From Sky news this is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made with an offer.

Take a job and you'll never die.

There's only one catch.

The job is to die.

A new movie called Mickey 17 starts with that premise.

In a way, the film is based on a science fiction novel called Mickey Seven.

And the author is a rock historian who nearly gave up fiction writing.

And then on what he thought might be his last book produced a book that is now a movie starring Robert Pattinson and Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette, and it's directed by Oscar winning Bong Joon ho.

Well, the movie starts with a man named Mickey Barnes who is in a financial crisis.

It's set roughly a thousand years in the future.

Mickey signs up as a crew member for a ship, leaving Earth on its way to colonize a very cold planet.

Mickey's job is listed as an expendable.

Essentially, he is the crew member who is tasked with doing the most dangerous or lethal work, and if he dies and he will, he's told no problem.

They can recreate his body and upload his consciousness and most of his memories.

In a way, it's like a ticket to eternal life.

The book is called Mickey seven because when we first meet Mickey, he's already died six times.

The movie version is called Mickey 17, and filmmakers have joked that that's because they just wanted to kill Mickey another ten times.

See, it's comedy, but it's dark comedy.

And like the best science fiction, it is infused with questions that both exist now and almost certainly will become more acute in our technological future.

Do we want to upload our consciousness somewhere else, either to computers or other bodies?

And what if we decide that immortality is a drag, but we can't even die just to escape?

What do we do then?

The book won critical raves from NPR, which called it one of the best reads of 2022 to the nomination for Best Science Fiction Book of the Year by Goodreads.

Science fiction writers have this way of entertaining us while asking us to consider where technology is taking us, good and bad.

Dark and light.

Writing for New Scientist, Sally aid wrote, quote is uploaded consciousness a goal that's worth pursuing even in theory.

Edward Ashton's Mickey Seven is the first novel I've come across that properly explores the philosophy behind that question.

End quote.

We are honored to be joined this hour by Ed Ashton, who is the author of Mickey seven, which is the basis for the new movie Mickey 17.

It's now playing, by the way, the little Theater, among other places.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate the opportunity.

What, what an amazing story.

I want to read this quote that I have in my notes from you that I thought was I thought was awesome.

You said the whole thing about this book not only getting published, but then being optioned by Hollywood, and now it's in theaters.

I think that like a $300 million budget.

You said the whole thing is so incredibly implausible that I cannot rule out the possibility that I'm actually in an intensive care unit right now, hooked up to a morphine drip, and they're about to pull the plug.

Is that how you feel?

I felt that way on and off for the last five years.

Yeah, it's been a really crazy ride.

as a science fiction writer, this isn't the first book we're going to talk about some of your career and where it's gone, but I love to ask people who work in AI, tech and in science fiction, what percentage chance do you think it is that we're living in a simulation?

That's a really interesting question.

I teach, magnetic Renaissance physics at the University of Rochester.

It's one of the things I do as a sideline.

And there's a particular bit in quantum physics, that has been cited a number of times as evidence that we're in a simulation.

basically, hydrogen atom can only have two distinct orientations, and it flips from one to the other with nothing in between.

And it can't be oriented in any other way.

One explanation for that is that the person who coded the universe was lazy, and only used one bit to code for the position of a hydrogen atom.

That is, that's one explanation for why things would be that way.

I honestly can't come up with another better one.

So yeah, there's some evidence out there.

So hold on.

That's the best evidence.

If you wanted to make the case that we're in a simulation.

Yeah.

Do you think we are in a simulation?

I don't think it matters.

We have a we have a time here where we exist, and we have a time where we don't exist.

And whether we exist in silico or in some other state of reality.

And to me, I don't think it matters.

We we interact with one another.

We feel, we think and and, you know, we we try to make the best life that we can.

And whether it's simulated or, you know, real, I, I don't really see why I should care.

That is a thoughtful answer, but I need a percentage.

What percentage chance?

Everybody gives me a percentage 70 to 72%.

You think it's that high?

There we go.

Yes.

That's so interesting.

but I love the idea that it doesn't matter.

Although I can imagine scenarios where it would if we discover it, if we can prove it, if there's more than just the hydrogen atoms, if there's there becomes more of a way to interact with whoever is running the code right.

