INTERVIEWER: I was in
Albuquerque New Mexico.
And as far as I remember, if
you go east, you get to Roswell.
If you go west,
you get to the VLA.
There's a desert, White Sands.
There's lava rocks--
the lava canyons.
I mean, the whole areas like out
of the science fiction story.
So-- and there's a
rocket museum, right.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yup.
INTERVIEWER: There's stuff
from V-2s to Apollo programs.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: We also
have the atomic museum,
because we're pretty
close Trinity.
Trinity site's in
the neighborhood too.
INTERVIEWER: Trinity site
is in the neighborhood.
So I mean, is this where science
fiction writers should live?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Well,
we have a tremendous--
INTERVIEWER: The real
estate in Albuquerque--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: It's also
not really expensive.
So that helps.
TY FRANCK: Yeah, most
science fiction writers
are pretty broke.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: There will
be a spaceport that
is getting built out
there, the Virgin.
TY FRANCK: The Virgin
spaceport, right?
INTERVIEWER: Virgin spaceport.
I mean, with Branson coming
in, like real estate--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And
there are rumors,
I don't think it's
been nailed down,
that the Tesla plant may
come play with us, too.
TY FRANCK: Yeah,
the battery plant.
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
So yeah, when you
have that much cheap
land good things happen.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever
use anything from that area?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah, actually
we did, with the third book.
One of the things we've
been doing with the books
is kind of cycling in
and out new characters
to make the world that
we're writing in larger.
And one of the things
we did in the third book
was we were looking
to say, you know.
We haven't actually had
anybody from a really
unfamiliar culture, that
we'd like to put somebody
in that has a very
specific cultural identity
and a very, very
idiosyncratic way of moving
through the world.
And we realized that the
thing that we actually
knew that we could
draw from was being
a New Mexican, because
nobody's like us.
[LAUGHTER]
TY FRANCK: Actually,
what we said
was we need a culture that
is identifiably third world.
And New Mexico was it.
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
New Mexico's great.
I mean, it's a
very strange place.
My mother is an architect
and worked in New Mexico
her whole career.
And she had a quote
above her desk
from Governor Lew Wallace, which
was, plans based on experience
elsewhere fail in New Mexico.
[LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: I love that.
TY FRANCK: It's
also, I think, one
of the few places
in America where
you can catch a
hemorrhagic fever.
So we've got that going for us.
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
And bubonic plague.
TY FRANCK: And bubonic plague.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And
we're number two
in the world for
necrotizing fasciitis.
TY FRANCK: Yeah.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Woo hoo!
INTERVIEWER: So that's--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: You
know, it's what you have.
You talk it up.
INTERVIEWER: That's,
we're setting.
We're setting here.
Anyway, we came here because
probably most of the room
is interested in you work
on the Expanse series, which
as has been announced, has
been optioned, not optioned,
but will be produced
by the Syfy Channel.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yup.
INTERVIEWER: So we'll talk about
that later in our conversation.
But I mean, can you
tell us briefly,
because this has been probably
told over and over again,
why the Expanse series?
How did that start?
TY FRANCK: Well, before
Daniel or after Daniel?
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
Start with before.
INTERVIEWER: Before.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Well,
there's so much before me.
TY FRANCK: Yeah,
the before Daniel
is a friend of mine
asked me to help
her develop a
pitch for an MMORP.
And The Expanse is
what I came up with.
And you can still see
the bones of it in there.
At the time, "World of
Warcraft" still ruled the world.
And we knew we couldn't
compete with them in fantasy.
So we thought about
trying sci-fi.
And "EVE Online" existed,
but the limitation of EVE
is you can't get out
of your spaceship.
You pretty much, your
character is a spaceship.
And we wanted to see if
it was possible to do one
where you fly around.
But you can also
get out and have
adventures in a human avatar.
And so I came up with the idea.
And you could see
the bones in there,
because "World of
Warcraft" has two factions.
We thought, hey,
we'll be better.
We'll have three.
So we have Earth,
Mars, and the OPA
would be the three factions
where you would start the game.
And all the various
moons and bases
were instances where you
would go to have adventures.
And I put a bunch
of time into it
and then turned out one of the
people working on it was crazy.
And we all sort of just
backed away slowly.
And then I just had this
huge binder full of stuff
and decided to play around with
it, running like a tabletop
game in that setting, just
to see if the setting worked,
if there was anything
fun to do there.
And that's when
Daniel showed up.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And Ty had
moved to Albuquerque and--
INTERVIEWER: Why'd you
move to Albuquerque?
TY FRANCK: My wife did
her undergraduate at UNM.
Yeah.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Because they
have really good architecture
program and it's not
really expensive.
INTERVIEWER: Good plug.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah.
And I met Ty because
he came into my writers
group and my critique group.
And I was solemnly
enjoined, as was everybody,
that this couple was
moving to Albuquerque.
And we should all
be nice to them.
And so you know, sure.
And it turned out we liked
them, so that helped.
And we would like the
geographically nearest to them
of everybody in the group.
And I got to do his
role playing game.
And we played a few nights.
And I saw his three ring binder.
He had a three binder
that thick full
of all of the world
building stuff
and all of the information
about the settings.
And any time I asked
him a question,
he just knew the answer.
