Kyle Mills IS BACK to discuss his upcoming release Fade In.
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All right. Today we welcome a friend of the
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podcast, Dear Friend of the Podcast for I believe his fifth
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appearance on No Limits the Thriller podcast.
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Welcome back Kyle Mills. Thank you.
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Thank you. It's good.
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A fifth. Wow, that's amazing. 5 or 6?
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Is that like, is that the record?
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Has anybody been on more than me?
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I think you've got the title. You're the heavyweight champion
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I think right now, so congratulations.
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I know that's a bigger accomplishment than your pub day
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and your hardcovers unboxing. We saw you unboxing the
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hardcovers, a fade in. How did that feel?
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Good. Good.
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I mean, yeah, it feels done. It feels real at that point.
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And I don't know why you never get over that sensation, but
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yeah, it's that's always a good day.
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And honestly, you know, you never see the cover before that.
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You see digital mock ups of it. But then you ask him, well, is
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it going to be, you know, it's going to be shiny here and matte
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there and everything. You don't know until you see it
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so turned out beautiful. It's a beautiful cover.
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Yeah, we just have the advanced reader copy, which is very
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matte, very, very, very dull in its appearance.
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I can imagine a hardcover just with a little bit of that gloss
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just really popping with those Reds and that orange.
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We're big on covers here on the podcast so.
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I know. Yeah, you rate.
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Them, right, yeah. And my favorite part about fade
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in is the crosshairs. I just think that's a phenomenal
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touch there on the cover. Yeah, that looks really good and
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it's interesting. I'd sent that to my.
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I don't know why I was even sending it to him, but I think
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he asked my gun consultant who's a friend of mine and he he's
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actually also a designer and he changed the crosshairs on that.
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So the ones you see he actually the like I think for accuracy in
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the way that they were with that they were done should be
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accurate now. Yeah, and is that Rod 'cause I
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know with the Mish Rap series you were?
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Leaning on, wasn't he? Yeah.
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Yeah, good friend of the pod. Yeah, he's one of our patrons.
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He came on the pod to talk guns and how, you know, the authors
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incorporate weapons into their books and some do it better than
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others. And when you can lean on someone
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like that, it just shines through.
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Like in this book, not only traditional weapons, but you've
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got high tech next generation weapons, which we're going to
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have to talk about. That's always a part of a Kyle
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Mills book is you're always pushing the envelope about what
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the world's going to look like in 1020, fifty years from now,
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and whether it's your plots trying to guess at that, whether
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it's the technology that's to come.
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It feels like you and Brad Thore are competing for who gets the
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most amount of headlines in their books, and you're a year
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or two ahead of the curve. You did that.
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Here with this one, it's fun to do.
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You know, I've, I've gotten used to that over the years.
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Like, you know, I, I, I write books because there are subjects
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that interest me. I mean, it's great.
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I, you know, it's an excuse to do a deep dive into something
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that's really interesting to you.
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And so all that technology that's right around the corner
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or maybe is being developed now or even implemented now, but you
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don't know, I love that stuff. It's sort of like when I first
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met Tom Clancy, he'd go through, you know, Boeing's, you know,
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financial statements, they would talk about projects and he'd
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figure out what they were doing from all these different places
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and put it all together. I just love stuff like that.
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It is like a puzzle and Someone Like You who's so in tune and
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well read and keep up with current events.
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You could put the puzzle together.
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It seems faster than us mere mortals.
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Hopefully that's all I think about all day, yeah.
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And then you get to put in plots, you get to exercise that
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creative muscle. So and Speaking of that creative
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muscle, this is a story that's been lingering fade one we
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covered on the podcast a few years ago, but you wrote it.
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How many years ago was that published?
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Now it was just it. We had just had its 20th
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anniversary. And and how much the world has
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changed just 20 years. What was it like to sit with
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this character? And as everyone who listens to
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Thriller Pod knows, you were the torch bearer of the Vince Flynn
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series writing Mitch rap for so long.
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How did it feel to in some ways or actually it literally and
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figuratively resurrect, fade and come back to it after 2 decades?
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It was really fun and and it was interesting in that after
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writing Mitch for a decade, I guess it was a decade.
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I mean that I know Mitch Rapp better than any character I ever
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created because, you know, you've got a guy who you've met,
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you've known him since he was in college, right?
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I mean, huge history behind him. I mean it, there's no, I never
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had to guess what Mitch Rapp would do or think about
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something because man, that guy is laid out, right?
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Vince did a great job of it. Then I took it over, took him in
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a little bit of a different direction, but always based on
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his history. So with Fade, it was really
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interesting because I, I wasn't sure like after being in Mitch
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Rapp's head for a decade, could I pick him back up again?
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And I thought in a few months I'll be able to figure him out
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again. And I just took a few days and I
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was right back like in Fade's head.
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And he's he's got the same sort of deadly skills set as Mitch
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Rapp, but from a personality standpoint, he's like the polar.
