Max Barry's Blog, page 14
June 4, 2013
On Tour
come along, and I’ll be all like, “Thanks for coming,” and you can be like,
“That’s cool, man, no problem.”
Columbus, OH •
Chicago, IL •
New York, NY •
Los Angeles, CA •
Melbourne, Australia
Columbus, Ohio
Friday
June 14 (evening) & Saturday June 15 (afternoon)
Film screening! Syrup is playing here and I’ll be doing a Q&A
afterward about what it’s like to have a book turn into a movie. I land in Columbus on
the night of the 14th direct from Australia so I can’t
make any guarantees about how I’ll smell. Because of the long flight, I mean. Not because of
Australia. Australia smells fine.
By the way, Syrup is simultaneously screening not too far away at the
Waterfront Film Festival
in South Haven, Michigan, with a Q&A with the
director Aram Rappaport and editor Robert Hoffman. If you
think those guys are better.
Chicago, Illinois
Sunday June 16 (afternoon)
Hang With Max
I’ll be in Chicago two days before my book comes out. I can’t do a bookstore
event, but I figured I could meet people at a bar or something. I did this in London
once and didn’t get stabbed at all so I think it’s a good idea. There might be some
Syrup film people there too. So you could come along and talk
about books and films or whatever. Very casual. If you bring a book, I will sign it.
Details to come: I will update this post. And if you know a good venue, please let me know
in the comments.
All good book stores, US & Canada
Tuesday June 18
Book
comes out. I mention this because you probably
want to schedule some time to head to your local bookstore and elbow aside
the crowds.
New York, NY
Wednesday June 19, 7:00pm
Barnes & Noble (Upper East Side)
86th & Lexington Ave.
Ph. 212-369-2180
Book launch! I will read from Lexicon and answer questions
and stuff. You know. It’s a reading. Actually, it’s more of a talking. I talk about things.
I figure you can read the book yourself. I mean, that’s why we had it printed.
I will read for a little while, because that’s expected, and because sometimes people
come to bookstore readings for no particular reason and hear some of the book
and think, “That sounds good.” Then they buy it and I get to continue being an author.
Los Angeles, CA
Thursday June 20, 7:00pm
Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore (Redondo Beach)
2810 Artesia Blvd., Redondo Beach
Bookstore event! I read, I answer questions, I sign things. I haven’t been to
Mysterious Galaxy before, but it was LA Weekly’s
Best
Geek Bookstore of 2012. So that’s promising. I only have a few hours in LA, flying
in that day and flying out that night, so this will be the kind of visit
that’s brief and passionate and leaves both of us wanting more, like that time
in high school.
All good book stores, UK
Thursday June 20
Book
comes out in the UK. Sadly, I don’t get to be there. My in-laws moved out of Bedford, did
I mention? They did. I will probably never go to Bedford again in my life. What am I saying,
probably. There is no way I am ever going to Bedford again.
Melbourne, Australia
Tuesday June 25, 6:30pm
Embiggen Books
197-203 Little Lonsdale Street
Australian launch!
On the day of Lexicon’s Australian / New Zealand / South African release
I’ll be launching it here.
Embiggen is awesome. They stock about ten books but they’re all really good. They stock more
than ten books. That was an exaggeration. But you could seriously just wander into Embiggen
with your eyes closed and buy whatever your hands fall on and walk out happy. It’s that kind of place.
By the way, the following day (Wednesday June 26 @ 6:30pm) the Embiggen Book
Club is doing Machine Man.
Details here!
Other Places
You know I’d come if I could. It’s not you; it’s me. Me, not being near you.
May 24, 2013
Dear Pirates: This is How to Help
pirated my stuff, because they feel kind of bad about it, and wonder if they
can pay me somehow. (Except one time when a guy said he’d pirated a compilation
of “100 Great E-Books” and he just wanted to let me know I was in it, as a compliment.
A kind of compliment.)