So I could say, well, we're
in this space station.
What do the quarters look like?
And he could just tell me.
And I kind of got into
the game, to the point
that I was like writing email at
3:00 in the morning saying, OK.
I can understand
now how we can, I
know how we can redo
the monetary system
so that it works.
And as this political break
down goes, we can take the debt.
And he was like you know,
it's 3:00 in the morning.
[LAUGHTER]
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And
what I was thinking
was he's done all
the world building.
And the world building
is not my favorite part.
So maybe we could just
take that and use it.
And so I went to him and said,
we should make this a book.
And the plan at the
time was to do a book,
and sell it for pizza money,
and have had a fun adventure.
And then we kind of overshot.
INTERVIEWER: Which
is always good.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: Ty, how did you
feel about like the whole book
thing.
I mean, was that ever
in your plans, or--
TY FRANCK: I-- as you can
see from my job history,
I'm sort of a creature
of the moment.
I just wander from
thing to thing.
And so when he said,
hey, we should try this.
I was like, yeah, OK.
I haven't done that yet.
Let's try that.
And based on my experience,
100% of the time when
you write a book, it will be
an international best seller.
And you'll get a TV show.
So that seems like
a good thing to do.
INTERVIEWER: So will this
stop you from wandering now?
TY FRANCK: No.
No.
No, I'm a person who gets
bored very quickly, so--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah,
it's kind of astounding
that he's still doing this.
TY FRANCK: Well, they
keep buying more of them.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: I know.
TY FRANCK: I was like
three, and I'm out.
And then they're like now, no.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Six and I'm out.
TY FRANCK: Six and then nine.
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
Nine I'm out there.
TY FRANCK: Yeah.
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
Yeah, you're stuck.
INTERVIEWER: Space operas could
last for a long time, right.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: You
know, it was really--
INTERVIEWER: Epics.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yes, and yet
when we started writing it,
all of our friends
were telling us not to.
Because science
fiction has been kind
of going through this
phase where it like totally
didn't sell.
And they were
saying oh, you know
what's really
selling is fantasy.
You should write an epic
swords and sorcery fantasy.
And I was like, but he
didn't do the world building
for that, so no.
INTERVIEWER: That was easy.
TY FRANCK: Fantasy is for hacks.
[LAUGHTER]
DANIEL ABRAHAM: You
guys know he used
to work for George
RR Martin, right.
He can say those things.
And so, yeah, the
expectation going
in by a bunch of our
peers was that it
would fail because
it was space opera,
and because that was not a genre
that had an audience anymore.
And there has been some
reconsideration since then.
INTERVIEWER: And it obviously
didn't, but on the contrary,
it has a massive following.
I've been reading a little
bit about "Leviathan Wakes."
You know, I found some
people really enjoyed it.
So "Leviathan Wakes"
manages to star
both a world-weary detective
and an idealistic space captain
with a smart mouthed
love interest
and a wise-cracking ship's
crew in the background.
It's also just impossible
to stop reading.
It's also funny without
trying too hard and thoughtful
without being overly
constructed or preachy.
It's the book I
have been looking
for every time I
picked up a space epic.
I just didn't know
until I found it.
I like that one.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: That was sweet.
TY FRANCK: That was nice.
Who wrote that?
INTERVIEWER: So
writing space epics
may seen as not the
real science fiction,
not the high brow like--
TY FRANCK: No.
And it's deliberately not.
INTERVIEWER: It is
deliberately not.
But that being said,
I mean, I think
we can agree the three of us
easily that's what goes on
with the characters and
what goes on in the plots,
I mean, borrows from the
world and let us actually
see today's world
through a different lens
in some respects.
So it's not completely isolated
from the human experience.
Can you perhaps expand
a little bit on that?
TY FRANCK: There's, I mean,
I don't remember who said it,
but somebody talking
about science fiction
said every science fiction
novel is written about the time
that it's written in.
So that's why all the science
fiction in the '40s and '50s
is about invasion of the
other, with the Red Scare,
and all of that.
The science fiction
of the '70s and '80s
tended to be sort
of post apocalyptic.
And so I mean, you don't intend
to do those things, I think.
I mean, maybe some people
do, but we're not that smart.
But it's going to
sneak in there.
We found out after we wrote
it that we were writing
about WikiLeaks before
WikiLeaks happened.
Because we actually wrote
the book before WikiLeaks.
And then everybody's
like, oh this book
was clearly written about
freedom of information.
We didn't mean to be about that.
But it turned out
we kind of were.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
We should probably open
it to the audience.
Let's mix in some questions.
AUDIENCE: So what
science fiction writers
do you guys read?
And maybe you could divide
it up into like classic
versus like the
newer generation.
TY FRANCK: So classics,
my favorite classic book
of all time is "Stars My
Destination" by Alfred Bester.
And you can see
"Stars My Destination"
all over in the stuff I write.
I read it when I
was about 11, which
was way too young to
be reading that book.
But it was the perfect time
to have it reset my brain,
so that my brain now is the
version that has been reset
by "Stars My Destination."
In the new stuff, I'm
a big John Scalzi fan
and have been since
the beginning.
I do I like the
project he's doing,
which is to write old
school sci-fi without racism
and sexism, which is kind of the
same thing I want to be doing.
