The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Brokernomics.

00:00:29.520 Now, in this episode, I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by sci-fi legend, Neil Asher,

00:00:35.400 who has a best-selling author, whole shelves devoted to him in Waterstones,

00:00:40.240 a whole bunch of created worlds. 0.86

00:00:43.820 None of them have been turned into films yet because he sensibly thinks that Hollywood is a bit silly.

00:00:48.540 And perhaps his most redeeming feature is he does like the Lotus Eaters. 0.82

00:00:52.060 So, Neil, thank you very much for coming on.

00:00:54.700 Thank you for inviting me.

00:00:55.880 Yes, well, it's very kind of you to drive across the country to come here from sunny Essex.

00:01:02.600 Sunny Essex, yeah, right, okay.

00:01:05.640 But I had a notion this morning, I had a notion, and maybe you can help me out with it,

00:01:09.900 because I tweaked the other day that James Bond is going out of copyright in nine years.

00:01:16.840 Yeah.

00:01:17.280 And I was thinking about that, and I was like, well, nine years, that's about when AI moviemaking

00:01:22.020 is going to be like a decent thing, right?

00:01:25.100 So, invariably, in nine years, we're going to get a whole swathe of fan-made James Bond films

00:01:31.340 that come up.

00:01:32.100 Quite likely, yeah.

00:01:33.080 Now, the thing is, though, that's going to be out of copyright, so it's going to be fan

00:01:39.000 things that are going to be popping up on YouTube, all that kind of stuff.

00:01:42.060 And it occurs to me that somebody like yourself, who's got a deep IP background, that's going

00:01:49.480 to be about as valuable as the GDP of Lichtenstein when they start making AI movies, because you're

00:01:54.840 actually on the rights to all of that stuff.

00:01:59.040 Not quite.

00:02:00.140 No?

00:02:00.940 But yes, I mean, I would get the majority of any payment on it, yeah.

00:02:06.160 But, I mean, do you think you'd go for that?

00:02:08.960 If a team of young autists came to you and said, look, we're going to spend nine months 1.00

00:02:13.960 prompt engineering, if you come on board and give us a bit of direction.

00:02:20.560 What?

00:02:20.920 And turn all the...

00:02:21.960 Yeah, turn them all into AI films.

00:02:23.760 It's fine by me.

00:02:25.060 Yeah, I'd love it.

00:02:26.280 Yeah, I mean, that'd be good, wouldn't it?

00:02:27.220 I mean, I've just been playing.

00:02:29.300 I don't know if you've seen, but I've just been playing with that on X.

00:02:34.040 Right.

00:02:34.620 You've seen this thing where you put the picture in and you just, you can turn it into a short

00:02:39.360 movie.

00:02:40.560 Oh, okay.

00:02:41.120 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:41.660 Yeah.

00:02:41.920 Well, I've got some, I've got some very good cover, I've had some very good cover artists

00:02:48.300 and I've just been sticking book covers on X and N.

00:02:53.100 Right.

00:02:53.380 And it's phenomenal.

00:02:56.740 But I mean, that's a nascent stage.

00:02:58.160 I mean, I really expect they're going to have, you know...

00:03:00.400 That's just a few seconds.

00:03:01.700 Yeah.

00:03:01.840 You can upload a PDF of one of your manuscripts.

00:03:04.580 That would be cool.

00:03:05.540 Yeah.

00:03:06.240 Maybe show a bit of cover art and say, look, this is the general theme.

00:03:09.700 And then, you know, you're going to...

00:03:11.420 And the other thing, right, if you can make three full films out of The Hobbit, which is

00:03:16.800 a child's book about that size, I mean, you're going to have like a week's worth of movies

00:03:21.340 out of your stuff.

00:03:22.500 Yeah.

00:03:22.900 I mean, my idea on it was like the ones that you had here before, the Cormac series.

00:03:33.960 Yeah.

00:03:34.220 Oh, yes.

00:03:34.640 What's that?

00:03:35.160 Is that here?

00:03:36.060 Yeah.

