outline that you thought you were going to need to do, that you realize you don't need to do or stuff you need to add. That's always true. I mean, a writing mentor of mine, you know, his thing was like, it's like doing a trip from L.A. to New York. He's like, you know, you're starting in L.A. You know, you're ending in New York. You kind of know the freeways you're going to use, because there's only so many freeways that'll get you there. You don't know where you're stopping for gas. You don't know where you're stopping for food. You don't know which hotel you're going to stop at midpoint. And so that's the discovery. The discovery is all that stuff. But you know where you're going. You know generally how you're going to get there. >> James S.A. Corey: And if you can get halfway through a book and realize that the ending wasn't the ending that you thought it was, you've already screwed up the beginning because there's, I mean, Taiwo says this there's nothing that fixes a third act problem, like fixing the first act. If it's not already promised at the beginning of the book, it's not going to be as satisfying when you get to the end. >> Cyndee Landrum: Noted. [Laughter] So you talked about discovery, and I think one of the things about your writing that has been praised is your ability to build and describe these worlds, and there's a lot of discovery and research that goes into that. I think there's some people who think, oh, sci-fi, we're just going to make everything "futuristic, whatever the heck that means in there. So can you talk about building a world like building these worlds that your characters occupy and their stories are told in? >> James S.A. Corey: I think that sci-fi is a broad tent that encompasses many things, and I think absolutely valid and worthy works of sci-fi that pay no attention to realism in the science. And they're perfectly fine. That's okay. I don't think it has to strive for realism to be valid or worthwhile. I mean, telling a good story is really the main thing. I think world building, though, consistency in world building is important. Once we know how Jedi powers work even though they're magic. It doesn't matter as long as they keep working that way, we're along for the ride. It's just keeping it consistent, and it makes it feel like a real place when things randomly change for no reason. And suddenly things that used to work this way don't work that way. And there's no explanation. That's when you sort of fall off. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. When you have a magic object in book two that does something that would totally fix the plot in book four. Nobody thinks about it. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. They're like, why didn't they use the magic thing? >> James S.A. Corey: It was right there. She was using it to go to her classes the whole time, but it's gone. Oh. [Laughter] That's sloppy writing. [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: So consistency, I think, is important. [Laughter] >> Cyndee Landrum: So anybody who is writing science fiction, speculative fiction, consistency. Maybe you should reread what you wrote before so you don't lose the thing that is the magic that does the thing. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah, right. >> James S.A. Corey: Well, I mean, if you're going to have the science of your world randomly change, that should be a plot point. Like, people should be going, wow, it's weird that the science of our world keeps changing. Like, then it's okay. >> James S.A. Corey: All of a sudden our GPS has stopped working again. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Cyndee Landrum: So getting back to mercy of the gods and how would you sort of, like, describe, like if there's the book jacket and of course, there's reviews. I know you don't. You know, the reviews, man. And lots of descriptions. >> Everyone's got an opinion. Everybody's got an opinion. >> Cyndee Landrum: But honestly, yours is really the only one that counts. I mean, to be truthful but when you're thinking about this story and sort of like, like pitching it to each other, how would you sort of sum it up in just like a few sentences for someone who is just like, I'm gonna pick this up off the shelf and what is it? >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, disappointing love child of Ursula Le Guin and Frank Herbert is pretty much the best I got. I don't know that I have anything that's more enticing than that. You got some. No? >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah, I'm not good at cover copy. You're the cover copy guy. >> James S.A. Corey: Tales of Lurid adventure. >> James S.A. Corey: Tales of lurid space adventure. >> Cyndee Landrum: That sounds good to me. Well, you know, we do want to take some questions, and I know that we've had about-- we had to cut some folks off in our the last few sessions, so we have a few extra minutes so we maybe could start taking some questions. I know we have a-- We're going to-- Microphone here, microphone there. And we're going to do the alternate thing. So if you guys want to-- >> James S.A. Corey: Failing that will just start talking about something random. Alien is a movie. I don't know. >> James S.A. Corey: There's this person. >> Cyndee Landrum: We've got this person here. So you're first. >> Hi. I was just wondering if you could offer one piece of advice to a debut author, what would it be? >> James S.A. Corey: Write the second book before the first book is published. [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: Seriously, that's a very good