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Opposite, yeah. And I feel like, you know, the
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guardrails came off a little with this one.
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Since it was your own universe, your own character, your
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brainchild, did you feel maybe a weight lifted off your
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shoulders, or at least in terms of creativity?
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Did you feel that creative license to play around in this
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universe 'cause this is a very creative book, whether it's
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traveling weapons, just bizarre action scenes.
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Like it's fitting for Fade to be in some of these situations
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because they're so unfamiliar to, you know, a normal person.
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But he's such a different kind of quirky operator and
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personality. It makes sense for him.
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I I just feel like you could go in so many different directions
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where in the Mitrap universe, you know, you already had to
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find guardrails that you had to kind of stay between.
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Did you feel you you would let? Loose on this one.
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I mean, guardrails are the perfect.
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It's the perfect word for it. So, you know, you, the, the good
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news is, you know Mitch like nobody else.
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You know his history, you know everything about him.
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But you, you can't, I mean, you can't go too crazy with him,
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right? He's not going to, you know, as
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I've said before, he's not going to become a hairdresser.
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He's not, you know, like there's a certain way that Mitch Rapp is
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going to behave and you can grow him like I did over the 10
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years. But, you know, that has to go
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year by year plotting, just like people change.
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Yeah. Fade is a completely, he's a
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little bit of an off the wall character.
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You know, he's facing kind of an off the wall world, which is one
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of the reasons I really wanted to resurrect him is because he's
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a little bit of a pop philosopher.
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He's a little, he's obviously a little bit clinically depressed,
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maybe has some substance abuse problems, but he's always
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thinking about like he has really interesting observations
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about the world, about himself, about other people and is not
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always think one of the things about Mitch Rapp is he's he is
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the master of his universe. You know, like he is in control
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and fate can get swept up in things like like everybody else,
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you're overwhelmed by things or he doesn't understand, you know,
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the craziness of the world or technology or whatever.
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So he feels a lot like, I think you can, you can have a little
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bit of empathy for them because we feel that same thing.
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And then on top of that, the analogy I really wanted to play
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with a lot of the military people that I've met that came
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back from war, who'd been there for a very long time.
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And they come to the United States and it's like, what now?
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Like their lives are completely changed.
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How are they going to fit into it?
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How are they going to go back into normal society and all
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these things? And so he comes out of a coma
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after having been shot by a police sniper.
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And he's feeling very much all those things of like, is this
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still my world? Do I want to be in it?
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What am I going to do in it? What's my role here?
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And like, just like a lot of us feel every day, Mitch always
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knew what his. Role was right.
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Exactly. Give me somebody to kill like
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you wrote in Total Power. Just call me in when you got
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somebody to kill. Fade has a little more of that.
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I would say indifference is almost the perfect word.
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And, and probably the same thing A lot of, you know, global war
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on terrorism veterans feel about like, well, it seems like the
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terrorists are winning. It's like, what was those 2025
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years for? And all the sacrifices you come
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out with this dark humor, this indifference.
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You, you, you almost kind of want to give up at times.
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Fade is contemplating death it many, many times.
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He evades it many, many times. And you had to get creative with
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that. As you mentioned, the end of
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Fade one if, if I may, he gets shot by a police sniper.
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And we don't want to give too much here because you need to
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buy the book, but we are going to do a spoiler section.
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Kyle, you know our deal. I hope you're OK.
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We'll save the last. 20 minutes or so we'll do a it will embargo
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it. That episode won't come out
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until post publication day. Plenty of spoiler warnings
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telling the people pre-order, get your book.
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But we're going to have to talk about that because you, you,
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like I said, resurrected fade, you brought him back from the
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dead. Yet the whole time he's still
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thinking, do I even want to be here on this earth?
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And he has to run up against a certain elite.
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And I just feel like this idea of the elites is a very Kyle
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Mills thing. You put a little bit of it into
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the Mitch rap universe with Nicholas Ward.
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And the hooks. And this elite ruling class, I
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feel like this book lets you just go wild and play with your
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imagination of what happens when those elites are the worst of
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the worst. What happens when there are some
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really good guys there, but they can't exert their will and save
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humanity even though they desperately want to?
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And even a lot of those ones with the right mode of doing the
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wrong, wrong thing for the right reasons.
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Let me guess, you have very strong opinions on this idea of
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global elites running the show? It's such an interesting thing.
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So part of the background of this is I live in, I split my
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time, but in when I'm in the USI live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
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which is when I moved here as a rock, young rock climber was
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just a as a little ski town. You know, there are cows
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wandering around and it has become the wealthiest county in
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the United States. This is the the rich and
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shameless man as they they are here.
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I've gotten to know some of them and, and truth be told, some of
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them are really great people, but man, they're a different
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level. A lot of them.
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I went to a party once and it was very, I mean, it's very
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influential in my thinking that this guy throws every year,
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drops like 250 grand on it. And I got to talking to a bunch
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of young people who were kids of these people and I thought, Oh
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my God, they're all taller. I'm almost 6 feet tall.