But yet probably those
two-- and it's more horror,
but I love Joe Hill's stuff.
I guess that's more
horror than sci-fi.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: I grew up-- my
first kind of science fiction
experience was "Nine
Billion Names of God"
by Arthur Clarke, which
kind of broke my head.
And I've never
entirely recovered.
But I read a lot of Larry Niven.
I read a lot of Harry Harrison.
I read a lot of Arthur Clarke.
I read some Heinlein, but I kind
of came to Heinlein too late.
By the ti-- you kind
of need to hit Heinlein
when you're too young
to see how it's dated.
Because the first Heinlein
I read, I was in my '20s
and it was "Stranger
in a Strange Land."
And that was oddly
anticlimactic,
having read-- heard about
how important Heinlein was.
To come that, I was
thinking really?
OK.
More recently, I will
follow Kim Stanley Robinson
pretty much any
place he wants to go.
And I will hold up Ted Chiang
as the best science fiction
author.
If anybody here has not read
the short stories of Ted Chiang,
I got something for you.
You can thank me later.
He has a collection
out there, I think
"A Story of Your
Life and Others?"
Is that--
TY FRANCK: "Stories
of Your Life."
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
"Stories of Your Life
and Others," that is literally
the best science fiction
that has been written.
TY FRANCK: Yeah.
And sort of a bridging
between the Heinlein
and the modern stuff, Joe
Haldeman, one of my favorites.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah,
Joe Haldeman's amazing.
TY FRANCK: All of
his stuff is great.
INTERVIEWER: Go ahead.
AUDIENCE: You mentioned
the world building part.
Could you talk a little bit more
about how you do collaboration?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Sure.
Collaboration is
a game and needs
to be designed like a game.
And because I-- when
we started this,
I had actually written
several novels.
I had like six or
seven, I don't know.
But Ty hadn't
written any novels.
And so I got to kind
of claim authority
that I probably didn't
actually have and tell them
how it all works.
And so I could make up rules and
he would know they were crap.
So I could say things like
chapters are 3,000 words long.
Which I think is
true, but other people
think maybe that's a little OCD.
That's OK.
Ty didn't know better.
So he went along with it.
And so what we do, at least for
"Leviathan Wakes," the first
one, we did that on Wednesdays.
Because it was Ty's day off.
And he would come
over to my place.
Or I would go over to his place.
And we'd go through the outline.
We had a whole outline of what
the book was supposed to be,
broken into chapters.
AUDIENCE: Was that also
done collaboratively, or--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yes.
We did that collaboratively.
And the thing about the master
outline is that it's wrong.
And you should just expect that.
So we did this outline that
was how it was all going to be.
And then every Wednesday,
we'd take one chapter for Ty
and one chapter for me
and outlined exactly what
was going to happen
in those 3,000 words.
And I'd write mine.
Then Ty'd write his.
And then we'd swap.
And I'd edit his.
And he'd edit mine.
And we'd put it on the back
of the master document.
And after about
10 of those, we'd
see how the master outline was
completely wrong for the rest
them.
The first 10 chapters,
those were fine.
But then that's totally
not what happens later.
And so we'd redo the outline.
And then we'd do about
another 10 chapters
and see the last 2/3 we
have are completely wrong.
And then we'd redo the outline.
INTERVIEWER: In what
ways does it change?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Well,
lots of different ways.
The actions that
you think are going
to take five chapters to really
unfold, you do in 2,000 words.
And then you think, oh shit.
And sometimes the characters who
you've put in who you thought
were really minor
characters turn out
to be really interesting.
And you want to spend
more time with them.
INTERVIEWER: Exploring them.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And they have
something to say about the plot
that you weren't expecting to
have a graceful way to say.
And then you have a
graceful way to say it,
so you kind of do that.
I mean, we have
friends who are very
into just exploring
the text as you go
and not really having
that hard plant
because they feel
like it takes away
the spontaneity of writing.
That is not our experience.
AUDIENCE: And should I take
anything out of the fact
that that was the most
non-collaborative answer
that I've ever seen?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: No,
we just, you know--
AUDIENCE: He didn't say a word.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: You
want to say something?
TY FRANCK: Yeah, what
Daniel said mostly.
[LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: There you go.
Let me-- actually
so Ty, what did you
teach Daniel in
this whole process?
TY FRANCK: I mean, I
started out teaching him
what the world looks like.
And--
INTERVIEWER: The constructed
world or this world?
TY FRANCK: Well, both probably.
He was shockingly
naive when [INAUDIBLE].
But the constructed
world, but also
helping him find the voice that
Jimmy needed to have, I think.
One of the stories he didn't
tell about when we first
started is he actually wrote the
prologue and the first chapter.
And the voice was all wrong.
And I don't know how I knew
that, but I knew in my head
it was the wrong voice.
So I rewrote them.
And then he wrote
the second chapter.
And we alternated
from there on out.
But sort of a jointly
targeting in on what
that voice was
supposed to be like.
Because Daniel had
done almost entirely
epic fantasy up to that point.
And there's a voice that works
in epic fantasy that is not,
we call him Jimmy, the pen name.
But it's not Jimmy's voice.
Jimmy has as a different
voice than that.