00:03:36.360 Series of five books.

00:03:37.580 Is that the one that starts with this grid linked?

00:03:39.500 That's the one, yeah.

00:03:40.160 Right.

00:03:40.340 But series of five books, I mean, I'd like to see that turned into something like The

00:03:46.580 Expanse.

00:03:47.760 Oh, yes.

00:03:48.080 You know, each book could be like 10 episodes or something like that.

00:03:51.660 And that would be...

00:03:52.760 Have you ever had a chat with Netflix?

00:03:55.180 No, not about that.

00:03:56.360 I mean, I do have a story about that.

00:03:57.980 I mean, I am on Netflix.

00:04:00.900 Oh, are you?

00:04:01.360 Okay.

00:04:01.900 I missed that.

00:04:02.960 Yeah.

00:04:03.320 Oh, well, long story.

00:04:05.460 Right.

00:04:05.740 Well, you're into long stories anyway.

00:04:06.860 Yeah, why not?

00:04:07.240 And it also relates to this, like, AI-generated images and so forth as well.

00:04:14.740 Because probably 17 years ago now, I saw a video on YouTube.

00:04:25.400 Yes.

00:04:25.700 It was called Rockfish, yeah?

00:04:29.080 Mm-hmm.

00:04:29.880 And it was basically, it was about this guy on a planet fishing with some, like, major

00:04:36.260 gear, like, crane-like gear, if you like, down through the crust of the planet and catching

00:04:43.340 something that's, like, a bit like a dune sandworm.

00:04:46.920 Yeah.

00:04:47.420 And hauling it up.

00:04:48.620 So it was this short film.

00:04:51.780 And for the time, I was looking at it, I was thinking, well, that's really good, you

00:04:56.360 know, because it was animated, obviously.

00:04:58.660 Yeah.

00:04:59.180 I thought that was really good.

00:05:00.360 And the guy that, the guy that had done this had left an email with it on YouTube, which

00:05:07.820 is quite unusual.

00:05:10.140 So I just emailed him and I said, God, that's, you know, that was really, really good.

00:05:17.280 It won't be long until they're not going to need actors.

00:05:20.700 Yeah.

00:05:21.240 I said that at the time.

00:05:22.580 And the guy who'd done it came back to me and he said, like, oh, thank you very much.

00:05:29.160 He said, I read your books.

00:05:31.080 Now, this guy turned out to be, you might know the name, a guy called Tim Miller.

00:05:38.460 I've heard the name, but why?

00:05:40.560 You'll find out in a minute.

00:05:42.060 He runs a CGI studio in Venice, California.

00:05:47.180 Ah.

00:05:47.920 Okay.

00:05:49.160 So that was that.

00:05:50.080 We had a little bit of a chat.

00:05:53.240 Then he came back to me and said, have you got any short stories?

00:05:59.600 Which is a silly question to ask me.

00:06:01.780 You might have one or two tucked away somewhere.

00:06:03.260 You might have some.

00:06:03.880 Yeah.

00:06:04.440 So I sent him a shitload of short stories.

00:06:07.000 But what he was trying to do was trying to resurrect a thing that had been done in the

00:06:10.820 past.

00:06:11.840 It was called the Heavy Metal Movie.

00:06:16.140 Yeah.

00:06:16.660 Not familiar with that.

00:06:17.940 Yeah.

00:06:18.120 It was in the, I can't remember.

00:06:20.520 I mean, it was quite some time back.

00:06:22.820 What it consisted of was animated short stories.

00:06:27.640 But a number of short stories to make it the length of a film.

00:06:31.160 And he was trying to resurrect that.

00:06:32.660 And he was doing that with, what's his name, Lincher.

00:06:40.640 Oh, okay.

00:06:41.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:06:41.640 David Lincher, Fight Club and all that.

00:06:44.080 Is this like the Love, Death, Robots thing that's on?

00:06:47.340 Right.

00:06:47.780 Is that where you're going with this?

00:06:48.760 Yes.