So there's a novel out there, by a guy named Michael Barton, which looks at the idea that we are in a simulation, and we discover that we're in a simulation.

And every time we discover in the simulation, the person running it pulls the player reset.

So in that case, yes, I think it could matter in a not very helpful way.

Yeah.

Stop looking for answers.

doctor Edward Ashton is my guest.

Ed is, when did you, by the way, start calling teaching physics and everything else?

The side gig.

When did when did Mickey seven and everything related to it become the main gig?

Well, I will be clear that the teaching stuff.

This is a favor that I do for my old advisor, Kevin Parker, who is still great friend.

Kevin.

Hi.

If you're listening.

I don't even get paid for that.

That's just something I do for fun.

My day job is as a cancer researcher.

That's that's that's what I've been doing for the last 25 years.

Still do it?

Yes.

I still I still do it.

I hustled over here from, very intense meeting with with some of my collaborators on on that side of things.

and writing is, you know, is my passion.

but but, you know, sort of my day job is is doing cancer work.

So, we're going to work through a little bit of the story, which is, of course, now the movie which Ed has said he really likes, which is cool when when your book becomes a movie, you have to give up a good amount of control.

But you really dig the movie, which is nice, right?

I mean, it's a good film.

in fact, I think you think it's a great film.

It's a fantastic film.

It's an absolute banger.

Yes.

So we're going to talk about that coming up here.

The story of how it even came together is so unusual.

That's why I kind of wanted to start with the simulation thing.

It's like, is this really happening?

it's one of the rare cases of a book that didn't even have a publishing contract that then got option for a film, because you must have the greatest agent in history.

and we're going to talk about that coming up and even some of the guarantees that the director offered.

There's some such great stories.

But at the core of all of this, why this book has hit so big and why I think Hollywood wanted to do it is the story is so good.

It's so interesting to think about it in the way that you have asked us to think about it, which is that roughly a thousand years in the future, there is a way to die and have consciousness and memory preserved and then not upload it into a mainframe somewhere, but into sort of a recreated physical body.

To the extent that it looks and feels like you.

Right.

So Robert Pattinson, we're going to see him on his 17th or maybe 18th iteration, but is this something that you've thought a lot of by me?

Like, how did this idea of a concept come to you as a science fiction writer?

Yeah, this is something that I have thought about quite a bit, and I want to be very upfront that I did not invent this concept.

Right.

The idea of, clones and uploaded that the first reference I could find was actually in 1951 story by Clifford de Simic, called goodnight, Mr. James.

there have been a number of other books, Think Like a Dinosaur from 1986 had had some similar themes.

I think the way that I've approached it is somewhat unique.

Yeah, absolutely.

but, you know, it is like, like many of the philosophical ideas.

you know, things like the ship of Theseus, that I talk about a little bit, obviously, that's been around for 3000 years.

You know, people have been thinking about these things for a long time and haven't really come to a satisfactory conclusion in most cases.

you know, the idea of the tell a transport paradox, which is sort of the central question of Mickey Barnes's life that goes back to 1750.

So these are things that, you know, much smarter people in much greater minds in mind have have pondered over for, you know, for centuries without coming to an adequate conclusion.

So I do not in any way, put myself forward as someone who's going to give us answers.

I just think there's a really interesting questions.

Yeah.

And so taking the Tesla transport paradox, which is this idea that if you were able to copy your mind, your personality, most of your memories and experiences, and you can transfer it into again somewhere else, in this case another body.

would that person actually be you?

And I've watched some interviews you've done on this question, and I think I've got a read on where you are on this, but clearly you've thought a lot about what it would mean to have this experience of dying and then being brought back into a similar physical vessel with those same memories and experiences, and whether that would constitute an authentic experience of self.

Where are you on?

Well, where I am on that is that this is, this is an unanswerable question in any absolute terms.

And the way, the way that I put it in the book and I've you may have heard me say this before and other interviews is imagine that when you go to sleep at night, you don't just go to sleep, you die.

And you wake up the next morning with a new person in your bed.

The you that was there last night is gone forever.

This new person has your memories.

He's got your hopes and dreams.

Your love of strawberry ice cream in your head, of electronic dance music.

But he's a completely different person.

And then he dies in his turn that night.

And a new person wakes up in his bed.

