Summer Vibes & Thriller Talk: A Chat with Kyle Mills

Hello and welcome to the Thriller Zone.

I'm your host, Dave Temple.

It is so good to have you here.

Welcome to.

What is it, the middle of summer already?

Can you believe it?

The middle of summer.

And by the time this show drops, it'll be the first Wednesday in August.

So happy August to you and yours.

I hope it's a very pleasant summer for you here in San Diego.

It's quite stunning in August.

I remember back home in Carolina, hot and sticky and humid.

The kudzu and the crickets and the cicadas.

Entirely different world.

Anyway, welcome to summer.

I will be doing a little summer vacationing here in the next few weeks.

So you may not be getting a show every single week as per usual, but I'm sure you understand that and will plan accordingly.

And I thank you for your support.

On today's show is one of my favorite guys.

He's become a favorite guys because he's such a great conversationalist.

I just so enjoy talking to him.

And as you'll see inside the show, we start talking.

We don't even get to the book until, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes in.

And you know, honestly, I like it that way.

I do.

I just like shooting the breeze because that to me is real entertainment.

I really get to know the authors and that's key to me.

But I will tell you straight up, Kyle Mills has a new book called Fade In.

I told him on the show, and I think you'll, you'll.

You'll hear this.

It could be in my opinion.

No, it is, in my opinion, his best book yet.

Did I like the Vince Flynn books?

Sure.

He did great with Match Mitch Rap.

But this one, this protagonist, I totally dig and we had so much fun.

Now, as you'll notice, the shows have gone for, you know, a little over an hour, hour and a half to.

Down to about 30 minutes for a lot of different reasons.

I got stuff to do.

You got stuff to do.

People aren't.

You know, I started noticing people would drop off after a certain amount of time.

So I just said, you know, 30 minutes does it.

We went on for, I don't know, 40, 45 minutes.

So hang in there.

We hung up the show and we kept talking for another hour and almost an hour and a half because we just had so much to talk about and so many good inside secrets to publishing.

I wish I could share it with you, but all those usually, what do we call it, overtime, often get requested to me to.

Yeah, let's not put that on.

It's A shame, because really good stuff.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but I can because it's my show.

Welcome to the Thriller Zone.

As I said, Dave Temple, Kyle Mills today.

And fade in.

You're gonna dig it.

So let me shut up and let's get 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.

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 of place that I do these set up and the painters to paint the house showed up, started like pressure washing the front of the house.

So it's.

It's.

It's always something this time of year.

Well, to.

Not to try to one up you, but just before you came on, like literally four minutes ago, my dog, who is suffering from pneumonia, goes into a hacking cough while my wife is on a zoom call with seven other people.

And she's like doing this to the camera but going, come here, take care of it.

Right when someone knocks at the door, who's coming over for a meeting because Cammie's call is 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 pretty open today, so if you want to push off or take care of the dog, I'm fine to come back.

No, that is on her own.

Last time we spoke, you were in 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 out where they're pressure washing the front of my house.

Oh, I'm.

I'm stuffed in like a corner of 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 up against the wall.

That probably was Spain.

Okay.

I probably just moved in.

We had probably just moved into our flat and we didn't.

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, one year here.

We're.

We're moving back on the 19th dude.

You'Re living one of my dreams, for crying out loud.

Yeah, well, maybe two of them.

I mean, you're living in two countries, and I got a point about that.

And you're writing books, so you're like, you're.

You're.

You're slamming it and jamming it, and you're a world traveler.

I mean, I'm humbled.

I'm humbled.

Well, it's.

It's great.

I mean, I.

It is definitely great, though I will say it.

Sometimes the fantasy is a little better than the.

Yeah.

Reality.

I mean, we've had seven floods in our flat in Spain so far.

Um, and we're just at the point where we're just like.

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 and challenging and exciting and.

Yeah.

You know, sometimes hair pulling, you know, because.

But it's interesting because you get a.

You get an opportunity to find out what it's like to be an immigrant, so.

Which is an interesting perspective.

Yes.

And if we can take just 30 more seconds on this.

I want to talk about one thing I have been watching.

My wife and I are getting ready to take off for a nice long trip out into Europe, and we.

And we were.

Thank you.

We were talking about how crazy the world is and how we see all these people exiting stage left because of the current regime.

We'll try to dance around some of this.

And so he said, if we were going to have a second residence or a primary yet in another country, where would it be?

And we're like, well, we've always dreamed of Italy, but then I hear nothing, fan.