Jimmy is much more sort
of that '70s sci-fi
kind of just to the point.
Here is what happened.
Here is just simple
declarative sentences.
Not a lot of purple prose.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: I was going
to say pacing and action.
TY FRANCK: And pacing
and action, yeah.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Were not
my strong suits going in.
TY FRANCK: Well, so Daniel
has this thing where--
and he'll be the
first to admit it,
so I'm not telling
tales about him,
where when he's
working on his own,
he tends to write
his way into books.
So the first, I don't
know, what would you
say, like 20% of a book,
somewhere in that--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Is
all set up and--
TY FRANCK: Yeah.
And he's figuring
out what the book's
going to be about by writing it.
I replace all of
that with explosions.
So even in the
project, his fantasy
project he's working
on now, I helped him
sort of with some of the
early world building in.
And I read some of the early
stuff and I would say, OK.
So you have this part here.
And it's beautifully written.
And it's people thinking
about their place in the world
and thinking about their lives.
And maybe you should replace
it with a sword fight.
So yeah, definitely in
pacing it's different.
And what's interesting is
that his new epic fantasy
series, which is great, reads
more like our joint project
than like his first
solo project, I think.
If he taught me that
chapters are 3,000 words
and how to write
a novel, I think
maybe I taught him how to write
more sword fights or something.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
AUDIENCE: So maybe
this is a question
for Ty about the world building.
Given that this is more like
hard science fiction, where
things are-- I mean,
the science is real.
How did that affect the
world that-- I mean,
where there things
that you wanted to do,
where you did research
and you were like oh, no.
Not possible.
Not plausible.
TY FRANCK: No.
I never let facts get
in the way of awesome.
But people claim that
it's hard science fiction.
But it's actually not.
You know, you buy
plausibility so cheaply.
We just, we have
gravity work the way
that gravity actually works.
And just by doing that, you're
like oh, it's hard sci-fi.
I mean, it really
is cheap stuff.
I mean, w I did
some research on how
what I think fusion
reactors will work.
And just said, yeah, OK.
They work that way.
I did some research on one
theoretical engine design,
super theoretical, that
would get rid of the heat--
so the problem with constant
thrust in spaceships
is you burn through all
your fuel really quickly.
And you heat the
ship up too much.
So there was this
one design somebody
was theorizing that
you would actually
use the heat to conserve fuel.
And so I just pretended
that that works.
And we called the
up steam drive.
But we're never going
to explain what that is.
Because any minute
now, somebody will
realize that that
doesn't actually work.
And then we'll look stupid.
So what we mostly do is just
take the really easy stuff
like gravity and
put it in there.
And then people think
it's harder than it is.
But to answer your
question, the cool thing
that comes out of that is the
few things that you do keep,
like we keep a
light delay, those
don't actually
become hindrances.
They become plot points.
Because it's really interesting
when somebody desperately
needs to talk to
somebody else and they
have to wait an hour and
a half for an answer,
because that's not
our experience now.
I'll call you on the phone
and then at most, the delay
is going to be like
a tenth of a second,
even when I'm talking
to across the world.
When we have characters who
desperately need information,
and they're sending a
request for that information.
And then you'll wait.
And you know, I just picture it
like the little spinning ball
on your screen.
Like, OK it's three hours
until I can get an answer back
from this.
And its cool when ships take
awhile to get somewhere.
I desperately need to get
here and solve this problem.
And three weeks from
now, I'll be there.
those become cool plot
points that actually come out
of trying to keep at least
a little plotably realistic.
Daniel calls it Wikipedia
level plausibility,
which is pretty much
what it should be called.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: You
need a standard.
AUDIENCE: OK.
So my turn, I guess.
One of the things that I
really loved about the books
was that every time I
picked up a new one,
it was like the story
was completely fresh.
You started with a
brand new people.
And it was like it
was a whole new book.
And yet you got
pulled in to wherever
you left off the last book.
So what I was wondering
was about the series that's
going to come out
on Syfy is it going
to be sort of like "Game
of Thrones," where you're
going to do--
seriously, where you're
going to do the first
series as the first book.
And then the second
series will start fresh,
just like the second book did?
That was really a lovely
thing about the series.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: This
is the part where
if we say the
wrong thing, ninjas
come down from the
ceiling and kill us.
AUDIENCE: Sorry about that.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: That's OK.
No, that's a fair question.
I cannot-- I know the
answer to that question.
And I cannot tell you the
answer to that question.
But I can say that the
answer to that question
makes me very happy.
AUDIENCE: Excellent.
OK.
INTERVIEWER: So actually,
let me interject here.
So the reason-- the technical
reason we're here today,
let's not forget that OK, is
the latest book in the series.
Help me with the pronunciation
is it "seebola"--?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Cilbola.
INTERVIEWER: Cibola.
So you have books in the back.
So they are at the
subsidized price as well.
What can you tell us about
the latest installment
without divulging--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Without
all the spoilers?
Well--
INTERVIEWER: With all
the spoilers, yeah.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: It
turns out they're all--
INTERVIEWER: Let
me actually read
what I found about the book.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Go for it.
INTERVIEWER: I'm sure you
will be interested as well.
So there are many points,
POWs, not POWs-- there
are many points of
view in "Cibola Burn."