Can you prove to me that that is not exactly what happens?

Would your life be in any way different if that were exactly how things work?

And the answer is no.

There's no way you can prove that that's not what occurs.

I feel like we know we're not dying.

I don't think you do.

You go to sleep at night, you lose consciousness.

Your consciousness is extinguished.

Our consciousness comes to be in the morning when you wake up.

How do you know that?

That is the same.

The the internal point of view.

How do you know that?

That is the same point of view that went to sleep the night before fair.

and so now let's look forward to a future where that technology may exist that will allow us to not not necessarily sleeping and waking up.

We're talking about actually dying.

Physical death would allow us to then I'm going to use clumsy words.

Revive, recreate ourselves in a very similar physical form that looks exactly like we looked yesterday.

And we'd have to contemplate whether that is us and I.

You seem to hint in interviews that we shouldn't just assume that it is the same, that we should think deeply about whether that constitutes the same thing as the self that existed before dying.

No, the question is the fundamental question is do you believe there is some self that goes beyond just the neural circuitry and the electrical impulses flicking back and forth in your brain?

If what you believe is that yourself, you is just a series of reactions going on inside this 3 pounds of meat inside your skull, then that recreated person absolutely is you 100%.

If you believe that there is something more, some inevitable something that constitutes sentience.

And I think on some level, all of us believe that there's sort of a little man who lives behind our eyeballs and drives us around, right?

We talk about my hands, my face, my eyes.

Who is me?

Who do those belong to?

They belong to the little man behind your eyes, right?

If you believe that little man is there, is that the same little man the next day?

if you believe that there's something more than just chemical reactions going on in your head, then I think you have to believe that that new person would, in fact, be a stranger.

If you believe that, it really is just, you know, we're just the sum of our biochemical reactions, then I think I think you probably believe that, yes, that's just a continuation of you.

And there's no problem.

I don't think you think we are just to some of our biochemical.

I don't think so.

Yeah.

So I think the best science fiction not only entertains, but really pushes us to think about big questions.

First of all, do you think there will be technology a thousand years from now, ten years from now, 100 years from now that allows us to upload consciousness elsewhere?

Well, I will tell you that Ray Kurzweil is one of the principal scientists at Google.

Absolutely believes that the man takes 300 supplement pills a day to try to keep himself live long enough to reach that point.

He has dedicated himself to uploading his consciousness into into a digital framework, and he believes that this will be a form of immortality for him, whether he'll succeed or not.

You know, the mind is an incredibly complex thing, and I'm not I'm not sure we're going to develop the bandwidth anytime soon, but he certainly thinks so.

And he's studied the formula a lot more than I have.

But why does he want immortality?

That's another question that this book really asks us to explore.

I mean, should we want immortality?

I think, you know, there is a natural fear of nonexistence.

Now, to me, I always enjoy Mark Twain's quote that I failed to exist for many millennia and was not in the least inconvenienced by it.

And I don't imagine I'll be inconvenienced when I no longer exist.

That's the approach that I've tried to take.

That's how I think of things.

But, not not everyone feels that way.

And if you're somebody who believes that the world simply cannot go on without you, as I'm sure maybe Ray Kurzweil does, the thought of going into that darkness maybe is unbearable.

Isn't Kurzweil one of the ones who has warned us about AI and the singularity?

Kurzweil, as someone who believes in the singularity, he thinks it's a good thing.

He's not somebody who's thrown out thinking of the author of the book.

our final Invention.

That's not Kurzweil.

That's another author who was on this program about a decade ago who was warning us that our final invention will be general general AI.

There there are a number of people who think that way.

yeah.

Curtis.

Well, it's not one of them.

He's.

He's a cheerleader.

Yeah.

Yeah.

James.

Yeah.

so anyway, this is what I knew would happen with it.

We're getting far afield, but that's a good thing, because this book and this movie that Ed has created, And I'm giving it credit for the movie because the movie doesn't exist without the book.

but it it is a chance for us to really think about these big questions.

And is that too romantic?

I mean, or do you feel that way about science fiction, that science fiction really has the utility there?

And pushing our, our understanding of where we're going?

I feel like science fiction has a number of of things that it brings to the table that other forms of literature don't.

And there's a reason that I like working in science fiction.