Nothing but fabulousness about Spain.

I mean, like, every time I turn around and I'm like.

And then I.

And now I'm coming talking to you, and I'm like, honey, I'm going to ask him.

I'm going to ask him, you know, what's it like in Spain?

What's the cost of living like and all?

And do you have to, you know, you got to learn the language?

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 money left over at the end of every month.

Now, we did buy a flat, renovate it.

That was expensive.

And that's, you know, I'm not Counting.

Right.

You know, like if I'd had a mortgage on that or something.

Sure.

The Spanish are lovely.

Yeah.

The food ain't as good as Italy by a long shot.

And there is an anti foreigner movement there for sure.

I think it's targeted more at tourists than.

I've never experienced it.

Learning the language is an absolute bitch.

Like people don't tell you that.

It's language is sort of like weight loss where people say, oh, well, if you sign up for this, well, you know, you'll lose £100 in the next three weeks without ever any effort.

Yeah, right, right, right.

More like it's like 10 years or something to, to really wrap your mind around like to the point where 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 and just say, don't, don't talk to me.

I'm going to sleep in my clothes.

You're just like concentrating so hard and so.

But a lot of people that live there don't ever learn it.

It's just that, that we thought it was important.

Yeah.

And I like it.

I like studying languages, so.

Yeah.

Well, you're, you're smarter than your average bear.

Yeah.

It's a.

Let me tell you, it's.

If I master Spanish, it'll be the hardest thing I ever did for sure.

Harder than writing a page turning thriller.

What, by a hundred thousand times?

Yeah.

It's like writing a, writing a thriller in Spanish.

It's like, hey, well look at it this way.

At least you're not learning say German or Chinese.

Yeah.

And you know, the great thing about Spanish is you do have this huge Spanish community in the United States.

So you've heard it, you see it, you know, like it's not.

Yeah.

It's not like, oh, I'm just suddenly 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 where some people say, well, why aren't you, why baking Spanish?

I'm like, it's my country is that there are a lot of words that are just very similar and it's kind 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 people trying to learn it because it's pretty.

I mean, you could learn this, the English verb system, you know, add an s To he.

Right.

I've just taught you the English verb system.

That's three years.

You know, like, what, are there, like, five ways you can say a verb in English and maybe a hundred and ten.

Yeah.

In Spanish.

Yeah, it's.

It's.

Yeah, it's.

It's.

And then you got the masculine and feminine things.

You gotta remember every word.

What the.

Yeah.

You know, whether it's masculine or feminine.

And at the beginning I thought, that's not that important.

But it.

It's like nails on a chalkboard 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 love talking about.

This is why I love talking to you.

Because you're.

You're just so.

You're so well read.

You're so well traveled.

You're.

And you.

And I say this with all due respect, 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 the Thriller Zone.

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 used to say when I was trying to get something, she goes, I'm not giving all my candy in the lobby.

So I'm going to give you all the 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 fan when you filled in that sandbox.

Sure.

And I liked your.

I've liked your other standalones, but this one, I don't know what it was.

This comes out of the gate with a bitch slap and surprises, and it's so timely.

I'm like, wow, his finger is right on that frigging pulse, man.

Yeah, that's what I was going for.

You know, after nine books in the Mitch Rap series, which was super fun to do, I wanted to kind of move away from, you know, kind of the Islamic terrorism and stuff that.

That's really the focus of that series and talk a lot about, I mean, the weird stuff that's happening today.

You know, it's not like the old days of, oh, the Soviet Union's the bad guy or the, you know, the Islamic terrorists are the bad guys.

Now it's coming at us from every direction and including inside the house.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got all these divisions inside the country, which is massive problems.

I mean, it's funny to think how many weird things are going on.

Anything from climate change to, you know, the internal division of the United States to this crazy war in, in Russia.

America trying to completely sort 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's like everything all at once.

And technology, I mean, forget about that.

It's crazy to think that when I started fade in, like when I started fade in, AI wasn't really a thing.

Like when I first put pen to paper.

Now here I am on pub day and it's just blown up.

So it's like a year and a half, dude.

If I can, if I can insert something here.

I have been telling my wife I'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.

I'm really where I have, I have 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 of it right now.

And it is involving AI.

But here's my point.

I say to my wife every mother freaking day, honey, I know you're getting tired of hearing this, but AI is coming.

Few days go by.

No, honey, AI is coming in like a tsunami.

Few days go by.

I'm like, honey, we're going to be drowning in AI very soon.