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They're all taller than me, including the girls.
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They're brilliant. They're all at, like, Ivy
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League. You know, I'm like, what did you
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do this summer? Well, I built an electrical dam
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in, like, Malawi. And I'm like, I was getting
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drunk, you know, in the back of a pickup truck when I was your
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age. And I got to me to really
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thinking about how much power these kids were going to have
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when they got older and how much power their parents have, but
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that it's this perpetuating like dynasty of families that they
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have these brilliant, beautiful, they're all incredibly good
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looking. You know, like you're just like,
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wow, this is the master race. And I feel like an idiot just
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even being here and so. That.
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Really got me to thinking about the rise of the elites.
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And then and then you have all the technology that now are at
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their fingertips, which is just terrifying if it got in the
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hands of the wrong people. I guess that begs the question,
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who are the wrong people? Because explain to us who John
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Lowe is? Because I feel like if anybody
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is going to take the bull by the horns and try to control this
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future of humanity in the future threat, the the collision course
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we're on, basically killing ourselves and our own planet.
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He would be kind of the elite I would want to gamble with our
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future on because he at least seems to have that grounded
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base. But even questions himself
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saying, you know, is this even a futile endeavor?
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What am I even doing here? But he's doing it anyway.
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And that's, you know, how he gets the team together.
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So we'll talk about that more in the spoilers.
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But can you just unpack John Lowe and how how you crafted
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this character who who seemingly wants to be that guy to do the
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right thing? Yeah, he does.
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So John Lowe's a billionaire who is really heavy in tech.
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I'm kind of a composite of many people and he understands that
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technology is the, is the future and it's the future of power.
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And we're in an unprecedented time.
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I think I, I'm really cautious about saying that because
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horrible things have always happened.
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And, and you know, the, we had the Luddites, they're like, oh,
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if you build a little machine, it's going to put us out of
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where they're burning things. But I mean, if you think about,
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I don't know, like King Louis or something, the incredibly
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powerful ruler, but if you're the average dude, right, you're
00:14:07
a subsistence farmer. What what what impact does King
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Louis have on your life or you're?
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Outside of France, he's got his one Kingdom, but that's.
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Yeah, he's got one. And even if you're in the
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countryside, I mean, what can he do?
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Like nail a decree to the church door and you're like, well, I
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can't read and off you go, right.
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But these people control everything we see.
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They're creating algorithms to addict us to it.
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They're using AI to craft. They can personally craft an
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argument to you, right? AI can analyze your profile,
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everything you've ever said, everything you've ever bought,
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everything you've ever read or looked at on YouTube and craft
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an argument to you. The power they have is
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absolutely unprecedented and will continue to be.
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I think it will continue to grow.
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So who's in charge? I think at one point Vaid says
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something to the effect that there will always be an apex
00:15:05
predator in society. You the best you can do is just
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make sure it's not the hyenas. And that is what Lowe is trying
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to do to make. He's extremely powerful and
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technologically savvy, and he knows this is coming, and he
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wants to make sure it's not the hyenas so and to create
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stability. You look at how weirdly unstable
00:15:29
the world is becoming now. And this is, well, interesting
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to play with because the threats aren't what they used to be.
00:15:35
They're not individual terrorists.
00:15:36
They're not the Soviet Union. What is it that is the next
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threat, And you almost can't anticipate it because it's so.
00:15:45
I don't know. The only word I can come up with
00:15:46
is stupid, like the threats are stupid, like Hamas.
00:15:52
That may have been the stupidest move in modern history, right?
00:15:56
That's like me going into a bar and Mike Tyson is there and tell
00:16:00
him, slapping him and saying I want your chair, right?
00:16:03
It knew how that was going. I mean, Russia, largest country
00:16:08
in the world by land mass, decides what we need is more
00:16:11
land. They're going to go after the
00:16:13
Ukrainians who fight like drunk civic cats.
00:16:16
Everybody knows this and so you almost can't anticipate, but
00:16:20
like every morning I I think I'm going to wake up to China has
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attacked Taiwan. I mean and and you're at. 20
00:16:28
million people dead. For nothing.
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They don't need a tiny little out, but.
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Don't the semi. Kind of the.
00:16:33
Semiconductors, though, they want the chip manufacturing.
00:16:36
But they'll be gone. It was just like burned out.
00:16:38
You destroyed. Like it's just not rash.
00:16:41
Like the things that are happening are just not rational
00:16:44
anymore. And so this guy wants to say
00:16:48
we're going to give these people what they want, power and
00:16:51
whatever, and with my technology and bring them to heel a little
00:16:56
bit and see if we can do that. But on the other hand, he also
00:16:59
worries about himself because absolute power corrupts
00:17:03
absolutely. Is he becoming too powerful?
00:17:06
And is that a problem? And it, and he talks about this
00:17:09
with Fade, where Fade says, well, oh, you're going to take
00:17:11
over the world. Well, how's that going for you?