That's certainly one of them.

the one that really is, is important to me.

And this is something I discussed with with Director Bong, and I think he feels the same way.

is that science fiction allows us to look at what we feel are social problems, issues with our world today in a way that forces the reader to remove their emotional blinders.

So if you know this book, one of the many things that it is, is a critique of modern capitalism.

That's pretty clear.

It's not particularly subtle.

the movie is even less subtle on that front.

If I, you know, if I, if you do a, critique of, of modern capitalism that is set in, you know, in New York in 2024, there are a large number of people who are going to read that, and they're going to be offended.

They're going to say, hey, he's talking about me.

He's saying that I'm exploiting people.

And the blinders come down and they don't hear what you're saying.

If you said it a thousand years in the future, off in space somewhere, that's just spacemen doing space stuff.

And so you can get the message through and you sort of sneak it in the back door, and maybe it sits in their brain for a minute before they realize who it is and really what it is that you're talking about.

If there's one message out of many that comes from Mickey seven that you want people to take away, what is it?

The heart of this book, and I've said this many times, the heart of this book is the relationship between Mickey and nausea.

So if there's one thing that you are going to take away from this book and all the other things, it's that it's the people who love you who are important.

When I when I've been asked about, you know, I was at the premiere in London, a couple of weeks ago, and I was on the red carpet and getting interviewed by deadline and, and hanging around with, you know, Robert Pattinson and all these people.

And I've had people say, well, like, this was the highlight of, of your life.

Right.

And so I'm like, no, that's not even the highlight of this experience.

The highlight of this experience is going to come on Sunday at the Little Theater.

When I get to share this experience with the people I love and who love me in this world the most, that's what's the highlight of this.

And you know, in all the chaos that encompasses Mickey's life, the one constant is nausea.

And if you're going to take something away from from this book, maybe, maybe take that find, find, find that anchor and that anchors the people around you and the people who love you.

It's awesome talking to the author of Mickey seven, which is the basis for the film Mickey 17 now playing and, it's at the little Edward Ashton is our guest here.

And we're going to get to a clip from the movie coming up here.

But first, a little bit more about the story here.

Ed has said that the short version is Mickey seven is about a man whose job is to die.

The long version is what the long version is that, it's as you said, it's set in a future where this technology has been developed, to allow sort of immortality and so being an author, of course, I have to take this to its most sadistic possible use.

so the use of this immortality machine is to produce people who, can be used over and over again for deadly, dangerous, suicidal missions.

And no one has to feel bad about it because you just bring it back out of the tank the next day and everything's fine.

And so Mickey has signed on for a mission to colonize, very dangerous, barely habitable planet.

And it turns out there are a lot of things that have to be done there which are suicidal or very nearly so.

and so when we pick up, we he has already died, as you say, six times, he's realized he made, a very large mistake signing on to this job.

But as you've implied, this is the one job in the world that you you can't leave.

Even by dying.

There is no way out.

And that's that's sort of where he's he's left.

And at the beginning of the book, he is, injured badly on a mission.

His best friend refuses to help him because he's an expendable, you know, he's not going to risk himself.

He'll just.

I'll see you when you come out of the tank tomorrow morning.

And then he doesn't die.

he makes it back to base, and his next replacement has already been printed.

And that's.

Yeah, that's where things start to really go sideways for him.

And that's supposed to do that?

Yeah.

And it, it snowballs from there.

we got a clip from the movie I in the movies now, Mickey's 17.

And, let's listen to the clip and we'll talk about Mickey.

Diva might have that here.

Mickey.

Whoa.

You're not done yet?

No.

Hold on.

Your flamethrower still good.

Not a single scratch.

It's a good thing I thought to come down here.

Weapons will be happy to see this.

I'm gonna turn this in.

Okay?

I can take it.

You're not mad, right?

I'm just taking this.

I mean, it's not looking very good for you, right?

Also, Ryan only goes as far, yeah.

No.

We're cool.

You shouldn't have to take the risk on.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Plus, they're going to reprint you back out tomorrow anyway.

Yeah.

And Mickey.

Yeah.

What's it feel like to die?

Yeah, I'm sure you're used to it by now.

Still.

How many times is this you're Mickey?

16.

17.

Sure.

18.