And she's like, she's always like this, and this is, I love her more than my next breath, but she's like, AI shmai.

You know, I'm like, okay, okay, okay.

Honey, every time you download an app on your phone, check and see what they're getting from you.

Oh, I, I, it's probably, they have it anyway.

I need that app.

I'm like, but you're giving this stuff anyway, my point being, and it can.

Be analyzed now at the speed of light, which was not possible before, when.

AI shifts into agentic AI and folks, for, for those at home who are going, dang, what are you talking about?

It is basically the next level, like about 20 stories up, but the way it's processing.

Oh, Jesus, it's, it's mind numbing, isn't it, Kyle.

It really is.

And then there's such a good platform to.

I mean, it's terrible because AI, the possibilities of it to help humanity are endless.

But if we know anything about humanity, 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 you and can and can use that, sift through all that data and target things right at you, you know, I 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, just recently, you know, that video of Obama being arrested got forwarded around, and it was forwarded around by the president.

And you kind of like, oh, man.

I mean, the floodgates could be open now for just deep fakes being, you know, forward around by the.

By governments and.

And how do you know what's real anymore?

And then the AI can make them specifically to you.

So, yeah, I don't know where it's going, but that's.

That was kind of the point of writing this book and starting this series is it gives me an excuse to, you know, explore it.

You and I could literally take an entire hour on just the topic of AI and I. I'm not going to do it because we do have your book to talk about, Mr. New York Times bestselling author.

And I got a few questions, you know, to make you show that I'm a smart guy.

But I got to tell you something.

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 human beings, we're gonna go.

We're gonna go straight to the bad, for crying out loud.

It's just gonna happen.

Oh, wait, if I can use this for 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's books and.

And upload them and analyze them and copy a book like that because he's such a huge number one hit 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.

How much that is happening in the 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 it in that realm.

I mean, I played with it once.

I don't know, it was like a year ago or something, and I think I had put in one of my rough draft of a chapter and said, rewrite this chapter into a final in the style of Kyle Mills, and definitely cleaned it up, but it wasn't something I'd have ever written.

Yeah.

And I'm kind of at the point in my career where I do it for the joy of it.

I like, really like writing books.

So the idea of having AI do it and then what would I do all day?

You know, so for me, it doesn't work.

If I had to, you know, if I was in one of those poor guys, that I'd do five books a year or something, you know, then it might be a really good aid, but I like sitting there and, you know, crafting sentences and, you know, things like that.

So it's, it's kind of my.

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 up in a couple of things because I want to go back in your background a little bit, and I'm watching the clock.

I'm going to try to get you out in about, you know, half hour.

Ish.

Ish.

And then I want to get into.

Fade in, of course, but I want to go back a little bit.

Growing up as a. I guess you could.

I guess you could be called a bureau kid.

Right.

You.

Your pop was in the FBI, so you grew up in that whole world, did.

Moving around the country, which I have to assume you did, and, and probably served you very well as we just started the conversation about.

And, you know, absorbing all that inside knowledge.

Now, I'm not saying that your dad said, let me tell you what I did today, but did that.

And I hope this doesn't feel like Captain Obvious, but did that insider knowledge kind of shape your writing and your worldview?

Yeah, certainly my writing.

I mean, just from the very beginning.

So I started, as much as I hate dating myself before the Internet, and I wanted to write a book, but I read really widely.

I love thrillers, but I read all kinds of stuff.

And I had to actually sit down and decide what genre I was going to write in.

And now to be clear, I never in a million years thought this book was going to get published.

It's just a project.

And so I wasn't setting out to have a career but get published or anything like that.

And I thought, oh well, I know all these people in this, in the intelligence community and FBI and 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 of sheer laziness, I'll write a thriller and, and you know, if I need to know what the, I don't know, the director of the CIA's office looked like, I can call him.

I've known him since I was a little kid.

Wow.

So that was kind of what set me off on the thriller path.

And yeah, like I said, I mean here I am, 25 or something books later having no, not started out with that plan whatsoever.

And yeah, you get to absorb all that stuff.

You know, I was around spec ops, CIA, FBI, MI6, you know, those were the friends of the family.

So yeah, it was great, dude.

I, I'm.

I'm sure I knew some of this.

I'm sure.

I don't think I knew it to that degree, but I'm just trying to see, I'm trying to picture young Kyle.

Gee, dad can have some more mashed 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 from work and.

Yeah.

That he was the Hoover era with the, the suit and the big old wing tips.