But it does my
favorite thing when
it comes to stories like this.
It connects them all and
tells an interwoven story,
sort of like a massive
four-sided Venn diagram.
"Cibola Burn" also
brings back one
of the best parts about this
series, the delicate politics
between the inner
and outer planets.
The politics and the alien,
horror, mystery elements
are blended well, giving us
a very interesting storyline
to follow.
Another huge thing that
I like about this series
is that they get
the biology right.
More science fiction focuses
on physics or mathematics
and then butcher
the biology parts.
This doesn't.
This is the science
fiction series
you need to be
currently reading.
How about that?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: That's nice.
I'm glad they thought so.
TY FRANCK: Nice of them to say.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Nice-- I'm glad
we didn't butcher the biology.
TY FRANCK: So the one
degree we have between us
is Daniel has a
degree in biology.
So we like to put
biology into the books,
because it's the one thing
we kind of know about.
Yeah, so that's why-- and again,
Wikipedia level plausibility.
The thing we got right
is that not everything
uses DNA as its stable
replicator strands.
So just--
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
Well, we did that.
And we have some of the
chirality works the way
that chirality
works, in the idea
of things evolving over
several different iterations,
like flight.
There's more than one
time that evolved.
Because it's just a good idea.
And sight, you know,
that kind of sensory--
TY FRANCK: It's the
one Dawkins calls
good moves in designs space.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: It's not
Dawkins, it's Dennett.
TY FRANCK: Dennett, thank you.
INTERVIEWER:
Interestingly enough,
yesterday on [? KKD ?] there was
a talk about the electric fish.
And they evolved five or six
times through the evolution.
I mean it's a good idea.
And keeps re-evolving,
even if the species gets--
TY FRANCK: Eyes
are really useful.
So eyes have shown up a
bunch of different times.
Wings are really useful.
Wings have shown up a
bunch of different times.
It's amazing the
number of times poison
has evolved in totally
separate species
as a defense or an attack.
Some things just work.
And then the other
one that we used
is the fact that, depending on
your evolutionary tree, what
might be somebody's
vital protein
is deadly poison for you.
And the odds of those
things perfectly
overlapping in any two
separately evolving biology
is pretty much nil.
So things like the
stinging insects
that sting you in "Cibola
Burn" just fall over dead
immediately after
they sting you.
Because--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Ah ha,
I have taken your blood.
Oh, crap.
TY FRANCK: Yeah, your
blood is full of poison.
Just little things like that
can make it seem like we said,
Wikipedia level plausibility.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And as
I said, world building
is not my favorite thing to do.
So the fact that I'd spent
four years learning this stuff
means I can just mime that.
I don't have to do any
additional research.
So that's nice.
AUDIENCE: So I don't know
if you faced this issue,
but a lot of books which
have multiple authors
have trouble reconciling
the different writing
styles of the different authors.
So what steps did you take
to ensure that your writing
style was uniform and
consistent across chapters
and across books?
TY FRANCK: Uh, none.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: We
got really lucky.
But it's not true.
We did get really lucky.
But we also spent a lot
of time at the front
of the project talking
about what exactly
we were trying to
achieve with it.
And one of the things that's
been really interesting.
We've been in LA for
the last few weeks
working on the TV show.
And one of the
things that's really
interesting about
the horror stories
we hear about other projects
that have gone off the rails
is the degree to
which the problem
is people don't agree
what they're doing.
So we have one
example, which I will
take all the serial numbers off.
There was a project
where they went
in thinking it was
a gritty police
procedural until
somebody with power
came in and thought it
was a buddy cop comedy.
And when you have people
working at different projects
on the same project,
you're kind of boned.
We spent a lot of time agreeing
what it was we were writing.
And that actually informs a
lot of the aesthetic decisions
within the page.
TY FRANCK: And at a tactical
level, a part of what it is
is that we edit each
other's chapters.
So we both write a chapter.
We swap them.
I edit his.
He edits mine.
And I think that's where
Jimmy's voice comes from
is I sand off all
the edges that don't
sound like Jimmy in his chapter.
And he sands off
all the ones that
don't sound like
Jimmy in my chapter.
And we actually re-edit
the book two or three times
before it actually goes
out to the publisher.
And by the time
that's done, we've
both tinkered with it
enough that it becomes
hard to tell who
wrote which sentence.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: We
were having an argument
last night, because
we were looking
at the-- one of the things you
can find when book comes out
is what people are highlighting.
And we were saying, OK.
Oh, they really like this quote.
Who wrote that?
Well, it's in my chapter.
But it doesn't sound like me.
So I think that may
be one you added.
We know don't know.
We don't know who wrote what.
AUDIENCE: So my
question is did writing
any part of "The Expanse" series
send you to emotional extremes,
make you gleeful
or make you cry?
And if so, which parts?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: There were
some parts I struggled with.
Specifically, the
hard part was Ty
really had to talk
me into killing
some people one time or another.
There were some people I
really didn't want to kill.
And I was, look.
You know, but we
don't-- we could do it,
we could do it this way.
And he was like, no.
No.
No.
You're wimping out.
I was like, yes.
Yes, I am wimping out.
All right.
And we had to just
suck it up and do that.
As far as gleeful, pretty
much any time we're
writing [? Avasorada ?]
or Amos, psssh.