Out to this one.

Well, it's nice knowing you have a nice death.

See you tomorrow.

What's it feel like to die is, as as much as that's a dark, darkly comedic scene, I think everybody would.

Not everybody.

A lot of people would love to know the answer to that.

And Mickey is finding out in the worst way because he can't escape it.

This is the hamster wheel of his existence here.

And again, I'm wondering how plausible you think a future, a scenario like this occurs is this this specific scenario maybe is not, not the most likely one, in my opinion.

I thought it was a really interesting thought experiment.

It feels like definitely plausible to me.

I say if the technology exists, it feels almost certain to me.

But anyway, I mean, if the technology were developed, we'd almost definitely use it for this.

That's kind of what I'm wondering.

How how plausible is the technology?

That's the part I don't know about the fact that we'd use it in the worst possible way.

Yes, 100%.

And you would definitely see corporations like selling it to people like Mickey, like, live forever.

Oh, for sure.

This is what, like, this is immortality, man.

And you're down on your luck, and you got a job, and you cover bills and you go like.

Yeah.

And then after, like, two days, you'd be like, no, but it's too late.

It's too late.

I mean, we're laughing about this, but it is really dark and we're supposed to laugh, right?

I mean, there's a lot of comedy in the book.

There's a lot of comedy in the film.

Is it in the comedy category?

What's the category for you?

I call this a dark comedy.

I all all my books, have that element in it.

there there's an element of darkness.

Always.

and if you read my short stories, a lot of times they're just dark.

there's a there's a lot of really grim stuff in there, and I feel like you can carry that off for a 3000 word short story, but I don't think you can maintain that sort of grim level.

Unless maybe a George RR Martin.

You can't maintain that grimness over 90,000 100,000 words.

I think you lose your readers.

So I like I like to include humorous, as in the same reason that I include sugar in my cooking to sweeten things a little to to, you know, balance out the heat and the pain.

I don't think I'm giving away too much.

We're trying to give away anything that wouldn't be in a trailer for the film.

Mickey 17. but I want to say that I like what you did in terms of inverting expectations for what something called a creeper would be for.

For what?

Encountering, an alien life form alien to us on a different planet.

So human beings go to colonize.

It is a desolate kind of world to for humans, and it's easy to stereotype what you think a creeper might be.

And I think there's a lot of inverting expectations here.

Was that part of the intention?

Yeah.

So one of the things that I, I wanted to really touch on in this book, and I think Director Bong really touches on in the movie, is the question of who or what deserves the respect of being considered a person, because things that we grant person to personhood to are, are treated very, very differently than things that are not, you know, that's that's it.

We, you know, for instance, most of us, I would argue, grant personhood to our pets, our dog.

You know, I think my dog is a person, and she thinks of me as a person, too, I think, but we don't grant personhood to a rat, for instance.

or a pig.

Even though a pig arguably is just as intelligent.

Probably more so than a dog, honestly.

and so I wanted to look at personhood and how we apportion that.

And if I put in an alien that was cute and cuddly, like an easy walk, right?

Everybody loves anyone.

How can you not make you?

Walks are definitely people.

You can see that in five seconds.

They're literally dolls that you cuddle.

Exactly.

But if you if you make the alien something absolutely hideous, something repulsive, that that makes the question a lot more difficult.

And that's that's what I wanted to do.

I wanted to make the hurdle to get to personhood a difficult one.

I, I really appreciate that.

It struck me that you must be an animal rights person.

I am, yes.

so again, not giving too much away here.

The movie is called Mickey 17.

Mickey seven is the book.

The book came out in 2022.

Its sequel, came out in 2023.

We're going to talk about that coming up here.

But this film was optioned in 2020, which is not supposed to be the sequence when we come back from our only break with Ed, there's a, a great set of stories about how this even happened for this Rochester science fiction writer who obviously can write.

But the industry's tough.

And his first few efforts, some did.

Okay.

The second one, and then all of a sudden, publishing houses are dying and books aren't getting promoted.

And he's like, this may be it, it's probably it.

And now it exploded.

Well, we're going to talk about how that all came to be on the other side of this only break of the hour.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Friday on the next connections, my colleague Leah Stacey hosts in the first hour exploring ten years of Explore Rochester, the mission of bringing more people to our city.