For example:
Now I had read your latest blog post about the movie the other day saying it had
been released on iTunes and some cable websites, so <pirate pirate pirate>,
so right now Syrup is 42% completed, and with my guilt (and procrastination,
as I’m still typing this email) growing with every percentage, I thought to ask your
opinion.
I’ve been looking forward to the Syrup movie since I read the book and thought
“This would make a damn good movie!”, and then came the first rumours or it
actually becoming one, so of course I want to support the production company
and in turn future movies/series (I’m trying not to get my hopes up for Jennifer
Government), but I can’t wait.
Would there be a PayPal donation link I can use to throw you the cost of a movie
ticket? Or should I watch it now and when it eventually hits theatres and see you
as a waiter on the big screen? Buy the DVD?
What, as the writer of the source material for a movie, do you think is the most
beneficial method (to whoever you think deserves it. I of course, thought you)
of paying for my viewing pleasure?
The general answer is that you should tell people you watched it. Or that you read it,
if it’s a book. You should tweet, “Just finished <whatever>,
highly recommended,” assuming you liked it, or “Just finished <whatever>”
if you didn’t. Or post on Facebook. Or write a nice review somewhere.
If you do this, you are all square in my eyes. In fact, I’d bet most artists
and content creators feel the same way. Because the major problem they face isn’t
that people pirate their work; it’s that nobody knows they exist.
Getting people talking is massive. Enormous amounts of time and energy
are poured into getting people talking about every single book and film and song
ever released. You, talking about a book/film/song, is really valuable. I
can’t emphasize that enough. It can galvanize all kinds of great outcomes.
A Pirate Tip Jar (Jaarrrrr), on the other hand, would be a bad move.
Lots of people work on books and films, not just me; even on a novel, I’m
due no more than 15% of what you pay. I don’t want anyone thinking they can cut
those people out and pay me directly. Also, I suspect the number of
people who say they’d love to pay for X if only there were a more convenient
way of doing so is far greater than the number of people who would actually
pay. I mean, it’s a nice sentiment. But we generally pay for things because
we have to. That’s just how it works.
So instead of wishing you could tip an artist for something you pirated,
talk about it. That’s good for everyone involved. If you have nothing good to
say, even a simple mention is helpful. Not a bad mention. That’s not helpful.
But the difference between pirating something and saying nothing vs. pirating
something and mentioning it to other people is really, really huge.
Of course, piracy is kind of wrong. I feel I need to say that explicitly.
It’s kind of wrong because people who create something like a
book or movie or song should be able to decide if and how they’ll sell it.
Just because it’s more than you’d like to pay doesn’t mean it’s fair to pirate;
everything is more than you’d like to pay. If Justin Timberlake made a CD and
priced it at a thousand dollars a copy, such would be his right.
But it would be pretty silly of Justin to think people wouldn’t pirate that.
Especially fans, and especially if that CD was only released in one country
at a time and didn’t work on everyone’s players. I would be surprised if Justin
wasn’t fully aware that this situation would provoke quite a lot
of piracy. I have no idea why I’m using Justin Timberlake as an example.
That just happened. But what I’m saying is that while piracy is generally
bad for artists, and we want you to buy real books/tickets/MP3s/downloads,
I recognize that piracy happens sometimes anyway. And if it happened to you,
and you want to say thanks, you can do a lot of good by spreading the word.
May 2, 2013
Thoughts As My Movie Comes Out
Official
Syrup Website •
Trailer •
Watch on iTunes (US) •
Cable On Demand (US) •
Early Theater Screenings (US) •
Clip Where Max Tries to Act
People are about to watch my movie. Seriously. This is happening.
Until now, I’ve been able to say, “Oh yes, I have a movie,”
and no-one could say, “Yeah, I thought that SUCKED.” Because no-one had seen
it. That time is over.
Today, May 2, 2013, Syrup launches as a “sneak” on Video on Demand,
which is something I had no idea about until very recently, but I have since learned is
how you release an indie movie to generate buzz ahead of its theatrical
release. If you live in the US, you can
.