Oh yeah.

And he'd immediately go in and take his gun off and put it in the drawer.

And then dinner would be ready.

You know, it was back in the 70s, right mom?

And dinner on the table.

And he would sit down and yaffle it all down still like in his suit pants and, and shirt.

Super.

Remember those shirts, man?

Starched.

And they'd.

My mom, when, when she'd iron them, they'd be lined up against the wall.

They'd stand.

Oh yeah.

Against the wall.

Because man, if you were in the FBI, you had to be perfect back then.

God, I remember those days.

Niagara, I think it was called Niagara it.

Because that was back.

I would spray.

I would, you know, dampen your shirt then spray the out of it and then put it on that heart because 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 to picture that.

And that in, in and of itself is fascinating.

But now I want to go forward a little bit.

So now you've spent all this time in the Vince Flynn world, which you, you nailed perfectly.

I don't want to spend too much time blowing smoke up your skirt, but have.

What's it like having stepped away from that and, and, and being able to just kind of go, you know what?

I'm back to just doing what Daddy Kyle wants to do.

It's been really fun.

I mean, I, I really liked writing the Mitch rap stuff, so it was a really hard decision to stop.

I mean, I like, I, I felt like I was at a good stopping point.

I, for a number of reasons.

And I had this character who's got the same deadly skills as Mitch Rapp, but is a very different personality.

He's a little gonzo, little manic depressive.

He has a weird sense of humor.

He's kind of a little bit of a pop philosopher.

And I thought he was the right guy to tell the story because Mitch, you know, I really obviously I considered just.

I kind of had finished an arc with the Mitch rap stuff.

You know, I, I won't get it bore anybody with it, but I had this very arc where I would start him here when I took over and I Would you leave him here?

And then it was time for another arc.

And the question was, do I explore all these things that I'm exploring now in the kind of the modern world through the eyes of Mitch?

And I didn't think it was quite right for him because he's the master of his own universe.

Too powerful.

I wanted a guy who could feel like we do every day, who's like dragged along and doesn't understand it and it's changing too fast and he's not sure he should be involved and all these doubts and things so fade.

Which is a character I introduced 20 years ago and left alone for 20 years.

Seemed like the perfect guy to observe this world and interact with this world and it would be in a really fun and interesting way.

So you gotta, you've gotta have 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 a conversation that I had recently with Megan Abbott, which she's just so friggin delightful.

Oh my God, I could talk to her all day long.

But we were talking about how funny it is we as writers.

I think I used the phrase, Megan, do you ever feel like you're you're laying on your own couch, sitting in the.

Laying on your own couch while your other part of yourself is sitting in the chair going, tell me about that.

Where do you think you can't.

That came from?

Right.

So when I hear you.

Yeah, when I hear you talk about Fade, I'm like to myself, what's Kyle?

What's he working out in his mind as far as fate is concerned?

Because this guy's a little bit of a loose cannon and.

Which is what I love about him.

Yeah.

It's weird because he's.

If.

If you write kind of like I do, when I write a character from a character's point of view, I kind of inhabit that character.

I don't plan what they say.

I sort of become that character and, you know, fades.

A weird guy to spend your day in his head, you know, so Mitch Rapp, at least, you know, he was a straight shooter, like, you know, really kind of hard charging.

You knew he knew what he believed in.

He knew.

And the faze is all over the place.

That guy, you know, he's just chasing every squirrel.

So, um, it's.

That's really fun thing to do because he's particularly.

I've always been fascinated with writing characters really different than me.

Yeah.

So, I mean, like, whatever it is, women, terrorists, in this case, fade.

You know, it's.

It's fun to get into other people's heads and see their perspectives.

What does your.

I can't.

I have to ask this.

And if you don't want to, if it's too private, you can tell me.

But what does your wife.

When you talk about.

Oh, I get to like to get in that 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 and they'll live in that character while they're shooting the movie.

So I wonder how much of that integration of fade into yourself do you have?

And do you.

Does it stick with you?

And on top of that, does your wife go, you're Kyle, babe.

You're not fade.

So pump the brakes.

Fade isn't too bad.

I wrote a serial killer book once, though, years ago, where I was writing a lot from the point of view of the serial killer.

And my wife at the end of it said, 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 for folks who have yet to read Fade in fades takes aim at how we manipulate the perception.

And we talk, we start off the show about this, but did today's media ecosystem influence this plot line?

And to what degree what.

What was about, what is it that was going on that you went, now I'm gonna weave this into a story.