Have they succeeded and what are they learning?

In our second hour, the Visual Studies Workshop gets a new home and my colleague Patrick Hosking hosts the program.

Join us Friday on Connections.

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It was in 2020, during the pandemic that Ed gets to do a zoom call with a director who is just coming off.

I think that was the year they won best, Best Picture, right?

It was you Oscars?

Yeah, he wins it for parasite.

And so this may be a director who's going to do the movie version of your book, and Bong Joon Ho is going to do a zoom call with you.

At that time, you said he's not really sure if he's in yet.

He wants to talk to you more.

Do you feel like you're being interviewed?

You feel like you're being like just under the microscope?

Did you have to dress up for the zoom call?

I mean, like, what do you do to try to convince him to get on board with this?

I can see how I could have thought of it that way.

I didn't think of it that way because I didn't think there was any possibility this movie was ever going to be made.

Why?

I did not take the possibility?

Because everyone I had spoken to had made clear to me that there was no possibility this film was going to be made, that every advice that you get when you have anybody who options a book to a studio, the first thing they say is, you know, cash a check, have a nice time.

It's not going to get me.

Don't assume it do.

You're ever going to see a screen 95 out of every 100 properties that they option never get made?

That's just how the studios operate.

So you're trying to be realistic.

Yes okay.

But it's still this guy's a big deal now.

Parasite incredible wins best picture.

And he at least wants to he wants to kick the tires on this.

Did the conversation.

Did you immediately go, this guy gets it.

He's awesome.

This should happen.

I did, you know, I didn't know what to expect going into the conversation, but as soon as, you know, as soon as the screen came up and I saw him, he was sitting there, as you said, there was no book at that time.

It was literally a PDF that existed, you know, and they had given it to him.

He had printed it out and illustrated himself by hand.

Director Bong is also an artist.

and he had he had drawn illustrations of, of the creepers, of the characters of the dome and the ship that he was, that he was shown to me and it it became clear, number one, that he and I shared some similar visions, in terms of what we thought the story ought to be, what we thought the story was about.

I think he and I, if you if you read any of my work and if you've watched his films, you probably got the idea.

We have a very similar dark sense of humor, that darkness, but also that humor.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So we and we, we see eye to eye on a lot of, questions around class conflict and, and, it's parasite.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's, you know, and Mickey.

Mickey seven.

Absolutely.

and so it became clear to me over time that that he really, you know, over the course the hour he really was, in fact, my daughter was, my middle daughter was downstairs, sort of listening in.

We've got this sort of barn house where it's all open, and she was listening to the call, and about halfway to about an hour into the call, I heard her run out of the house.

I heard her close the door.

and, my other daughter was was across the way.

And I found out later that what she was running out to do was run into my other daughter's room and yell, I'm going to fetch school for free.

So she knew at that point she believed that she knew at that point that Bong was in.

so let's talk about how that timeline, because you talk about putting the cart before the horse here.

you'd already done you'd already been published before, but this was a book that, somehow it gets option for a movie in 2020 before actually getting published in 2022.

Why did it happen that way?

So that that's a fairly mysterious thing.

I, I finished the final draft of this book in December of 2019.

I turned it into my agent at that time.

I got notified that the option had been signed in January of 2020.

It was less than 30 days from the time that I turned the raw PDF manuscript into my agent, to the time that we had an option deal signed, which is it is deranged.

That is absolutely insane.

That is not how this business works at all.

somehow he was able to get the manuscript into the hands of Brad Pitt's production company, Jeremy Cline, D.D.

Gardner and Brad Pitt have run plan B productions.

they had worked with Director Bong before on Okja.

so they knew him.

They had existing connection with him and I think they saw Jeremy in particular, saw the connection between my sensibilities and the sensibilities of the book and Bong's sensibilities, and immediately thought, and Jeremy told me later that he immediately said, Bong is the only one who can direct this film.

And so they immediately signed, signed up the option, and then immediately reached out to Bong to try to get him to sign on to this.

And at this time, again, this is just wild happenstance.

Director Bong had already taken on a new project after parasite.

He'd been working on it for some time, and right at that time, he had come to the conclusion it was based on a true crime incident that occurred in the UK.