00:06:49.560 Because what happened was they were doing this heavy metal thing.

00:06:55.560 Yeah.

00:06:55.880 And this was supposed to be going to Paramount.

00:06:58.620 Yeah.

00:06:59.520 But there was a falling out with Paramount.

00:07:02.960 And Paramount bought the rights to the heavy metal, but didn't buy the stories.

00:07:08.620 Yeah.

00:07:09.820 Hmm.

00:07:10.300 So then later on, I mean, obviously, Tim Miller moved up in the Hollywood world because he did the first Deadpool movie.

00:07:21.700 Oh, okay.

00:07:22.560 Yeah.

00:07:22.760 And so he wanted to do his own thing, which was this Love, Death and Robots, which is short stories done with CGI.

00:07:31.300 Yeah, I've seen it.

00:07:31.780 They're good, those.

00:07:32.600 Yeah.

00:07:33.540 So what he did, I mean, he'd done Alistair Reynolds and Peter Hamilton and people like that in there.

00:07:41.500 But he couldn't do my stories initially in the first season because America's quite litigious.

00:07:49.720 Yeah.

00:07:49.880 And they weren't sure whether that would mean that Paramount would try to have a claim on Love, Death and Robots.

00:07:56.840 But he sorted it all out.

00:07:58.560 Right.

00:07:58.980 And then what they did was they took the stories that he was going to use in that heavy metal thing.

00:08:04.420 Hmm.

00:08:05.420 Well, a number of them.

00:08:06.660 And did them in the second and third series of Love, Death and Robots.

00:08:11.820 Oh, okay.

00:08:12.120 So a couple of those are your short stories, are they?

00:08:13.820 There are three of them.

00:08:15.020 Right.

00:08:15.560 In the second season, there's one called Snow in the Desert.

00:08:20.780 Yeah.

00:08:21.060 Right.

00:08:21.540 I can't remember their names anymore.

00:08:23.100 The guy's got a mask on his face and he's crossing through this.

00:08:27.340 No, anyway.

00:08:28.880 Snow in the Desert.

00:08:29.920 Yeah.

00:08:30.120 And then in the third season, Bad Travelling.

00:08:37.160 One set aboard a ship with a horrible crab-like creature that gets aboard and starts eating people.

00:08:42.880 I think I remember that one, yeah.

00:08:44.620 Yeah?

00:08:45.620 Yes.

00:08:46.420 And then there's another one which is a bit comedic, if you like, is Mason's Rats.

00:08:53.760 I can't remember their name.

00:08:55.580 I will remember them.

00:08:57.020 It's a farmer.

00:08:58.980 That one?

00:08:59.900 Yes.

00:09:00.240 Yes.

00:09:00.780 On his farm and the rats start tool using.

00:09:03.960 That was good, that one.

00:09:04.740 And making crossbows and things like that.

00:09:06.280 Yes.

00:09:06.440 Well, that was mine as well, yeah.

00:09:07.880 Oh, that's good.

00:09:08.560 I have to add, the Mason's Rats stories was three stories.

00:09:15.560 Right.

00:09:16.060 And they took the first story and they took an ending off of another story to make that episode.

00:09:22.800 Yes.

00:09:23.600 And then the TV script was done by Joe Abercrombie.

00:09:29.520 Oh, I know him.

00:09:30.160 Yeah, he's a fantasy writer.

00:09:31.220 He does a bit of writing as well, doesn't he?

00:09:32.680 Yeah.

00:09:32.960 Just a bit.

00:09:33.740 Yeah.

00:09:34.400 Yeah, I like his stuff as well.

00:09:36.180 So that was all right.

00:09:36.980 So that was all right.

00:09:37.360 Because it was Netflix, did they re-swap all your characters or?

00:09:40.580 No.

00:09:41.120 Right.

00:09:41.880 You got lumped with the original.

00:09:42.880 It was good.

00:09:43.340 They stuck pretty much to it.

00:09:45.180 Yeah, very good.

00:09:46.260 So that was.

00:09:46.960 Oh, right.