It really was just like what was right around the corner.

And you could see it with A.I.

i mean, I said it wasn't really a thing, but you could tell it was coming when I started that book.

And just the, the incredible power of the billionaire and elite class and how they're becoming more and more powerful.

And, you know, you think about Elon Musk.

I think I, I talk about this a little bit in the book and I use real world examples of, you know, you can't shoot anything into space without him.

You can't talk from over satellite without his satellite constitution, his power over the government.

And, and you saw it.

It's funny that he ended up in this feud with Donald Trump, which I did not foresee at the beginning of this book.

Even Elon Musk getting involved with the government, but 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 rockets anymore or I'll shut off my satellites or whatever you think.

No, I mean, not since like the JP Morgan days has have individuals unelected into wealthy individuals have this kind of power.

I mean, Zuckerberg or Google that can manipulate everything we 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 its own threat.

That's kind of the weird thing.

Now it's not famine we can probably handle.

We didn't handle it very well, but we can handle, you know, Covid, we can feed ourselves, we can stay safe.

And the problem is we don't.

I think it's almost like we get 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 get completely bloodied and trash our country, Trash their country.

Why?

I don't know.

We were bored.

You really can't, you can't even come up with a decent reason well yeah, you know, those are the kinds of things now that have we, have we moved into our self destructive phase and on, on an existential sense which I think is an interesting thing that people don't talk about with AI as that gets better and better.

Humans have been real.

I've always prided ourselves on being special.

Right.

We're, we're smarter than any other thing.

We can do these amazing things and I think it's going to come out pretty soon that we're not that amazing, that AI can probably do it better.

Where does that leave us?

What's our purpose?

And it could be breaking into tribes and fighting amongst each other to find an identity which is important to humans to have an identity that could be something that, you know, really causes us problems that nobody's talking about.

This is so, so.

You're so on point.

This is so.

It's such, it's such.

I don't want to say scary time but it is an alarming time.

And I could, God, I could go off on like five different tangents.

I'll try to stay focused it real just being.

And, and I say this to my wife, we are getting closer and closer and closer.

I mean, I don't mean like oh, it's going to be like in another five or 10 years.

No, every day AI is improving and the deep fake ability, both voice face turning photographs into video is mind boggling.

But to your point, and I thought about this the other day, when you see the robots, I'm like, I was talking to Tammy, I'm like, you know, think about this.

Let's use Amazon as a case.

Why wouldn't you want it full of robots that don't complain, don't break down, don't take potty breaks, work 24 7.

All you gotta do is make sure the batteries are charged and they're with precision and so forth.

I mean we're, it's not gonna take us long to get there, right?

No.

And it really is worrying because even if you create this utopian scenario which a lot of people have that they say, well let's say all those robots have their own economy, it's great.

And they pay us to sit around like.

Right.

And you could see that happening, right?

Amazon still makes a bunch of money, the robots pay us.

And then they say, well then you're going to.

People will be able to read the classics and do all these creative things and all this.

No, they're not.

They're going to find a way to fight among.

We're going to Find a way to fight amongst ourselves.

Right.

We're going to break into religious groups and racial groups and political groups and everything in a desperate attempt to find some purpose now that we don't go to the factory all day and build our widgets for the world.

Right.

We all feel that.

Yeah.

I mean, I feel that.

I think about retirement and I, 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 have the whole world rounding around their slippers, particularly young men who have access to a lot of weapons.

Like that's, that's just not a good 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 found fascinating about Fade in, how it tackles themes of a couple different things.

Power brokers operate in the shadows.

Question of whether fate is saving humanity or helping to enslave it.

Kind of like we're dabbling in the AI conversation.

How much do you think of that?

Current global politics influenced shadowy organizations that recruits fate.

Because that's one thing I dug about this.

So fades like, I'm going to go do this thing.

No, we want you to come back in now.

I'm going to do now, come on back in.

Because if you do, we got a little favor to ask, but you're going to do this thing.

So, like, how does that all come together?

Yeah.

So, you know, John Lowe is the character here who's this billionaire.

He's extraordinarily powerful and he's essentially trying to create a situation, a system in which he gathers all these very powerful billionaires and some politicians together and says, what 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 think about on a larger scale what the good of society, what the dangers are here?

Because politicians have become power hungry and useless to a large extent.

They, they don't want to solve problems or better off creating them and, you know, using them to hype up their base.

So that is the idea.