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And he's like a little too well at this point, we're not ready
00:17:16
for how successful we've been. And that's why he's trying to
00:17:19
put together this team, because he knows he needs basically
00:17:22
enforcers because sometimes asking nice doesn't work.
00:17:28
Yep, Yep, Yep. The carrot in the stick.
00:17:30
You know, the carrot sounds great, but you got to carry that
00:17:33
big stick as as as Teddy said, as the man said.
00:17:37
And it's a perfect situation, right?
00:17:38
You're just basically like, he's like, let me give you everything
00:17:42
you ever wanted. Unlimited resources, yeah.
00:17:44
Yeah, or your head's going to explode.
00:17:48
Right. Well, and it's interesting about
00:17:51
some of these movements being very irrational, these attacks,
00:17:55
what you know, you can become so indifferent towards all of it.
00:17:59
But The thing is, even the most irrational, illogical among it,
00:18:03
you can still get the masses on your side.
00:18:05
And that's the power. You know, you think in the Roman
00:18:08
Empire, that was a speech you give on the steps of a theater.
00:18:11
And now the crowds behind you, they're fickle.
00:18:13
You can get them to do anything. We have not learned 2000 years
00:18:16
later about that. The only thing is now you can
00:18:19
amplify the message to 8 billion people, reach essentially
00:18:22
everyone. And you could blame, apparently.
00:18:25
Yeah, that's exactly I think the problem, and it's interesting,
00:18:29
but a huge influence on me has been George Orwell.
00:18:32
And one thing I love about his books or his stories is the
00:18:38
interplay between the ruling class and their subjects.
00:18:44
Because it takes 2 to tango. You know, one guy can't take
00:18:49
over the world. That's just, that's absolutely
00:18:51
impossible. You could just, or you could
00:18:53
rush him and kill him, right? You some, there's to be a large
00:18:57
group of people willing to give up their power to that person in
00:19:01
order to worship him or whatever.
00:19:03
You know, whatever reason they have, they don't want to think
00:19:05
so hard because, you know, shit's complicated or whatever.
00:19:10
And so that's what I'm playing with here is that John Lowe
00:19:14
realizes that there's there's a group of people who desire power
00:19:20
more than anything, and then there's a group of people who
00:19:23
will tend to cede that power and become a downtrodden, but almost
00:19:30
like they did it to themselves to some extent.
00:19:34
You know the guy, The guy's basically like, I'm going to
00:19:36
screw you. And they say, I like that kind
00:19:38
of straight talk, right? Whatever.
00:19:40
Well, there's a huge generational gap as well,
00:19:43
because that's almost the way the old guard would approach it.
00:19:45
And so I think a theme you bring up in the book a lot, and we'll
00:19:48
get to it in spoilers again, but there's so much about the young
00:19:52
people doing maybe the unpredictable thing or going a
00:19:55
certain way that becomes chaos. If there's a theme of this book,
00:19:59
you said the word healing before, I think it's healing and
00:20:01
chaos or healing amidst chaos. And that's true for Fade and his
00:20:06
recovery. That's true for the world.
00:20:08
That's true for a couple of female characters in the book
00:20:10
here, which definitely spoilers. I want to ask you about some
00:20:14
moves you made, because in the Mitrap series maybe the best
00:20:18
thing. The longest lasting legacy you
00:20:20
gave to us was the transformation of Claudia and
00:20:23
Anna and bringing them into Mitch's world.
00:20:25
So you can you can write female characters, you can have an arc
00:20:28
for female characters. And the same way fate is very
00:20:31
different than Mitch rap, we have some females who are way
00:20:34
different than any other characters I've ever read.
00:20:36
So I want to talk to you about that.
00:20:38
I'm glad to hear you feel that way.
00:20:39
I like I like quirky characters and I love writing women because
00:20:46
I think the fun child, one of the fun challenges of being a an
00:20:51
author is to try to write people who are nothing like you because
00:20:58
it's just an incredible challenge.
00:21:00
You're like, what, you know, what are these people thinking?
00:21:04
When a woman's looking at you and you just said something,
00:21:09
what's going on in her mind? What's she thinking?
00:21:12
And that's writing, you know, I mean, that's that's empathy,
00:21:16
that like, can you put yourself in somebody else's shoes?
00:21:19
And sometimes it's weird. Sometimes it's like you've got
00:21:22
to write a serial killer. And so you have to put yourself
00:21:25
in that guy's shoes and think why does he feel justified in
00:21:30
killings? Bunch of women or whatever.
00:21:33
And you you have to get into their heads.
00:21:36
And it's, I think, yeah, it's my favorite thing about writing
00:21:39
because I mean, you, you'll maybe you'll write about.
00:21:42
I remember I wrote an Iranian, an Iranian character in a Mitch
00:21:47
Rapp book. And I was just kind of spewing
00:21:51
from his point of view, which is super interesting to do.