Also, if you have some kind of premium digital cable thing, you can
use that.
I’m not sure of the details there. I don’t live in the US. But it’s something like that.
The dream here is that Syrup breaks into the Top 10 Movie Rentals on iTunes.
That would be huge. So if you are in the US and want to help push it up the list, today is the day.
But back to me.
Over the last few years I’ve thought a lot about what happens if, like,
the movie turns out to be so bad that they write newspaper articles about it
and people come to my house asking why I would visit such an abomination
upon the earth. Also, what if it becomes the breakout hit of the year and
they write newspaper articles about it and people come to my house
asking can I help them sleep with Kellan Lutz.
Because movies get seen by a lot of people. And those people have strong opinions.
That’s a little daunting. Also, some people who read the novel have been
amazingly supportive of my career over 10 or 15 years, and I don’t want
them to be disappointed. Yet that’s kind of unavoidable, when adapting a book,
since a film can never match what’s in your head.
On
top of this, I still haven’t seen the movie. A while back, I decided to wait until I could
see it in a theater, since it’s kind of a big moment for me. But I didn’t anticipate
this on-demand sneak thing. I’m in Australia, where the film isn’t released until
November, and now I have this slightly awkward scenario where a lot of people will see it
before me.
So the movie is suddenly here and I don’t know what people will think.
Before I have a book published, I’ve at least
seen some early reviews, and the publisher has completed a print run (thrillingly
high or alarmingly small), which gives me a general idea of what to expect.
But today: nope. Which is kind of scary.
But I am going to try not to become lost in that, and remember to enjoy
how awesome it is to, you know, have a freaking movie. I’ve seen authors
do this: they dream of being published, but when it
finally happens, they’re so preoccupied with whether it will be
a hit that they don’t seem to actually enjoy the moment.
The reality is most books and movies aren’t breakout hits: they are read or seen
by some people, and some of those people love it and some don’t. And that’s it.
This isn’t very romantic, not the kind of thing you imagine about when you
dream of being an author or actor or filmmaker. But it’s still pretty great.
One of my favorite moments as an author is an email I received from a 14-year-old
who said Jennifer Government was the best book he’d read in his life.
It was so cute. I mean, obviously he hadn’t read that many books. But no-one
could be more gushingly, genuinely enthusiastic than this kid. I will never get a
more delighted email, no matter how many books I write, or how many people read them.
As far as creating something that connects with people, that’s as good as it gets.
This movie process has been awesome
all the way through. I got to write scripts, swap ideas with the director,
hang out on set, and try not to strangle Amber Heard with a necklace.
These are all amazing moments that I would have killed for as a 23-year-old,
writing the novel in my car during lunch breaks from my sales job. And
today is another one.
ONE MORE THING: How similar is the movie to the book?
Although I haven’t seen it, and don’t know how much of various scripts I wrote
are in the final movie, I do know I wrote a lot of stuff that departed heavily from the
book’s plot. I didn’t change the characters or the world much, but I changed what
they did. I mention this because I don’t think you should
go into the film expecting it to be exactly the same. I never wanted the film
to be like the book only with all the parts you imagined now filled in.
I wanted it to be something new.
May 1, 2013
Max Barry, Act-or
could totally believe I was a waiter. Some assistance provided by Amber Heard.
Here is the blog I wrote about filming that day, by the way,
if you’d like to relive my gut-churning terror.
April 10, 2013
Compendium of News
so easy to post stuff there. I hardly even need to think about it.
For a blog I actually have to spend time composing
my thoughts. I know that’s not really evident, but I do.
As a result, I have accumulated a COMPENDIUM OF NEWS, each item of
which failed to inspire a blog all by itself, but which nevertheless
requires mention. So buckle in, sparky.
Syrup Movie: Trailer & US Release Date
There was a
teaser, now there’s a trailer!
Those are different, trust me.
The film is out June 6, 2013 in the US. But there’s something called a “sneak
on demand” on May 2nd, which I think is some kind of Internet thing?