00:09:47.440 So yeah, I am on TV.

00:09:49.060 Well, the thing is, the cost of all this stuff is coming down so much now.

00:09:53.440 Mm-hmm.

00:09:54.120 Because, I mean, your stuff is a bit tricky to turn into something because it's, you know,

00:09:58.560 it's not, it's not like you.

00:10:00.720 And yet Grock can do it in a few seconds.

00:10:02.220 Yeah, exactly.

00:10:03.440 Yeah.

00:10:04.200 So I think you've got a bright future on the screen, really.

00:10:06.320 And possibly, if you go the independent route, even the better.

00:10:10.120 Just needs AI to get a little bit better and a bit more consistent.

00:10:14.460 I could.

00:10:14.880 Because, I mean, how long is it going to be before you can actually do that, where you

00:10:19.100 can just take a book, sitting in your own house, just stick that in, it's like, make

00:10:25.280 a movie of that.

00:10:26.320 Well, exactly.

00:10:26.800 I mean, I generally think you're going to take a PDF of one of your books or the whole

00:10:30.280 series or something, feed it into AI, and it will generate the movie.

00:10:34.520 And I think the thing that will make it work is if you then spend the time to go in and

00:10:42.200 make all the fine correctional, that bit doesn't quite work.

00:10:44.300 You can regenerate that and regenerate it again.

00:10:46.060 Yeah.

00:10:46.180 Do that 70 times until that one scene is right and go on to the next one.

00:10:49.760 Okay, you nailed it on the first pass.

00:10:51.680 Go to the next one and make sure it's all consistent and the themes and stuff.

00:10:54.640 So you do need a team of young autists to do all that work. 1.00

00:10:59.160 But if you own the IP, I think that's an absolute bloody goldmine as soon as AI movie

00:11:03.240 making becomes a thing.

00:11:04.800 Yeah.

00:11:05.640 I mean, I don't actually own the film rights on this because obviously when you sell a

00:11:13.300 book to a publisher.

00:11:14.420 Oh, they get it, do they?

00:11:15.480 Well, they buy all the different rights.

00:11:17.500 Okay.

00:11:18.280 And they obviously try to sell them on or whatever.

00:11:21.420 I mean, on film rights, I think I get the majority of-

00:11:23.920 Do you get a kickback?

00:11:25.080 Oh, yeah.

00:11:25.700 Yeah, I get the majority of it.

00:11:27.500 It's something like 80, 90% of whatever's-

00:11:30.140 Oh, it's not bad, do you?

00:11:31.240 On films.

00:11:33.380 Yeah, so there's that.

00:11:34.560 Oh.

00:11:35.040 But I mean, also, I do have an awful lot of stuff as well, which is just my own.

00:11:40.320 Yes.

00:11:41.220 Because I've been doing a book a year for Macmillan.

00:11:46.060 Right.

00:11:46.480 But I write more than that.

00:11:49.120 The thing is, if you're a practiced hand, you can probably churn out a few more things,

00:11:52.960 can't you?

00:11:53.500 Well, I do.

00:11:54.200 Yeah.

00:11:54.320 And I've got, I've self-published a load on Kindle and, I mean, the great thing about

00:12:02.400 the Kindle thing, Amazon, is they also do print on demand.

00:12:05.520 So even if you want a paper book, you can get it from it.

00:12:08.380 So, yeah, I've done a number on there and, of course, they're mine.

00:12:11.120 Oh, very good.

00:12:11.520 And most of my short stories are mine.

00:12:13.480 Yeah.

00:12:14.220 So, anyway, that was just a vague notion that occurred to me this morning.

00:12:16.800 I thought I'd be stoked on that.

00:12:19.100 We ought to try and do this a little bit logically consistently, though.

00:12:21.940 So let's take us back.

00:12:23.040 So I think it's something like 2000, you've got a publishing deal from a Macmillan.

00:12:27.620 Yeah.

00:12:27.900 But the story probably doesn't start there, does it?

00:12:30.540 I mean, I'm vaguely imagining.