00:21:55
And I remember the my editor said, well, you can't write that
00:22:00
because you're kind of like scoring points.
00:22:02
This guy's scoring points. But I'm like, but that's his
00:22:05
point of view about America and the history.
00:22:08
And I, I absolutely love doing that.
00:22:10
Well, that's the number one skill in debate, right, is that
00:22:13
you have to put yourself in your interlocutor's shoes, and in
00:22:17
your interlocutor's mind, you have to reason the way they
00:22:19
reason. And the strongest thing to do in
00:22:21
a debate is to take their position and attempt to defend
00:22:23
it. Exactly.
00:22:25
And when? You totally don't agree.
00:22:27
Yeah, you, you really for. Well, I mean, I think people
00:22:30
probably write characters in different ways.
00:22:32
Some people calculate them, I'm sure, but I can't.
00:22:36
I have to inhabit them. And then they just sort of speak
00:22:38
through me. So, you know, if I'm writing
00:22:42
whatever, a terrorist or a serial killer, I become, you
00:22:46
know, that killer or that, you know, person who hates America
00:22:50
for the time that I'm writing from that character's point of
00:22:53
view. And to me, that makes them feel
00:22:56
real, you know? And that's like an actor, you
00:22:59
know, I said Heath Ledger before, like with, you know,
00:23:01
Joker and look at what, you know, the effects that it had.
00:23:05
That's the creative risk almost of that could be a slippery
00:23:09
slope, you know, putting yourself in someone's shoes to
00:23:12
the point of thinking how they think.
00:23:14
And then when you're an author or creative, you got to make
00:23:16
villains. So you have to do the same for
00:23:18
villains who are people you probably personally completely
00:23:22
would disagree with. You have to find what makes them
00:23:24
human. You have to find what motivates
00:23:26
them and I think that what that makes a strong villain as
00:23:29
someone you can understand. And in this book we have a clash
00:23:31
of villain and hero, the two elites.
00:23:34
And they have a very interesting conversation towards the end of
00:23:36
the book. So maybe one more thing we'll
00:23:38
put on the the spoiler chat for the next episode once the book
00:23:42
comes out. But you've loved writing
00:23:45
villains. I actually found this quote you
00:23:47
put on your blog for Rising Phoenix.
00:23:49
You were thinking back and reflecting back on your first
00:23:51
book you ever wrote, and you said you can see the beginnings
00:23:55
of what has evolved into my writing style.
00:23:58
Moral ambiguity, moral ambiguity, conventional heroes,
00:24:03
a fascination with villains, and a passion for realism.
00:24:08
I think those are the four things that make a Kyle Mills
00:24:10
book a Kyle Mills book. I I think absolutely they are.
00:24:14
And it was really funny because all that moral ambiguity I had
00:24:18
to put aside, you know, for the Mitch rap stuff, because it's
00:24:21
very different. It's.
00:24:22
Black and white, yeah. It's really good guy, bad guy,
00:24:25
right? To me, they're never good guy,
00:24:28
bad guy thing. You know, even if you think
00:24:30
about the villain in this book and he's kind of spewing his
00:24:34
manifesto every once in a while, you think he's got a little
00:24:38
point there. Yeah.
00:24:41
And I love that in a villain like a a very clever villain who
00:24:46
I almost kind of want you to be able to see from his point of
00:24:49
view where you think, well, I can.
00:24:52
I mean, what he's doing is wrong is terrible and everything like
00:24:55
this and he must be stopped. But it's an he has an
00:24:59
interesting he's coming at it from a from an angle that I can
00:25:05
see why he was motivated to do that.
00:25:08
I don't like really flat kind of what why are you bad?
00:25:12
I mean, people have done it well, You know, it was like
00:25:15
Hannibal Lecter. Why are you bad?
00:25:17
Because I was born that way. Right, right.
00:25:19
But and you could do that, but to me, I want to know what makes
00:25:24
that character do the things they do.
00:25:27
And I'm and villains are just fun.
00:25:31
Right. And I think you also have the
00:25:33
effects of that on the people around them with a number of
00:25:36
other side villains or mini villains who when we actually
00:25:40
capture them or when we are interrogating them or hearing
00:25:43
their side of the story, you realize maybe they didn't know
00:25:45
what they were doing. Maybe they went along because
00:25:47
they're forced to go along with it.
00:25:49
And you even reveal the humanity of the the people who propped up
00:25:52
that villain who who helped the big bad become the big bad.
00:25:55
And they even have their humanity shine through when we
00:25:58
encounter them. Yeah, because I think a lot of
00:26:01
people get sucked into those, I don't know, into the orbit of
00:26:07
these people who are very charismatic but very
00:26:10
destructive. And maybe they don't.
00:26:12
They're blinded to what they the big picture, to what they're
00:26:16
doing. And in this book, it was very
00:26:19
much about the big picture and John Lowe, who's were struggling
00:26:25
with his own humanity. And that's why Fayed becomes
00:26:28
such a pivotal character in this, because while fate is, you
00:26:34
know, you could describe him maybe as an unrepentant mass
00:26:36
murderer and etcetera, etcetera, he has a great deal of humanity.