And he had been interviewing some of the people who were involved in the true incident and had had a crisis of conscience, where he realized he couldn't move forward with this project.

It was it was not moral to exploit the suffering of these people for for a film.

And so he realized he couldn't do this.

So he had to step away from the project he'd been on.

And he he told me later, I want to thank you.

You've saved me from that other project.

You know, your your book saved me from that other project.

But in a sense, it probably made you feel even.

Warmer about the whole experience that this is a person with that sense of morality.

I have to say, Bong Joon Ho is one of the most genuine, warmest people I have ever met in my life.

The the list of just kindnesses that he has done to me throughout this process, which none of which he had to do, you know, or as long as my arm.

I mean, it's sitting on my desk right now.

I have a little, a police badge that says Ashton PD detective that he gave me when we were in London.

He had this made for me.

He named the police department of the town where Mickey grows up, and he named the town action is the Action Police Department.

He didn't have to do any of that.

This is this is just a favor he did for me.

He also came to you during the the creation of this film.

And, you know, at this point, even though you're an executive producer, you know, you're mostly just watching this come together.

The book is more than 300 pages.

The film script is roughly a third, maybe a little bit more than a third of that.

And so, you know that a lot has to get cut.

And that's just the way of making movies.

It's part of the bargain.

But he gave you an option to keep one thing.

this is such a good story.

And to me it speaks a lot to his character as well.

What is the story there?

What did he tell you?

Yeah.

So this this occurred during that first two hour call that I had with him.

we had been talking through all the details of the film.

He was digging down to the tiniest details of the book.

What does this look like?

How what's the diameter of the dome that they're living under?

How tall is it?

How big are the rooms?

I mean, it just down to details.

He is very much a detail person, and he was sketching out sketches of all this while we while we talked.

And then about halfway through he said, okay, and I want you to tell me, what do you believe is the heart of your book?

What is what is the piece of your book that without it it would not be your story?

Whatever that is, I will promise you.

I will put it in my film.

And again, he did not have any obligation to.

I mean, if you if you saw The Running Man the movie and ever read the book The Running Man, you know, the book and the movie have literally nothing to do with one another.

Once they option your property, they can do anything they want with it.

So he had no obligation to do this.

It was, again, purely a kindness.

I thought about it for two seconds and said, chapter 19, chapter 19 has to be in there, because that is the chapter that really solidifies the relationship between Mickey and Nash, which is have said is is really the heart of this book and sold this book.

And he immediately said, I'm so glad you said that.

I cried when I read that chapter.

I was going to put it in there anyway, and I said, can I have another one?

And he said, no.

And that was that was my contribution to the script.

beginning to finish, you get to keep something he was going to keep anyway.

Yeah.

But, it just shows you that you're on the same wavelength.

I mean, I had to make you even more comfortable going into that process.

Did you really do?

What a great story.

the movie's out now.

Mickey 17.

Mickey seven is the book again.

It's been out now for three years and all the reviews.

Just trying to get ready for this program.

I mean, there's got to be at least one bad review, but everybody loves this book and the movie is due and people love the movie, so it has to be gratifying for you.

but when you talk about the Running Man, for example, being so different, it sounds to me like your assessment of the movie version, Mickey 17 versus Mickey seven, is it's not at all like The Running Man, where you wouldn't recognize it, that there's a lot here that you feel like captures the soul of what you were doing, even if there are differences.

Is that fair?

Yeah, that's very fair to say.

the way I've tried to describe it is he he takes the story that I wrote and he makes it more vivid and more kinetic.

I likened it to the sort of very vivid black and white makeup that you see in kabuki theater.

you know, so you can see the expressions from the back row.

so one example, there's one particular scene early on in the book, which I accomplish with a conversation between two characters.

And Bong has the exact same scene, the exact same plot mechanism moves the plot four in the same way.

He accomplishes it with this gigantic fist fight and like things getting thrown and people getting knocked unconscious.

Same thing, same same plot mechanism.

But he does it in a way that is is kinetic and visual, whereas I did in a way that was very wordy and thinky, which you can do in a book.

And you really, you know, two people just having a conversation is it's not great, not great movie making.

I think, talking to Edward Ashton and, let me read a few emails here.

Patrick writes to say regarding dying and memory.