00:12:32.760 I was an overnight success in 2000.

00:12:35.260 Yeah.

00:12:36.360 I'm vaguely imagining because most aspirant authors I know, they're either doing a series

00:12:42.600 of odd jobs or maybe they get a career and they get up early in the morning to write and

00:12:46.080 they hammer away at this for years and they get streams of rejection letters or more likely

00:12:51.420 completely ignored and not even getting a rejection letter.

00:12:54.960 So tell us about, you know.

00:12:57.060 I'm going to add one thing about that.

00:13:00.940 It's another failure point for newbie authors or whatever, is that they spend years hammering

00:13:08.720 away on one book.

00:13:10.440 Right.

00:13:10.840 Yeah.

00:13:12.160 Which is great.

00:13:13.420 Yes.

00:13:13.720 Fair enough.

00:13:15.200 It goes to the publisher and the publisher takes it and says, that's really great.

00:13:20.580 We'll publish that.

00:13:22.320 And the writer goes, I'm a success.

00:13:24.980 But then what happens, of course, is the publisher turns around, what have you got for us next

00:13:31.460 year?

00:13:33.720 And I've seen throughout my last, I mean, I've been doing it for, oh God, 23, 24 years.

00:13:42.560 Throughout that time, I've seen writers drop to the wayside.

00:13:47.960 Because publishers, they do want books and they do want writers, but to a certain extent,

00:13:55.380 they want something, it's like a brand.

00:13:58.580 Well, they need a product flow, don't they?

00:14:00.180 Yes.

00:14:01.340 Yeah.

00:14:01.580 Like one book.

00:14:03.720 Yeah, what's the point of that?

00:14:04.940 Yeah.

00:14:05.380 It doesn't do it.

00:14:06.620 Yeah.

00:14:06.920 So you have to do the next book and the next book.

00:14:08.860 And if you've been like working on one book for like four or five years.

00:14:15.540 Yes, your process is probably a little bit of a joint.

00:14:17.900 Yeah, and then the publisher says like, well, okay, what's next year?

00:14:21.800 So what was your, I mean, did you do all that?

00:14:24.520 Did you spend years tapping away at your keyboard and getting rejected?

00:14:28.180 And how does it work?

00:14:29.440 Okay, like all good stories, let's start at the beginning.

00:14:33.880 Go on then.

00:14:35.340 I mean, going right, right back, we'll start with something I said to you before.

00:14:40.040 So when I was in school, getting my crappy comprehensive education,

00:14:48.700 I was interested in lots and lots and lots of different things.

00:14:54.940 I was doing chemistry, physics, electronics, art, doing lots of stuff.

00:15:01.360 But one got added to the list when I, because let me just add,

00:15:08.880 at the time I was reading piles and piles of science fiction and fantasy.

00:15:16.060 I mean, like one you guys have been talking about recently,

00:15:19.040 the first book I ever picked up in a library to read,

00:15:23.980 it was the wrong one actually because it was the second one,

00:15:26.720 but it was The Two Towers from Tolkien.

00:15:30.260 Good place to start.

00:15:31.000 Yeah, but I was reading shitloads of science fiction.

00:15:38.320 And then one day in school, the teacher was, I think,

00:15:43.440 feeling a little bit lazy, perhaps had a hangover or something.

00:15:45.940 Very possible.

00:15:47.100 And she said, right, I want you to just sit there and write a story each.

00:15:52.920 So I did that and I wrote something that was derivative of a writer

00:15:59.800 called EC Tub.

00:16:03.120 Not a relation as far as I know, but strong name.

00:16:05.580 So we like him so far.

00:16:06.580 Strong name, yes.

00:16:07.060 He wrote this massive series called The Doomerest Saga,

00:16:10.580 which was everything the teenage boy wanted.

00:16:15.360 Excellent.

00:16:15.680 Like a hero running around the galaxy, like fighting monsters with a knife,

00:16:20.200 you know.

00:16:20.760 Right.