And he's not a boy scout, you know, he understands that there's a dark side of humanity and that's why he needs a few people like fate who have certain skill set that, you know, problem solving methods that wouldn't normally be available to billionaires.

But he understands that that's Necessary component two.

He jokes around rule the world but in a way he kind of wants to do that just.

And an example of this that they talk about in the book, not to be a spoiler but to just kind of give you an example.

What I'm talking about on one scale is simply there's a guy that has cracked driverless cars like he's got a system, it's going to work perfectly and in a few years they, they're going to, they'll take over everything.

Nobody will be driving anymore.

Right.

The problem with that is the number 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's going to put over the course of the next three years absolutely enormous amounts of young men, as we were just talking about out of work out.

That is a really bad idea.

What's the benefit to this?

And so they say we're going to put the brakes on that and just make it a safety feature.

But you'll still have the illusion that you're driving.

If you're going to drive into a wall, it'll stop you or over a little League team, but otherwise it's not going to work that way.

So that's one of the things they do that they see these technologies potentially becoming really destructive to society in.

Even though maybe they're the best intentions.

So it's.

But they can act on a global level in a way that really before only the United States could.

And particularly as the United States 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 a power vacuum that absolutely needs to be filled otherwise you're going to end up with chaos.

Let's take a short break and we'll be back with more Kyle Mills in just a moment.

That's the other thing about this book.

It is so today.

I mean it's like you have to read this book today and by the end of next week you'll go, oh, that book was great.

But that is so yesterday because 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 my next book.

Yeah, well, and that's the perfect tee up for me.

Do you, looking ahead, do you see fade, especially in this particular case, do you see this as a one off or maybe a beginning of a new series?

No, definitely the beginning of a new series.

I've actually Finished the first draft of the next Fade book.

So this is just somebody, like I said, that's just a great set of eyes to see how the world is so quickly evolving and where it 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 a bunch of nukes at us.

That was pretty much your only choice right now.

It can come at you from any direction and in directions that now, like you were saying next year things could be happening next year that we couldn't even imagine were going to happen.

Sitting right here today.

Dude, this is a little bit of a tangent, but I was watching a conference on AI yesterday and this guy comes out with this, this drone.

Let me see if I can find.

The drone was literally the size of this little book in my hand.

It was that small.

And he's getting ready to talk to the audience and he goes, hey, watch this.

And there's a dummy at the end of 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 drone throws out in the audience and he goes, comes up target accuracy, puts a bullet through the guy's head and flies away.

Yep.

And that's going to completely change warfare and the way that, that countries, you know, fight with each other.

I mean, you just.

These swarm, like these swarm technologies and AI and stuff, it's just completely going to change everything.

So to that point, it was no bigger than this and it put a bullet.

He goes, that's just, that's nothing.

He goes, you can put a payload of, 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 in Ukraine etc, right?

But that technology, when it's that, that drone technology.

And then on top of that, and then with this, I'll stop.

Then I saw something out of China where they had hundreds, thousands of these perfectly lined up and they all flew up like a massive cloud, but in perfect uniform fashion and went off and did their thing and then came back in perfect fashion and landed.

I was like, that's when I went, oh, this shit's about to get real.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I wrote a book years ago called the Patriot Attack and it was about a military conflict between Japan and China.

And the Japanese were built, had built this massive military capability, but their motto was like, small, autonomous and cheap.

And so.

And that's what they did.

And it was just lots of crappy things that swarmed and, and stuff like that.

And now we're moving in that direction.

And, you know, there's huge dangers to that too.

And I think about China and Taiwan now that very much because of exactly that technology you're talking about and similar ones, China's window to invade Taiwan is closing.

Oh, yeah.

With these technologies, in a few years, it will simply not be doable.

You'd lose millions of people and 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 and say, if we don't do this now, five years.

They also have an aging population.

All this stuff, five years is just not going to be a deal.

They're going to have thousands of drones all over this island, underwater and everything.

So, you know, I mean, you're.

You're creating this thing where the world is changing so quickly.

Some people must be thinking about, if we don't set the world order now, it's.

We're not going to be able to in a few years.

It's just gonna, you know, it's gonna set itself.

Remember the old days when you thought, oh, that country over there is gonna send this great big massive missile.

You'll see it coming hundreds of miles away.

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 of this shit coming.

And there's no.

It's weird because it's just this is going back again to what I'm talking about, that people going a little bit crazy maybe because their needs are met and they have nothing else to worry about.

But the, I mean, this idea of war in the modern era is unprofitable.