I don’t know. Will it be viable outside the US? I don’t know! But I’m excited!
I think that’s my shoulder at
1:10.
I’m not sure. I didn’t think I was wearing
a jacket. But I was
definitely
standing behind Amber Heard while she made
sexy at the camera and no-one else was around. Don’t tell me I imagined that.
It happened.
Lexicon: Early Reviews
My fifth novel,
Lexicon, comes out June 18 in the US & Canada and a few days later
in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. I’m not promising
this is the novel that will finally allow you to talk about me without
the other person saying, “Who?”, but the early signs are good.
There’s a big print run lined up, early reviews are very positive,
and awesome people are saying awesome things:
“About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart,
ridiculously funny, and fast as hell.” —Lev Grossman, New York Times
bestselling author of ‘The Magicians’
“Lexicon grabbed me with the opening lines, and never let go. An absolutely
thrilling story, featuring an array of compelling characters in an eerily
credible parallel society, punctuated by bouts of laugh-out-loud humor.”
—Chris Pavone, New York Times Bestselling author of ‘The Expats’
“I don’t know how you could craft a better weekend read than this novel
of international intrigue and weaponized Chomskian linguistics.
It’s the perfect mix of philosophical play and shotgun-inflected chase
scenes. Like someone let Grant Morrison loose on the Bourne identity
franchise.”
—Austin Grossman, author of ‘Soon I Will be Invincible’ and ‘You’
“Dazzling and spectacularly inventive. A novel that jams itself sideways
into your brain and stays there.”
—Mike Carey, author of ‘Hellblazer’ and ‘Lucifer’
And there’s
this Amazon.com review
I really like and
this one
and
this
from bitethebook.com and a soon-to-be-released
starred
review from Kirkus.
Also film rights to Lexicon have been optioned by
Matthew Vaughn, director of
a slew of incredible movies including Kick-Ass 1 & 2,
X-Men: First Class,
Startdust, and Layer Cake. Did I mention this already?
I don’t think I did. Anyway,
I think we’ve been down this road often enough
to realize that “optioned” doesn’t mean “there will definitely
be a film.” But it does mean there might be.
And I think Matthew’s record of turning optioned properties into films is
running at around 90%. That’s what he told me, anyway. So that could happen.
Book Tours & Events & Things
Melbourne, Australia: I’ll be launching Lexicon at an
Embiggen Books event on the day of Aussie publication (Tuesday 25th June).
They have a
Countdown Timer
running so you can always know exactly how many seconds you have to wait.
USA: So this is kind of awkward, because I have a film and a book coming out
a few weeks apart and I live a really long way away. I mean, it’s the good
kind of awkward. It’s the kind of problem you like to have. But at this stage it’s looking
like I’ll be in the US for early June, either in LA or New York, but won’t
come back for a whole tour. I’m thinking I might do some kind of pre-release thing
in whichever city I visit, where I read from the new book and then leave
you all frustrated and unable to purchase a copy.
UK & elsewhere: Sorry, you need to make me a lot more famous, to justify those air fares.
Jennifer Government
Do you want a Jennifer Government wallpaper? Of course you do! You’re not
crazy!
Digital artist
Mark Hirst
decided to do these for no particular reason and kindly
made them available
in several sizes.
Also these days Jennifer Government is looking less like a film
and more like a TV series. Just FYI.
Machine Man
Look at this Korean Machine Man cover. There’s a flamingo on it. Are
there flamingos in the novel? No! Not that I recall. But there it is. The back
of the cover has a whale and a stag as well. 
Japan
Korea
On the right is the Japanese cover, which I think is super cool. That comes out
on May 10. I say this knowing full well that not a single person will
think, “Oh, that’s good to know. I’m an English-speaking Max Barry fan living in Japan
right now.” But still.
Also
that Machine Man film
is still ticking along. You might have thought that since there has
been nothing announced for a year or two, that dream was gone. But no! FYI.