one. But since we already did that one, we should come up with something else. What's the second thing you would tell somebody? >> James S.A. Corey: So I'm a big believer in don't read your reviews and the reason I say that is not because other people's opinions aren't valid or not because they don't have anything useful to say, but because no matter what the review is, it's bad for the writer. If it's great, if it tells you you're amazing, that's actually not good for you. And if it's terrible and it tells you the worst thing that ever happened to a keyboard that's also not good for you. There's no version of a review that leaves you better as a writer than before you read it. So finding a small circle of people whose opinion you really trust and getting their, like our beta readers, you know, people like that, people who understand how the business works and how writing works and can give you true feedback. That's a much stronger thing to do than to just go out onto Amazon and read every review and just wreck your own psyche in the process. >> James S.A. Corey: Goodreads is for readers. It's not for writers. >> James S.A. Corey: It's not for the writers. [Applause] >> Thank you. >> Cyndee Landrum: And we have a question here. >> Hey, guys. >> Hey, Michael. >> All right. [Laughing] >> Yeah, they know me. >> I assume everybody knows Mike. >> Just real quick. Is it going to be Netflix? Is it going to be Amazon? [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: We have nothing to announce today. >> That's my question, really. We just want to know, that's all. >> James S.A. Corey: We have nothing to announce. >> James S.A. Corey: We want to know, too. [Laughter] >> I'm afraid I'm about to get the same answer. But in the dedication in front of the book, you're thanking several people, including Naren Shankar, for having patience with you for the time you were putting in to this project instead of something unmentioned. Is that something that can become mentioned or hinted or? >> James S.A. Corey: No. >> James S.A. Corey: We have nothing to announce today. [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: So Daniel and I have a couple of business partners that we work on developing projects for television with, and they're always asking us to do things and we're always going, but we're writing a book and so we're apologizing for that. >> James S.A. Corey: Oh, poor me, writing a book. >> James S.A. Corey: But none of those things are ready to be announced. >> Well, I'll squeeze in a short second one, and it's mostly for time. >> James S.A. Corey: You're probably going to jail. >> Yeah, probably. >> That was it. [Laughter] >> How soon will you and that guy maybe discuss Romulus? >> James S.A. Corey: I don't know. I can't I can't answer that. I will say I have lost all faith in the Alien franchise, so I don't know when that will happen. >> Cyndee Landrum: Yes. >> Hi. I have kind of a craft question. When you're in the nitty gritty of outlining and drafting, how do you find the balance between sort of the emotional themes of your characters and the detailed world building that allows you to approach those themes with that distance that you talked about in sci-fi earlier? >> James S.A. Corey: Okay. So there's a taxonomy of writing that we use to talk about it like we're world building, and character development and plot are all separate lenses that we're using to do that. That's a great way to talk about it analytically, but it doesn't match my experience of actually writing. When I'm writing, when we're writing, all of those things are happening at the same time, and they're all happening in the same moment that I'm describing. So what I'm trying to do is really fully imagine what's happening that I'm reporting what the imaginary thing that I'm reporting, and then I'm giving you the description, I'm giving you the instructions on how to imagine that in your head, and you're going to reconstruct that. I've got no control over that. And all of those things come through in that dramatization, and they all exist together and they all exist in your performance of that. So taking it apart like that and trying to build a balance is not my experience. >> Thank you. >> Hi. I wanted to know what some of the most unexpected sources of inspiration have been when it's come to building the world, whether it's Tolkien or video games or other literary works? Star Wars? >> James S.A. Corey: I've been writing fan fiction in the same universe since I was 11. [Applause] No, this is a joke. >> James S.A. Corey: It's sort of a joke. >> James S.A. Corey: I read a story by Alfred Bester when I was 11 called The Stars My Destination, which I was way too young to read that book. It is pretty heady stuff for an 11 year old. But I fell so in love with that vision of the future that all the sci-fi stuff I've been doing ever since has been sort of me trying to write sequels to Stars My Destination. >> James S.A. Corey: Which kind of is like The Expanse. >> Really? >> Yeah. So that has stuck with me ever since. The other thing that I write around the same age was the first time I watched the movie Alien. If somebody was asking about Alien, the movie Alien just locked into my brain the way it looked. So everything in my sci-fi future looks like stuff from the movie Alien, because it just that's just the way things in the future look. So those two are huge inspirations for me, and everything I do is sort of ripping off those two things. >> Thank you. >> Hi. So we've heard that "The Expanse" started as Ty's TTRPG project. >> James S.A. Corey: It did not start as