You know, I mean, think about the 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 you could ever take anything that was 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 could even come close to compensating them.

Same with Taiwan.

But then you think, that doesn't mean they're not going to do it, though.

But all the Loss of lives.

That's what just.

It's crazy as I use this phrase with my wife all the time.

I'm always.

We've lost our collective shit, man.

We just really have.

Why are we here?

Right?

I mean, these are.

The big people are starting to ask these existential questions.

I think I remember when was it Deep Blue beat Kasparov and Chess and people really freaked out because that computer was smarter than the smartest human.

Yeah.

And where did that leave us in the hierarchy?

We always thought we were here.

Maybe we're down here.

Yeah.

And then we've all seen this.

This barrage of videos that.

Where the robots that are hanging 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 think there's going to be a little bit of fallout where all the a.

The robots become agentic and then talk to each other and go, you know, we don't really need these 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 an instance of AI trying to delete an AI and it protecting itself.

Yeah.

That'S probably not going anywhere good.

Folks, I don't want you to walk away from this show going, geez, I don't know that I need to listen to this Thriller Zone anymore, because it's just this existential dread is making me want to just go drink.

Nobody needs to start tying any nooses yet.

I think it's going to be fine.

Drink.

Yes.

Thai nooses.

No.

Yeah.

Take the edge off.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

What is your.

As we get ready to close, what is your favorite take the edge off beverage these days?

I'm a tequila guy.

Much like fade and a nice margarita in the summer.

You know, you can't go wrong with that.

You know, there's a nice thing I have learned about tequila.

I've never.

Tequila was always the Achilles heel for me.

It always got me in trouble.

Back in the day when I was coming up in radio, we'd always go out for beers.

Beer, let's have some beers.

But the day I discovered shooting shots of tequila was the day that my life changed.

And it did not go in a pretty way because I.

There was something about.

There was this mechanism in my brain that said, oh, folks, all bets are off now.

I mean, it literally was all bets are off.

So I just stopped and I walked away and I thought, well, I can't no good can come from that.

Decades went by and I started talking to guys like yourself who go, have you had any good tequila lately?

I'm like, well, it's always, you know, I won't mention a name because somebody will have a real fit with me.

And it was cheap.

And they go, well, there's some really good tequila out there that you can drink like a single malt scotch and really find it to be quite enjoyable and it won't kill you.

So I have tried to come back into your fold and how's it going?

Does it drive you crazy?

No, it does not drive me crazy because I'm.

Well, first of all, I'm 30 plus years older now than I was then, so I'm drinking it, drinking differently than I used to.

And it's more for the enjoyment.

And the.

You and I would sit around and have one and we'd just talk and it would loosen us up and we'd have great more conversations and so forth.

We're not sitting there slamming them like you see in, you know, movies and so forth and getting completely black.

Blackout drunk.

Yeah, a shot of anything is probably a bad idea.

What's the old, what's that old saying we used to say?

Fast in, fast out.

So, yeah, yeah, it's fun when you're 20.

Yeah, when you're 20.

When you're 15, 20, 25.

But you know, when you get up around 36, 37, like Kyle and me, you don't want to be doing that anymore.

You know, we got our 40s and 50s to look forward to.

We want to walk into it gracefully.

Not stumble into it accidentally and get.

Hurt on the way home.

As we wrap, I always, I gotta close everyone, you know, they tune in for, of course, greatness, like Kyle Mills and to hear what he's writing about.

But you always, we always like to 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 this cycle of evolution that you've incurred through in your proliferous and pontificatedness career?

I'll give you a new and forget thriller romantasy.

That's the place to be.

Oh my God.

I could not actually agree with you more when I said go ahead and finish because I, I interrupted you instantly.

It's just like people love it and the authors are a lot of fun.

Like, like if you go to a writers conference.

Yes, and you got to pick a table.

Romantasy.

It's so funny because it used to be when you'd hear the word romance you'd go, oh, Harlequin, I'm not gonna do that.

It's all sappy, right?

But then, yeah, Romantasy comes along which is basically romance and fantasy.

And then it's just.

Then it just kind of.

Oh, I thought it was already blown up.

Now it's blown the hail up.

Oh man, that's crazy.

And, and I thought if we can keep on this tangent for one second because I did ask you and it is my show when we talk about popular books.

Thrillers have always been popular.

Mystery science, suspense, thriller, sure, romance has always been popular, but romance.