Those are just too
much fun to do.
And there's some really lovely
little touching moments.
The one with the-- one of the
quotes that we were talking
about from this one was a kind
of aspirational moral statement
that one of the characters
makes that I can really
wish we made as a
larger audience.
And those are-- those
get me sometimes.
Do you have emotions?
TY FRANCK: No, I mostly don't.
I am the one who argues
for killing people.
I really like
writing whenever Amos
beats somebody up
or shoots them.
I have to say Amos is my id.
Amos does all the things I would
like to be doing but don't.
It's-- I joke about this.
But in role playing
games, I almost always
play like the barbarian
with the strength of 20
and the intelligence of three.
Because I love simple
characters who have one
solve for every problem.
If the problem is not solved
by hitting it with an axe,
I'll just wait while
you guys do whatever.
As soon as you need something
hit with an axe, I'm there.
And Amos is sort of that guy.
He's a hammer.
Everything looks like a nail.
And it's really kind of freeing
and fun to write those guys.
AUDIENCE: So there was a
time, like '70s, '80s--
like, I grew up reading
a lot of science fiction,
like Asimov and all those guys.
And in the last
decade, the media
has shifted over to fantasy.
Like everyone talks about
George Martin and like,
even your old "The Long Price
Quartet" and all the fantasy
books that you wrote.
And any theories on why that's
happening, like the science
fiction has dramatically
reduced, at least in terms of--
TY FRANCK: Yeah, I have
a theory about that.
But it's not a
popular-- it's not
one that makes me popular with
other science fiction writers.
I think Daniel
agrees with me, which
is why we're able
to work together.
But I think there
was a stretch there
where science fiction got
really punishing to read.
It became deeply
unpleasant to read.
And in fact, there was a sort of
movement within science fiction
that if you were writing
science fiction that
was fun or pleasant to read,
that you were selling out.
And so during that
period, science fiction
sort of collapsed in on
itself and became increasingly
about a bunch of guys
writing for each other.
Daniel compares
it to fusion jazz.
You know, I'm a fusion
jazz man He is not.
But there's like--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: He's a musician.
I'm not.
TY FRANCK: There like 12
people in the world who
care about fusion jazz.
And they all write
songs for each other.
And unless you're
into that scene,
you just don't have the
vocabulary to understand it.
When you're doing a lot of
weird time and key changes,
it's not pleasant to listen to.
It's challenging to listen to.
And so you wind up with a
bunch of science fiction
that was like that, where it
became more important to have
like this incredibly
well thought out
what would happen if
this one thing changed
in all the societal changes.
But we don't care
about the characters.
We just care about really
tearing apart this one idea.
And to understand
if you have to have
read all the same
books I've read.
And if you haven't, then
you're not going to get it.
And it's no wonder they
chased their audience off.
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
There was actually
one fairly influential
voice in science fiction
who argued
un-ironically that plot
got in the way of
good science fiction,
that what you needed
for real science fiction
was almost speculative
essay, rather than story.
And that was a very
influential view
and is a very influential view.
And accessibility isn't
seen as often as a virtue.
It's not something--
the idea of reaching out
to folks who aren't
already really
sophisticated with
this particular group
of expectations and customs
is somehow dishonorable.
TY FRANCK: And meanwhile--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And
fantasy didn't do that.
TY FRANCK: Yeah, no,
I was going to say,
meanwhile the fantasy
writers went out and wrote
interesting stories about
interesting characters doing
interesting stuff.
And yeah, everybody
went and read that.
Of course they did.
We're kind of hoping to
jump on the bandwagon that
drives it back the
other direction.
And to be fair, we weren't
the first ones to do it.
I mean, I think "Old Man's
War," John Scalzi's book,
was really the first one that
said, hey, you know what.
Maybe we could write about
stuff that's fun and interesting
and doesn't have to
be like six pages
where we discuss the
math of how this works.
Which is cool for
people who like math.
But for the rest of us,
it's not that exciting.
AUDIENCE: So actually feeding a
little bit off the answer that
you guys just gave, but-- and
segueway into my question,
but I don't know to the extent
to which you were talking about
the cyberpunk sort of
movement in that answer, but--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: A lot.
AUDIENCE: I figured.
But one interesting
thing that I think runs
through cyberpunk and then
into your guys' book, which
you may have actually
picked up from them
is sort of a noir feeling
to a certain extent.
And I think Miller
sort of captures
that as sort of
like the tough cop,
the guy, the hard boiled, if
you will, sort of aspect to it.
And do you guys agree with
that characterization?
I've read it in certain places.
But do you agree with that?
And if so, kind of, was
that a conscious pick up,
or is that you just
decided that's how he was?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: I got
a long one on this one.
Do you want do--
TY FRANCK: Well, the noir
didn't come from cyberpunk.
It came because Daniel's
a big fan of noir.
And he was writing
the Miller chapters.
Each of the books kind of
steals from one genre or another
and marries it to
science fiction.
And that was sort
of the noir version.
But the thing with cyberpunk,
and I still read "Neuromancer"
periodically, I mean it's
ridiculously dated now,
but it's still a great read.
I mean, it's funny to me
now looking back on it
and thinking like, we
have replaced the whole,
the 3D virtual space where you
travel through this 3D space
and you interface
with data as objects.