that. >> James S.A. Corey: It started for me that way. >> So I was going to ask. I heard before it was a TTRPG. that it was a setting for an MMO. Is that what you're referring to? Okay, so now after the Kickstarter, we have the TTRPG or we have a new TTRPG. Have you guys ever-- I'm sure you have nothing to announce, but have you ever considered going back to pitch? I'm sure Amazon Game Studios has, you know, investments they would like to make if you ever considered pitching a MMO or, any kind of video game? I know we had the telltale game, but is that something that's ever been on your mind? >> James S.A. Corey: We don't have the rights anymore. I mean, that's really an Alcon Entertainment question at this point. So one of the things that happens when you have a work adapted like this is they give you a contract and you sell your baby, and then the baby goes away and has adventures. And in this case, we were very lucky in that we were allowed to kind of go along with our baby on their adventures. But that's not our baby anymore. That's Alcon Entertainment's now. And any game decisions would be announced by them. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Hey, I love the new book. Love "The Expanse." There are a lot more alien races and alien characters in the new series. I just wondered if you could talk about writing non-human characters, and some of them are quite non-human. So. >> James S.A. Corey: Okay, you want this one or I got something? >> James S.A. Corey: Go ahead. >> James S.A. Corey: Okay, so there's a book called "An Immense World" by Ed Yong, and if you haven't read it, Ed Yong is amazing. I'm not supposed to curse. Ed Yong is amazing. And the way that he talked about other animals, sensory experience of the world and other animals ways of making sense of the universe is it's transporting, and it's really useful when you're coming in and trying to make some other creature to have that in your toolbox. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to use this to pitch Ed Yong. That's all I'm doing here. [Applause] >> So you guys already talked a little bit about consistency in your world building. I actually just recently started the first Expanse book, and my impression so far is that it's very grounded in real life science and physics in how it approaches. >> James S.A. Corey: It's all right. [Laughing] >> So my question is, how do you guys juggle real science and incorporating that into how your worlds work and where some places that you're that you let that fly free a bit and interpret in a different way? >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, we get a lot of credit for having two things be realistic in "The Expanse," and that is gravity works the way gravity actually works, and light delay exists. And it turns out most sci-fi just handwaves to those two things away. It just says, oh, there's gravity plating. And now we can all walk around in our ship like it's a boat rather than a tower. And nobody ever explains why that works. And then light delay. There's instantaneous communication everywhere. So people go, oh, this is very grounded because there's actually gravity that works the way gravity works. And you can't just call Jupiter on the phone. And somebody in Jupiter answers. But beyond that, I mean-- >> James S.A. Corey: We're a little squishy. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah, I mean, it-- >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, the Epstein Drive, our joke has always been, you know, how does the Epstein Drive work? And it's very efficient. >> It's efficient. >> It's very-- [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: Really good. >> James S.A. Corey: It's really good at not melting itself. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> James S.A. Corey: And then when the other weird stuff comes in in "The Expanse," you may not be there yet, it feels different because we have had that kind of semi-plausible, grounded stuff to begin with. So it gets weirder. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah. That's a lesson I actually took from a fantasy writer. So the first book, Game of Thrones, the first book in George's series. Have you heard of it? [Laughter] The thing with Game of Thrones that made it so groundbreaking as a fantasy story is, for most of the book, it feels like history. You know, it's just knights and peasants and horses and there's like, no magic in the world. It's just feels. Except for one brief scene at the very beginning with The White Walker. But other than that, it just feels like a normal place and you get very sucked into. It's basically just medieval Europe. And then there's a scene toward the end where Danny gives birth to three dragons and you're like, whoa! Right? So if you want the weird thing to feel weird, you have to let people settle into not weird long enough that when the weird shows up, it takes people, they're like, oh my goodness, what does this mean now? I mean, if as you're walking around in Game of Thrones, there were just dragons flying overhead all the time. When Danny gives birth to three dragons at the end, he'd be like, yeah, there's tons of dragons. It doesn't mean anything. So we wanted to give some-- Make it feel like late Apollo 13, and then when the weird stuff shows up, people go, oh well, this clearly has dramatically changed the world. >> Thank you. >> So for both of you guys, kind of in your writing process, when it comes with like the story and world building, like how mixed is it? Like do you guys think about, like when you write an alien race, is it like, do I