I did some numbers recently, I won't remember them right now because I'm on the spot, but it's like 4 or 6 or 13 to 1 over thriller.

It's crazy.

I think some of these people out there, they're like, oh man, if it only sold like Tom Clancy 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. Mills and craft a really tasty little Romantasy book?

I think I could.

I think I could.

I like building worlds.

Yeah.

And, and I'd have to study the genre, but I think it'd be really a fun challenge.

But yeah, I don't think 60 year old white dude, this not, not probably your best bet for a romantasy author.

Maybe.

However, what if you were to have a pen name and maybe like for 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, you could interview me.

I think is.

Can I use AI to just change what 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 bit further and, and peel it away for you.

But folks, once again I hope you enjoyed the show.

The book is fade in.

It's gonna be a long time before 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 the door about.

I don't know why.

Maybe it's cause I got a shortening attention span.

Kyle.

Or I read 321.

That's just about the magic number that is long as the book ever has to be.

If you want to go 321, you want to go 291, 281, I'm still going to be loving on you.

That's interesting because it's funny that when I started books were much longer.

Oh yeah.

And it really has been a.

There have been many Trends over the 30 years I've been in this business.

But one of them is that.

I mean my contracts used to call for much longer books than that.

Yeah.

Remember the days when they go Kyla, I need about a140,160 from you.

Can you do that?

That'd be really great.

Right now it's like Mr. Mills can you get this down around 95 to 99.

That would really be great.

And it's, you know in my first drafts are actually really long and then I slash like 25000 words out 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 why I'm really long winded in my first draft.

And then I realize I could have said the same thing that I use 10 words and three words and so I shorten them in the second draft though most people don't like to do that because it is kind of a bummer.

You think?

How long did it take me to write those 25,000 words that I just hit the delete button on?

It's longer than you want to think about.

You know what?

I get that.

I understand that we need to let go of that bullshit.

Here's why.

A, attention spans getting shorter.

B life's getting shorter.

We're getting closer to the end of the beginning.

Okay, how you doing?

It's just pure math.

And C, I got too many things to do.

Sure do.

I want to read a commils book.

Yeah, absolutely.

I get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

But I'd also like to read a Meg 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 some Romantasy perhaps want to tickle my tickle myself with some romantic.

You and everybody else.

Anyway, dude, this was so good.

Thank you so much for taking the time.

You're always such a friggin delight 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 to you in Wyoming than it would be to get you to you in Spain.

So if I ever make my way, is it Jackson Hole?

Jackson Hole ish adjacent.

Yeah, Jackson Hole.

I'm right in the middle of town.

Yeah, okay.

Never been there.

I hear nothing but fantasticness about it.

It's pretty.

And you know, we have a beautiful park, Grand Teton national parks right outside the town.

So yeah, I'm, I've been here over 30 years.

Hard to believe.

Wow.

Well, if I'm out that way, we're going to sit down with some nice tequila, make us a fire and sit down and talk about books and romantic and stuff.

Not that hard to get to Spain either.

They get on a plane, they'll fly right there.

Yeah, imagine that.

Kyle, thanks again, man.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was a good conversation and a great book.

Fade in.

By the way.

Go to Kyle Mills.com if you want to learn more.

Folks, we're only doing two shows in August because it's summertime and I'm working on my own book which I'm going to share with you very, very soon.

I've been working on this for months now and I think you're gonna like it.

You don't hear me talk about my books very often.

As you know, I self published, what, nine books.

And I said, hey, when I get to that 10th month, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go try to find an agent.

All this stuff that it still remains to be seen because there are other methods to do this.

Skin this cat.

But either way, I'm going to tell 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.

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 two weeks from now.

And I want to make sure you, you catch it.

I probably shouldn't say in two weeks because I might slide them in sooner and I might slide in some other things.

I'm always trying to surprise you and surprise myself.

Either way, tune in for Lee and Todd Goldberg.

Their books are on the way and they're dandies.

So any kind of.

Listen, you want to drop us a note, feel free to drop it@the thrillerzonemail.com that's our email.

The thrillerzonemail.com.

you can always find us at our website, the thrillerzone.com makes so much sense, doesn't it?

If you want to get on the show, let us know.

A lot of inquiries coming in.

Some we can take, some we can't.

It's just, you know, luck of the draw.

You know how it works.

But feel free to reach out.

And if there's something you're loving about the show, let me know.

If there's something you're hating 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 another episode of the Thriller Zone.

Happy Summer, your number one podcast for stories that thrill the Thriller Zone.