00:26:44
And that John Lowe almost is attracted to like a moth, you
00:26:49
know, 'cause fate, while he's done terrible things, as a moral
00:26:52
compass, that's very steady. He does, yeah.
00:26:56
And he's not. Sure, he's doing the right
00:26:58
thing, but he tries. But that's what's so interesting
00:27:02
is because we're in this character's head who is so dark,
00:27:06
who is the ultimate pessimist, one could say, yeah, he just
00:27:10
finds this silver lining in people and their situations.
00:27:14
And maybe because he's been there and he's hit the lowest of
00:27:17
lows, and he actually, he's constantly living the lowest of
00:27:20
lows. And I think that gives him this.
00:27:24
It's wild to say, but it gives him this.
00:27:25
He sees this grace in people and in creation, even though he
00:27:28
desperately kind of hates it at the same time.
00:27:31
He hates existence, even. He hates the fact that he's
00:27:34
alive. Yet he, like you said, he finds
00:27:37
that moral compass and he's true to it no matter what.
00:27:40
And he almost wants to help other people more than he wants
00:27:43
to help himself. And that drive, I think, is what
00:27:46
heals him or will heal him. I feel like he's not done.
00:27:48
His arc is not complete. In him.
00:27:50
I said healing and chaos. There's still chaos and there's
00:27:53
still healing to be done. He's a work in progress.
00:27:56
Yeah. He's yeah.
00:27:57
But yeah, I mean, early on he has a relationship with a woman.
00:28:00
Not, it's not a relationship, but they're they're not to be a
00:28:04
spoiler, but they're working together.
00:28:06
And yeah, she ends up in kind of a bind.
00:28:09
And he's basically sees her as this person that's good that
00:28:16
wants to help people and, you know, maybe that he maybe want
00:28:20
admires and he live, wants to live up to that.
00:28:23
And he's thinking if she exists in the world, maybe it's not all
00:28:28
bad. And then there's nothing he
00:28:31
won't do to protect her. And at some point makes the
00:28:34
point that basically, if anything ever happens, Theresa's
00:28:38
going to kill everybody that was involved, their families,
00:28:41
everybody they've ever met, you know, And because she's like
00:28:46
this shining light to him, you know, and I think that's what
00:28:51
he's looking for. And, you know, hopefully over
00:28:54
the as the series develops, maybe he'll find and even John
00:28:58
Lowe he's attracted to because the guy's so fascinating, but
00:29:03
also because, you know, the guy seems to want to do the right
00:29:06
thing, but like, fade, he's not 100% sure what the right thing
00:29:11
is. And that's the world we live in,
00:29:13
right? Like what's right?
00:29:16
I, you know, what side should you be on?
00:29:19
I I like, I don't know, I I wonder every morning.
00:29:23
But that's perhaps the biggest commonality with Mitch Rapp.
00:29:27
And I bet this part of writing the two characters aligned as
00:29:31
much does not align about trying to write and craft and think
00:29:33
like these two heroes and protagonists.
00:29:36
I think what aligns is that loyalty.
00:29:38
And if you don't know right from wrong, if the world doesn't seem
00:29:42
to know right from wrong, and even if there is chaos, what's
00:29:45
always the one true path is loyalty and honesty.
00:29:49
And I feel like they're both brutally loyal and brutally
00:29:52
honest to the people that matter to them.
00:29:54
So. Yeah.
00:29:55
And this is something that really comes from the military
00:29:58
tradition. You know, you talk about, you
00:30:00
know, you talk to guys who've, you know, been down range for a
00:30:04
lot of, a lot of their careers. And that's, that's the theme.
00:30:11
It's very much like, you know, like, well, what about the big
00:30:13
picture and the should we have attacked this country?
00:30:16
Wherever they're like me, it's I got me, I got my mates and we're
00:30:21
going to survive. And it's 100% about that every
00:30:25
day. And that's fate.
00:30:29
I mean, former Seal, like he is, it's him.
00:30:33
It's the people he loves and he is, he finds those the things to
00:30:39
cling to. They keep him alive because like
00:30:43
you said, otherwise he's pretty indifferent to like he's he's
00:30:47
died a couple of times. He's been clinically dead a
00:30:50
couple of times more than a couple.
00:30:52
And he always comes back and he's always found that death was
00:30:57
pretty attractive. He's disappointed, yeah.
00:31:00
Yeah, it doesn't bother him at all.
00:31:01
He likes it. The darkness, you know.
00:31:04
That's too funny. Well, since we want to jump into
00:31:06
a spoiler section just to wrap this up, for anybody who heard
00:31:09
this and is not yet pre-ordered the book, make sure you go
00:31:14
ahead. And there's even a couple of
00:31:15
special Nuggets. I heard you announce an
00:31:17
alternate ending if you pre-order through certain
00:31:20
booksellers that are on your website.