January 15, 2013
Book Sadist
wanted a book. His dad was not sure he should have the book. The
issue wasn’t the book itself; the book was fine. The issue was that
the book was #3 in a series, and Dad established that the boy had borrowed
the first two from a library.
“Why don’t you borrow this one from the library and I’ll buy you
a different book?” he said.
The boy mumbled something I didn’t catch but I’m guessing was
some variation of, “I want this book.”
I figured that Dad was seeing the book as an object, and feeling it would
be wrong to have book #3 sitting on the shelf without
#1 and #2. The boy was seeing the book as a story he wanted
to get into his head. He had already loaded books #1 and #2 into
his head and he didn’t much care how #3 got there.
E-books have made a lot of people think about whether they want
books or stories. Because you can get stories
cheaply and efficiently in e-book form, but you can’t put them on your
bookshelf. You can’t gaze lovingly over your collection, or hold
them in your hands and feel the paper speak to you.
Really, though, it’s only the latest manifestation of an old dilemma. There
have always been people who have treated books with reverence,
laminating their covers, turning their pages with care, and never
cracking their spines. And there have been people like me.
I don’t set out to destroy my favorite books. They just wind up that way. And
while I have no problem with people who take care of their books,
I have to admit I don’t quite get it. Sometimes people bring me a book
to be signed and they apologize because the book is dog-eared and
crumpled. I love seeing that. Those books have been loved. Hard.
P.S. The boy got his book. I saw him walking out with it.
November 9, 2012
Lexicon Covers
and one for the rest of the English-speaking world. They’re super different.
This means either that one publisher is making a big mistake or that each
understands the tastes of its own market best and those tastes are quite
different. Or else that art is subjective. It’s one of those.
UK & other English
USA & Canada
Click a cover for a larger version.
I am happy with these covers. I especially like the boldness of the American
version. Although maybe I’m biased because my name is freaking huge. It’s
hard to dislike that.
I would like to name and thank the cover designers, but I don’t know who they
are. I’m going to find out and update this post. I assume it’s someone.
Lexicon is due for publication in June 2013.
October 3, 2012
First "Syrup" Movie Stills
Stills! Where do they come from? How do they get out there? I don’t know.
But they have begun popping up on sites like
Amber Heard Web,
Shiloh Fernandez Source,
Kellan Lutz Online,
and
Syrup Movie Fans.
So: behold!
(Unless you want to completely avoid spoilers. As in, you
haven’t read the book. And you don’t intend to. But you really want to see
the movie. And you’re browsing my site. You’re a strange person.)
Amber Heard as 6, Shiloh Fernandez as Scat:
Scat gazes skyward while a machine lurks ominously in the background:
Kellan Lutz as Sneaky Pete:
Now for some ANSWERS to COMMON QUESTIONS.
I don’t believe there’s an official release date yet, but it can’t
be too far away now, can it? Not with these STILLS. So I’m guessing
within the next six months.
I haven’t
seen the film; I am waiting until I can see it in a cinema.
Because having a novel turned into a feature film, that’s
kind of a big deal. I don’t want to watch the end result of that on a DVD.
I want to sit in a theater and crane my neck and eat popcorn. Right?
The movie doesn’t strictly follow the plot of the book. I can say that
without seeing it because I wrote many screenplay drafts,
and they didn’t strictly follow the plot of the book. I don’t think movies
should be like books only with all the parts you’d normally imagine filled in.
I think they should do their own thing. They should be true to the core
of the book but express that in whichever ways work best.
Also, you know how I rewrite my novels to death? Oh. Well, I do. I change
a lot in each new draft. So imagine me adapting my own novel. It’s a miracle
anything survived.
If you missed it before, here is
a teaser.
I think it’s awesome. I was so happy when I saw this. I watched it
about thirty times in a row.
September 23, 2012
Syrup movie teaser
had been made up for distribution people, and posted it to YouTube.
This is the same teaser I saw in February but wasn’t allowed to show
anyone. But now it’s out there!