write the alien race and then I think about where does it come from, what's their name, what's the planet name, that kind of thing? Because I know you guys have said, you know, like certain stuff, like the librarian comes back in the second and that like, role expands and, you know, the last name like last line. So how mixed is the process for you guys when you write it? >> James S.A. Corey: I answered the last one. >> James S.A. Corey: Okay, fine. It's inextricable. I mean, those things, the experience that I'm having as Ty and I are walking through this thing. What we're doing is we're imagining a version of what we're trying to make inside of your head. And, you know, I'm not going to go through and do an encyclopedic history of every single alien culture and how they got there. I'm going to try to think really clearly about what I want you to imagine, and how I can make you imagine it, and then anything that doesn't need to be there, I can know that or not. As long as I'm able to evoke a good performance from you as a reader, I've done my part. >> James S.A. Corey: I spend more time thinking about the details than Daniel does, because I'm just sort of, worldbuilding is my piece. But-- >> It's great. I can ask him questions. He knows the answers to it. I don't have to-- [Laughter] >> Well, thank you. >> James S.A. Corey: Thank you. >> Hi. So, kind of to follow up on the alien writing question. Both "The Expanse" and "Mercy of Gods" kind of have this plot line of trying to figure out how these aliens think and how it's different than humans. And so I wonder how you approach, like writing aliens that are different enough that that's an interesting thing to explore, but also similar enough that we understand how we can actually relate to them. >> James S.A. Corey: Well, we have a whole bunch of examples. If you spend a little bit of time trying to figure out how octopi think, they're weird. If you try to think about-- if you even-- or even something like much simpler, if you look at the evolutionary history of dogs and understand that when the dog seems to look up at you with that heartbreaking love, it's because we sterilized or murdered everything that didn't love us. There's a lot going on with other animals right here that you can draw from. You can make stuff uncomfortable with. [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: I mean, if your aliens aren't at least as weird as octopus... >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah, you kind of, you're behind. [Laughter] >> Thank you. >> Hello. When you guys are collaborating and you have a disagreement, how do you guys resolve that? Do you have to pull in someone else, or do you have a-- >> Trial by combat. >> Yeah. [Laughter] >> James S.A. Corey: I lose a lot. No, we just keep talking. I mean, it's a very Quaker kind of thing. We're just going to sit there and keep talking about it until somebody convinces the other that their idea is actually the better one. >> James S.A. Corey: Yeah, I mean, the rule is the best idea wins. And if you're being honest about that, it becomes very clear which one was the best idea. And that works if you don't bring your ego into it. And I'm very arrogant about several things, but none of them are about having the best ideas when it comes to writing. So it's easy for me to go, no, Daniel, actually, you're right, that is a way better idea than mine. >> Thank you. >> Hello. I just wanted to ask, as reading "The Expanse" for the first time, I found it to be extremely systemic. You mentioned George R.R. Martin's books before and how Westeros is really the main character of those series. We have characters we follow, but we mostly follow Westeros. And in the same way, "The Expanse," the solar system is the main character. We have characters we follow. What sort of draws you to that sort of systemic style of storytelling, and is there anything about working as a duo that makes you particularly adept at it? >> James S.A. Corey: I don't think being a duo helps at all, but. [Laughter] I mean, it helps with other things, but not that the-- I mean, what I'm hearing you ask is what is it about having this particular setting and this, this sense of the scope of the story that's exciting, that's drawing? And I mean, that's kind of asking, what's the cool bit that drew you in the first place, right? I mean, you get the map, you've chosen the map of the place, and then you start figuring things out. You know what's on Ganymede, what's on-- This is all the stuff that Ty did before I was ever in the room. >> James S.A. Corey: And in that case, it was because I was designing a game world, so I came at it backwards. [Laughing] Are we down to one more? >> Cyndee Landrum: I think we have one more question, and I think-- >> James S.A. Corey: I think that's him. >> Cyndee Landrum: Yes. >> So in hopes of avoiding some PTSD flashbacks and not to ruin it for the one guy who's reading the first book. [Laughter] And referring to what you said about knowing how things end and what's the final line, are you happy with how "The Expanse" ended? And do you believe that we've achieved closure on that entire story? >> James S.A. Corey: Now, when you say "The Expanse," are you talking about the books or the show? >> The books. >> James S.A. Corey: Thank you. [Laughter] [Applause] The end of "The Expanse" books is the ending that we had intended when we were doing the outline back when, like 2012, when we were still writing book two. The story is told. It's complete. I'm very pleased with where it ended. >> Thanks. >> Cyndee Landrum: And thank you. [Applause] [Music]