00:31:22
Can you tell us how that? So there's some some small some
00:31:26
Indies on my website and if you order from them they will stick
00:31:32
my alternate ending to the book in there and so you can read the
00:31:39
other idea I have for the end of it.
00:31:41
Were these two competing ideas? Is it you?
00:31:44
Just not really the the other one was not a great beginning to
00:31:48
a a series. So it probably would not have
00:31:53
worked in the book. But it's fun and it's something
00:31:59
I thought about a lot when they said when they said that, oh,
00:32:05
would you do? Do you?
00:32:06
Can you come up with an alternate ending?
00:32:08
I was like, Oh yeah, I already have.
00:32:09
It I got that. It's like 10 minutes.
00:32:12
This is Ryan Mills we're talking to.
00:32:14
And the, the other one is the audiobook, right?
00:32:17
There's a, a bonus feature in that one and it's me in
00:32:22
conversation with the guy who did it, who did the audio, which
00:32:26
was super fun. And I had asked to do that.
00:32:29
He's a really cool guy, but also because like, I don't never knew
00:32:33
how that sausage was made. And it's super interesting, like
00:32:38
how these guys do it and how they come up with all the
00:32:42
characters and, and do all this stuff.
00:32:45
And his name's Will Dameron. And he's really, really, really
00:32:51
engaging and he's great because it's interesting that you, when
00:32:54
you do those with the Mitch Wrapstep, I never, you know,
00:32:57
George Goodall did it and he's amazing.
00:33:00
But this one, it was like, you can have any anybody, anything.
00:33:04
So they, we did all these auditions and they were all
00:33:07
really different. It was super fun to listen to
00:33:10
how people interpreted that character.
00:33:13
Did you have full choice? Yeah.
00:33:16
And then, well, I mean, we were talking with the, we were all
00:33:19
like doing ballots, right? And we all really, most of us
00:33:26
came down on this guy's either being first or second.
00:33:28
And when he spoke, I was like, OK, now I hear, you know, I hear
00:33:33
that character. So anyway, if you so if you get
00:33:36
the audio, you get this and he tells you I got to ask him every
00:33:40
question I'd ever wanted. Like, do you sit in your closet?
00:33:43
You know I got all these and so super fun.
00:33:46
That's so interesting, I didn't plan on owning 3 versions of
00:33:49
this book. I got the advanced one, need the
00:33:51
hardcover and now I also need the audio book because of that
00:33:55
extra chapter. Super interesting.
00:33:57
We're huge audio book fans on the podcast.
00:33:59
I would 9 out of 10 books that we cover on the pod, both Chris
00:34:02
and I listen to on the audio book so we have a lot of
00:34:05
opinions and takes on narration and.
00:34:08
Don't you, you. I remember you guys.
00:34:10
You, you assholes, read the Yeah, we listened to the Fade
00:34:16
abridged audio book. Yes, 'cause it's all there was.
00:34:19
Wait, what is with that? Yeah, we all can only find a
00:34:23
four and a half hour abridged version.
00:34:24
Yeah, once we. Read the book our our opinion
00:34:27
changed completely. You guys are too young to
00:34:30
remember that audio used to be heavily abridged, so it was only
00:34:35
about 1/3 of the book. Because the cassettes you can't
00:34:38
have. You can't have like cassettes
00:34:40
like this stacked up your entire back seat.
00:34:43
Right. No, I checked those out of the
00:34:44
library when I was in elementary school, so I do remember the
00:34:47
cassettes, but yeah. Well, yeah, so so there was no.
00:34:51
Full audio book of Fade 1. I don't think there was ever.
00:34:54
I don't even think books on maybe books on tape did it,
00:34:57
which is who used to do the unabridged audio books, but it
00:35:01
was, but I don't think so. I don't think they ever did
00:35:03
fade. So we had just had the abridged.
00:35:06
We scoured the Internet looking forward the full audio book and
00:35:08
I don't think if anybody, any one of our listeners has some
00:35:12
Fade cassette tapes, we will get them digitally recorded and
00:35:18
definitely listen to the full fade one on audiobook.
00:35:21
But that's great to hear about. Will Dameron, I, I hadn't heard
00:35:23
any of his work, but I've heard he's done a Michael Connolly
00:35:26
book, Carl Hiaasen, hundreds of others and has a great website.
00:35:31
I was doing some research, so I'm, yeah, very excited.
00:35:33
He's a great. Writer in himself and actor and.
00:35:37
Yes. Such a cool thing because I
00:35:39
can't imagine doing it like trying to read one of my books
00:35:44
and do all the characters and everything in the accents.
00:35:47
Poor guy made him do cartoon characters for God's sakes.