If you want a second-by-second analysis of exactly which lines are from
the book and which I wrote for the screenplay and which they added and
where I was standing when they filmed what, I am totally prepared to do that.
September 20, 2012
Revenge of the Rats
In1957, a psychologist named B. F. Skinner decided to see what happened
when you put a rat in a cage with a lever that made food come out.
He discovered that if the food came out whenever the lever was pushed, the rat
would settle into a healthy work-life balance of pushing levers and running
hamster wheels. But if the lever only delivered food sometimes—if
it randomly might or might not—the rat would work that lever like there was
no tomorrow.
This research
underpinned much development of poker machines and gaming.
Now Diablo III reveals what happens when the rats have
internet access: they bitch about drop rates.
The Diablo series of games are simple:
you run through dungeons, hit monsters, and collect the items that fall
out. Usually the items are crappy, but sometimes, randomly,
they’re awesome, and allow you to fight even more powerful monsters, which can
randomly drop even more awesome items. The game ends when you starve to death
in your apartment surrounded by empty soda cans.
Actually, that’s not true: there is an end-game. Your character can’t progress
beyond level 60 and there’s a hard maximum to the potential quality of items. So there is
a diminishing returns thing: early in the game, you find better
items often, but as your equipment approaches the theoretical
maximum, your odds of finding something better become decreasingly smaller.
Diablo III had a few problems when it launched,
and there was
much bitching on internet forums. A great deal of the bitching was about
drop rates; that is, how likely food was to arrive when you pressed the lever. Players
thought drop rates were too low, if you were wondering. They
wanted food to come out more regularly. A very popular proposal, one
mentioned in almost every discussion, no matter how relevant, was
that more situations should deliver “a guaranteed rare,”
a “rare” being a high-quality item. That is, instead of food only coming
out sometimes when you pushed the lever, it would come out every time.
This feedback around drop rates was offered to the developers in the form of an unholy maelstrom
of teenage-grade internet fury that raged for many weeks. Players railed against the bitterness of
a life of inadequate drop rates, expressing their incomprehension that such
stupidity should exist and turning viciously against their former idol,
game designer Jay Wilson, who was now revealed not as a benevolent
provider of sometimes-food but rather the very face of evil,
Diablo himself, as it were, He Who Made The Lever Not Work Often Enough.
Some of the angst was understandable. Diablo III introduced an in-game
Auction House, which meant that
instead of throwing your old items away as you found new ones, you could
sell them to other players for gold. The marketplace being virtual
and therefore operating with a degree of efficiency rarely seen in the real
world, it was soon a lot easier to find good items on the Auction House than
to go around hitting monsters hoping that one would randomly fall out.
This in turn allowed players to obtain items approaching the hard maximum
quite quickly after starting the game, and rendering their chances of
thereafter seeing anything better randomly drop from a monster close to zero.
After sufficient buffeting, the developers decided to increase drop rates.
They also created more
“guaranteed rare” situations. This was very warmly received by
the community. It wasn’t enough, though, and since then drop rates have been raised
again, and “legendary” items radically overhauled to make them much
better, i.e. more like food. At the same time, a new reward system was introduced
called “Paragon Levels,” which periodically deliver such an enormous explosion of
congratulation to the player that it almost feels sarcastic. This has quieted
community angst, although at this point it’s hard to tell how many of them are left.
I suspect a lot have stopped pushing the lever.
The interesting part about the rats who like to gamble is that they don’t do
it for food. They don’t press the lever only as many times as required to deliver the
same amount of food as when food delivery is guaranteed: they press it more often
and more rapidly. They like to see if they can win. Although “like” could be the wrong
word; it may be more accurate to say that the uncertainty creates stress, which
they feel the need to resolve. I would imagine there are some pretty pissed-off
rats, when they press the lever a bunch of times and still nothing happens. They
would rage on the internet if they could. And they’d be justified, since it
wasn’t their choice to get in the cage.
Somebody put them there, who knew what would happen.