00:16:22.100 Exploring heavenly bodies, I hope.

00:16:23.600 That sort of thing.

00:16:24.380 Exploring heavenly bodies, I hope.

00:16:25.520 Oh, yeah.

00:16:25.800 There was a bit of that as well, of course.

00:16:27.280 Yeah.

00:16:27.380 You'd see that on the covers.

00:16:28.780 Always.

00:16:29.120 Yeah.

00:16:29.840 It was just like the covers of the Conan books and things like that.

00:16:33.720 Like it already.

00:16:34.720 Yeah.

00:16:36.100 Or John Carter on Mars or whatever.

00:16:38.160 Good.

00:16:39.280 But I wrote a story which was highly derivative of those books.

00:16:42.660 I mean, I plagiarised it at the age of 12 or 13 or whatever it was.

00:16:47.920 Oh, dear.

00:16:48.260 But I got selected out of the class as like to be congratulated and say like,

00:16:55.620 well done you and all this.

00:16:57.120 And it would have seemed that planted a bit of a seed in your head,

00:16:59.620 in your tender young mind.

00:17:01.100 Yeah.

00:17:01.360 Well, I mean, I say this is like retrospective.

00:17:04.260 I'm looking back and thinking I've looked back in the past and thought,

00:17:08.480 oh, maybe then.

00:17:10.180 But then later on in English language,

00:17:15.640 they weren't teaching these things properly.

00:17:17.700 No.

00:17:18.180 You had to do a project, yeah?

00:17:20.160 Yes.

00:17:21.100 But my project was basically writing about science fiction authors, yeah?

00:17:28.360 And then after school, I was doing, you know,

00:17:32.860 I wanted to, I was trying to write stories and so on.

00:17:35.040 I was doing a little bit of that.

00:17:36.420 But I was also wrapped up in other things,

00:17:39.080 playing around with electronics, doing art, whatever,

00:17:44.480 all these sorts of different things.

00:17:45.880 And then, of course, there's the working life and then that big time sink,

00:17:50.660 the pub with the pool table and dartboard.

00:17:53.020 Very important, very important.

00:17:55.200 So I was doing all that.

00:17:59.060 So did you apply yourself to a career and then start working?

00:18:02.540 Were you just odd jobs?

00:18:03.700 And was that around the writing?

00:18:07.620 No, I was working full time.

00:18:10.020 I mean, I started work at 15 doing a weekend job in a factory making steel furniture.

00:18:21.080 Doesn't sound very comfortable, but okay.

00:18:22.420 And then after I left school, I went there full time making steel furniture.

00:18:28.560 And then I went from there to another factory, which made double glazing and aluminium double glazing.

00:18:38.220 And had the biting bug kicked in it?

00:18:39.980 So were you doing your shift and then going home and writing for four hours?

00:18:42.640 No, not at that point.

00:18:44.220 Right.

00:18:44.520 Not at that point.

00:18:45.440 Okay.

00:18:45.820 I was doing a bit.

00:18:47.460 Yeah.

00:18:47.740 The thing is, what I say, I was a bit of a dilettante at that point.

00:18:51.480 I was doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that, whatever interested me.

00:18:54.560 Yeah.

00:18:57.320 So I worked in that company.

00:19:00.220 Like I said, they made double glazing and boat windows and whatever.

00:19:03.060 And I worked on a milling machine.

00:19:05.040 And from there, I went and took a three-year engineering course at college.

00:19:15.160 Mechanical and production engineering, it was.

00:19:17.280 Yeah.

00:19:17.460 So I did that.

00:19:19.080 And then I went on working in different factories, working with machines.

00:19:22.740 But with me doing all these different things, being a dilettante, you know, just like playing

00:19:30.260 with things, I think it was about in my early 20s I realised, no, if I want to be good at

00:19:36.460 something, I need to concentrate on one thing.

00:19:42.720 Jack of all trades, master of none, if I just carried on like I was, playing with things.

00:19:47.340 So I did concentrate on writing.

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PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ Become a best selling author with Neal Asher

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