00:35:51
He had to do like Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, and and like Marvin
00:35:56
the Martian. Well, Speaking of my childhood
00:35:58
in the 90s, you bring up a lot of a pop fiction, whether it's
00:36:02
cartoons, like you mentioned. There's even a Charlotte's Web
00:36:04
reference. Like these are the things
00:36:06
running through Fade's mind. That's got to be a tough haul
00:36:09
for a a narrator. But we actually had George
00:36:12
Goodell on the podcast. He doesn't do many interviews,
00:36:15
really. Yeah, we were.
00:36:16
Really. I haven't heard that one.
00:36:18
We had him on the Mitch Rap podcast.
00:36:19
The very, very ironic thing is his audio wasn't great on the
00:36:23
recording. So perhaps the most well known
00:36:30
audiobook recorder in the universe, we get on with him and
00:36:32
I think he's talking into a phone that may or may not also
00:36:35
have been from the 1990s. So we, we did, we did scrub the
00:36:39
audio best we could and he had some really insightful things.
00:36:42
But yeah, he told us he fixed the windows up at his house and
00:36:45
got this whole recording studio and actually had part of it in a
00:36:48
closet for the acoustics and everything.
00:36:50
So I'm curious to hear from Will what the what the recording
00:36:53
world is like now. But George had the one thing I
00:36:56
remember George saying that really stuck with me was he
00:36:59
doesn't like being called a voice actor because he's an
00:37:02
actor and it has to be a full body kind of get into character.
00:37:06
You're not just manipulating your voice.
00:37:08
You're you're reading as if you are a person, full person.
00:37:11
So you have to be a full actor and not just a voice actor.
00:37:14
And I thought that was very insightful.
00:37:16
I'm sure Will would would have similar feelings about that.
00:37:19
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting.
00:37:22
So for all those audiobook aficionados, you'll get that
00:37:27
bonus great, which is definitely go past the end and listen to it
00:37:31
because it's super fun. Sure.
00:37:33
And last thing about the coming release, Fade Nation has been a
00:37:37
lot of fun. You have a mini ambassador
00:37:40
program and a lot of influencers out there.
00:37:42
I mean, Twitter and all the social medias have been all over
00:37:46
Fade since these copies came out.
00:37:49
Seems like it took a page out of the Mystery Buses playbook.
00:37:52
Yeah, because it, and it's super fun because it, I mean, it felt
00:37:56
a little bit like when I wrote the survivor, the first MIT trap
00:38:00
book because they decided that they were going to do that
00:38:05
program, which was funny because like they didn't announce it
00:38:10
until they read the book. Because I think they were like,
00:38:12
oh, if this, if the survivor sucks, we won't do it.
00:38:15
And so they decided it was, you know, it was good.
00:38:18
And then they went out and and did this program, but I had no
00:38:23
idea what the reaction would be because, you know, it's the
00:38:26
first Mitch wrap book not written by Vince.
00:38:30
And so it was really nerve racking.
00:38:33
And then it's kind of the same thing here.
00:38:36
We've got this character that's very different than Mitch, but a
00:38:40
very a similar vein. And what are how are people
00:38:43
going to react to it? You know, like I very much like
00:38:46
the survivor. I thought, well, maybe everybody
00:38:48
will hate it. You know, I mean, I've no idea.
00:38:52
And so everybody's been, I really loved it and it had been
00:38:55
super positive, which is great because, man, I'll tell you, you
00:38:58
sweat a little bit when you send those things out.
00:39:01
Yeah, particularly, particularly to a lot of fans of Mitch Rapp.
00:39:05
And, you know, you're like, well, this is a very different
00:39:06
kind of character, a different kind of challenges.
00:39:08
Are they going to like it? Yeah, I get that.
00:39:11
But Fade Nation is, you know, they got your back.
00:39:13
Fade Nation is standing by. I feel like it's could be called
00:39:16
the Kyle Mills. You know, it's like Kyle Mills
00:39:19
cult. It's great.
00:39:20
I mean, you know, my fans have been with me forever.
00:39:24
I mean, you know, since, I mean, I've been doing this for almost
00:39:26
30 years and Vince's have been amazing, you know, in their
00:39:31
acceptance of me, in their willingness to follow me into my
00:39:35
next adventure. And it's, it's really been
00:39:39
great. I mean, I've, I've, it was such
00:39:43
a blessing to be able to do that and, and connect with all those
00:39:46
people. That's great.
00:39:48
Well, Kyle, Congrats on Fade in after a 20 year journey to
00:39:52
resurrect Fade, literally and figuratively because Fade is
00:39:55
back. And I'm glad you mentioned there
00:39:57
will be more Fade to come. This will be a continuing series
00:40:00
and he's definitely one of, if not the quirkiest character I've
00:40:05
ever read in a thriller. So hats off, Well done.
00:40:08
Good. Thank you.
00:40:09
Got to thank our patrons including our special, our
00:40:12
deputy director, special deputy director Sherry F, our special
00:40:15
operator Jason C, our special agents, Ben, Darrell, Kevin,
00:40:19
George, Matt, Don, Peggy, Mark and Chris.
00:40:23
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00:40:26
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