We've replaced that by typing
what we want into Google.
That is-- you know,
who knew that that's
what it was going to be.
It was going to be a blank
white page with a text bar
and you just say,
tell me about this.
And then every possible
answer with that comes up.
That sort of destroyed
the cyberpunk stuff.
And of course, they missed
all the other things.
They missed cell phones.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: They
missed wireless.
TY FRANCK: They missed wireless.
One of our good friends
who wrote some cyberpunk
in the '80s one of his novels
the big plot point at the end
is the hackers racing
around in a car
to find a payphone so they
can hack into the internet.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah.
TY FRANCK: You know, and
you know looking back,
that's pretty silly now.
But that was the cool
thing at the time.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: But
the beautiful thing
about science
fiction, what makes
science fiction different
from other genres,
is it doesn't have
a basic story.
When you write-- when
you read a mystery,
you know kind of what
you're going to get.
Somebody's going to die.
And somebody's going to
figure out what happened.
When you read a romance,
you kind of know
what you're going to get.
There's going to be two people.
And through the
course of the book,
they're going to fall in love.
Or they're going
to start in love
and die, kind of
depending if it's
"Romeo and Juliet" or
"Pride and Prejudice."
If you get a Western, you kind
of know what you're in for.
If you pick up a
science fiction book,
you can be getting anything
from "The Stars My Destination"
to Philip K. Dick to kind
of this post singularity
to this blue collar
science fiction.
There isn't a single that
science fiction requires.
And so it let's just do this
thing where you can say,
I'm going to tell my
science fiction noir.
I'm going to tell my science
fiction political thriller.
I'm going to tell my
science fiction ghost story.
I'm going to tell my
science fiction Western.
They all fit.
They're all welcomed within
that genre, which is cool.
AUDIENCE: So I have
two questions kind
of about your answer
to the previous one.
The first is you give the
impression each of the books
sort of is science fiction
married to some other genre.
Can you talk about
specifically which one
you feel is what kind of genre?
And then also about
things being dated.
Do you worry about the stuff,
sort of the assumptions you're
making about technology,
something new arising and not
being there, right,
like-- just hopefully you
write them all fast enough
that it won't be a problem.
TY FRANCK: You can't
worry about that.
You can't spend any time
worrying about that.
Because we're always wrong.
Science fiction writers
are never right.
I mean, Jules Verne I guess was
right about a couple of things.
And Clarke guessed about
communication satellites
and was right.
But you know, you
read cyberpunk now.
And they were really trying to
extrapolate future technology.
They were working
really hard on that.
And they were wrong
about everything.
Not one thing in
those books is right.
But it doesn't change the
fact that they're good books,
that they're enjoyable
books to read.
I don't think you can spend
any time worrying about that.
Because just accept that
you're going to be wrong.
And be OK with it.
You know, it is fiction.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And--
INTERVIEWER: What are you
going to be wrong, you know,
like in the solar
system, you know--
TY FRANCK: Everything.
INTERVIEWER: All political
allies, and all--
TY FRANCK: So there
is no economic reason
to colonize the solar system.
We just skate past that.
We did it anyway.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And as
far as mapping the books
to particular genres,
"Leviathan Wakes" is our noir.
"Caliban's War" is our
political thriller.
Abaddon's Gate is our
haunted house story,
and "Cibola Burn"
is our Western.
AUDIENCE: OK.
I'm going to pose my question
as a follow up to that.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: All right.
AUDIENCE: Are you going
to have a romance?
DANIEL ABRAHAM: We might.
We've got nine more-- we've
got nine books total that we're
under contract for.
And that leaves us a certain
amount of leeway for that.
We have had romances
in the books.
We are, however,
bitter and cynical men.
And our views of how
love and sex interrelate
may not fit gracefully with that
particular set of expectations.
TY FRANCK: We're also
happily married, both of us,
for like a really long time.
And so our version of romance
is two people get together.
they're nice to each other.
And then they stay nice.
Which is not really
compelling drama.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: I have found
you, the woman of my dreams.
Let's on the couch
and watch a movie.
Ooh!
TY FRANCK: Yeah, so--
DANIEL ABRAHAM:
Not high conflict.
TY FRANCK: Not a
lot of conflict.
AUDIENCE: And yet
another question--
will we ever see [INAUDIBLE]?
TY FRANCK: That is a question
for Alcon Entertainment.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah,
one of the things
that happens when
you get a TV show
is you sell all the rights.
They're just gone.
We get to write books, and then
other people who are very smart
get to decide what
to do with them.
So hopefully they will find
ways to make that popular
and make all of
us lots of money.
INTERVIEWER: So let's talk
about the show a little bit.
SyFy has given a
direct, serious order
to an exciting
sounding new project
based on acclaimed a
sci-fi book series.
You can guess which
book series is that.
The cable network has ordered
10 episodes of "The Expanse"
from Academy Award
nominated screenwriting duo.
And the project
has been described
by industry insider as
"Game of Thrones" in space.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah,
that's terrible.
INTERVIEWER: Not so much because
of the specifics of the plot,
but because it tells a dramatic,
sprawling, grown up story
within that popular
fantasy genre that's
based on a respected
series of novels.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Yeah, in
order to be "Game of Thrones"
in space, we would
have to have a lot more
nudity and beheadings.
We're actually
really slim on those.
Yeah, we have explosions.
Well, not as many explosions
in "Game of Thrones."
We've got more than that.
And we have more spaceships.
I hope.
Yeah, so there are these guys
named Mark Fergus and Hawk
Ostby.
And they wrote things
you may have heard of.
They wrote a movie
called "Iron Man."
They wrote one called
"Children of Men."
And they're really
good at what they do.
And they did-- we were put
together by a producer.
Sean Daniel and
Jason Brown got them
to sign on and write a
pilot script for this.
And they then shopped it.
We don't-- I know basically
nothing about Hollywood.
Ty knows a little bit.
But we weren't really consulted
on a whole lot of the thing.
We were trotted out as
sort of the oh, look.
And here are the writers,
which was apparently useful,
which was nice.
And a bunch of people were
really interested in it.
And the people who offered
the most money bought it.
And that was cool.
And in theory, it's-- well, no.
It's going to see air
sometime next year.
And there's a whole bunch
of stuff we can't say.
But it's really cool.
INTERVIEWER: So we know
that we can't talk too much
about the specific
of the show because
of the whole yada, yada, yada.
But tell me between
the two of you,
who is the sort of
more visual person,
like when writing,
like sort of--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Ty.
Ty's the type of guy
I feel is more visual.
TY FRANCK: Yeah, I spend
a lot of time thinking
about what things look
like, which is nice
because one of the things
that's exciting and not secret
is that they've
asked me to help out
a lot with that on the show.
INTERVIEWER: I figured that.
TY FRANCK: Yeah.
They've asked for my opinion
on a great many of those things
and seem to be taking it
seriously, so that's very cool.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And the
amount of participation
we've gotten to
have in the process
is as far as I can
tell, unprecedented.
We've actually been
in the writer's room
and talking with the show
runners for almost two months
now.
And that's a terrible plan.
I mean, writers are
cranky, antisocial people.
And putting them in the middle
of this really complicated
social negotiation,
generally speaking,
I would recommend against it.
It's worked out well for us.
But as a result, we've gotten to
be there for a lot of the work
that they've done on how to
take the text and take the story
and reimagine it for
a different medium
and for the requirements
of that medium.
That's been a really cool.
AUDIENCE: Dovetailing on
this, I have a pet theory
that really iconic stories
come out of changes in medium,
like what persists
through all the mediums
is like the stuff that
will persist a long way.
And so I was kind of curious.
It sounds like this actually
started as an MMORPG,
then it went to table
top, then became a novel,
and is now going to
TV, which is the most
medium hops I've ever heard.
So I was wondering if you
could tell us about some
of the early media hops,
and like what was retained
and what dropped, and
where new things came in.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: I can
only get into that
when you start going from
table top to novels, so I--
TY FRANCK: Yeah.
We didn't get too far in
the MMO, other than just
sort of the world building.
When I start running it as an
MM-- or as a tabletop game,
I had to obviously
find some rules.
In that case, I wound up using
the open source d20 Modern
rules as sort of
the skeleton for it
and then made up all
my own space rules,
because the d20 future
rules are stupid.
That was the big shift there.
And there wasn't
really a story yet.
So I didn't have to change
anything story-wise.
It was actually in coming
up with what the events were
for the tabletop
game that actually
started creating story.
And then when Daniel wanted
to turn it into a novel,
that it is evolved greatly.
Because the things that work
in games don't work in novels,
or it's not 100%.
There's a little sliver on that
Venn diagram where it works.
So you drop all the
stuff that doesn't work.
You add a bunch of
stuff that does work.
We're not going to game Miller
being sad in his apartment.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: A chapter
of my character sits there.
TY FRANCK: Yeah.
And drinks and is sad.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Role
your disconsolate rogue.
TY FRANCK: Yeah, right.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: You
are disconsolate.
TY FRANCK: Yeah, exactly.
That's not going to work.
And then now between
novel and TV,
You're seeing the
same sorts of things.
Again, in the novel,
it works to have
Miller sit in his
apartment and be sad.
Because we're
inside of his head.
And we get to see all the
interesting internal dialogue
he's having.
That would be a
really boring episode
of TV, 42 minutes of Detective
Miller drinking scotch
in his apartment and being sad.
So now we're looking for ways,
how do you visually dramatize
that you've got a guy who's sad.
And it's interesting
watching that transition.
DANIEL ABRAHAM: And to go
to your theory, the model
that I have for
this is translation.
And I know only one language.
So all of my knowledge
or translation
comes from reading
Douglas Hofstadter.
But the idea of
changing the obstacles
that you have in
telling the story
changes the form of the story.
And it can be related.
And it can be very close.
Or it could be more
general what level
you're trying to translate
on whether you're
trying to translate the exact
words, or the exact actions,
or the effect that
those actions have,
or different sets of
solutions to the problem.
And so yeah,
intellectually, it's
just a fascinating
bunch of problems.
And it's really cool.
INTERVIEWER: Ty,
Daniel, thank you
for coming and
talking with us, and--
DANIEL ABRAHAM: Thank
you for having us.
TY FRANCK: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