He says, I'm just learning about this book, and I don't know if this is a spoiler.

It can't be a spoiler if you don't know about the book, Patrick.

But he says, what I understand is that the body can't physically remember pain.

It has a memory of the thing that caused it, but you can't really recreate the experience about actual injury.

So do you get the memory of dying or don't you?

If you froze to death in a mountainside or a cliff or something?

That that's an interesting question.

And you know, anybody who's ever suffered serious injury, I playing basketball when I was 19 years old, I tore three ligaments and broke a bone in my ankle.

And I know that was the worst pain I've ever suffered as a human being, as my body.

I was lying on the court and I remember shaking so badly I couldn't.

I couldn't hold still as they sort of carried me off the court.

Can I recreate that sensation now?

Think about it.

No, you're absolutely right.

I can't I can't remember exactly what it felt like.

And that's a mercy that our brain gives to us.

We don't want to remember things like that.

But I remember it happened and I remember it was traumatic.

And it's that memory is enough to to make me, you know, I wore ankle braces for the rest of my basketball career, I will tell you that.

so, yeah, maybe the actual the actual physical sensation of the pain doesn't carry through, but the knowledge of what happened in the trauma that's inflicted by that knowledge still carries through.

I think that is such an interesting point, though, about pain, because, I mean, I broke a wrist when I was a kid.

That's probably the most acute instant pain I've felt probably.

I mean, I I've had surgeries, but I can remember roughly what it was like, but certainly not like in a way that makes me viscerally feel it, which is probably a good thing.

I don't know how pain manifests as memory.

That's a it's an interesting point.

Pain also is not linear with respect to severity of injury.

You know, there's a point where you're injured, becomes more severe, where the pain actually becomes less because your body basically gives up.

So, you know, like I said, that that basketball injury is probably the worst I've ever felt.

I was stabbed once and I felt nothing until I saw the blood coming out.

I did not realize anything had happened.

I don't think I want to know more about that one.

Yeah.

Probably not.

Okay, good.

Charles says, an email from Charles.

He says when I taught seventh grade, I would ask my students, who wants to live forever?

Every hand would go up of the seventh graders.

We would then proceed to read the book Tuck Everlasting.

I would ask the same question when we were done with the book, and I might get one student to raise their hand.

That's the power of literature.

That's from Charles.

Absolutely.

they need to maybe check into their Greek mythology, too.

There's there's a really fun story there about what happens when you wish to live forever.

And then don't specify.

By the way, I want to stay young and healthy for all that time.

Oh.

Oh, that's a very interesting point there.

you've talked about you've mentioned the Twain quote.

It was Twain to talk about, you know, he was always non-existent.

He was fine with it.

The difference, of course, is that once you gain a level of consciousness, you feel like saying, this is me being clumsy because you're the writer, Ed, but Twain's not wrong.

He was never upset about not existing when he didn't exist.

That's true.

But now that you have existed, it's this awareness that you have gained about what it means to exist versus not existing, and you fear returning to the nonexistent phase.

That makes sense.

Sure.

That's existential dread.

Absolutely existential dread.

But but is there comfort in can you train yourself to prepare for all nonexistence?

Is is what it was for the billions of years before this brief light switch went on?

And it is not different than that.

It was not painful.

It was not sad, you know, and that's where we're headed.

I feel like that's a realization that we all probably come to eventually in our own time.

At least I hope we all come to that eventually in our own time.

I may have come to it a little earlier, than most.

I had, a number of close brushes with death as a young man.

that that made me really think about these sorts of things.

but I think every everybody probably gets there eventually.

but I may be wrong about that.

Well, I mean, I certainly I mean, the category of people who hold religious belief.

and I'm not saying I'm not ascribing all motivation for religious belief to fear of death.

I think that there is a very natural human instinct to want to see something bigger.

I mean, you talk about we talked about the simulation.

We talked about this idea that there is something outside of our knowledge that we don't have control over and, that that's not always infused with religiosity.

But I think it's very natural to feel that way, to feel like we don't have answers.

I think that humility is a good thing.

it doesn't have to be always overcome with a fear, though I think fear often comes part and parcel to that not knowing or that where we're going or what death will be like or what's on the other side of it.

But you seem more comfortable and you've abandoned any fear of that.

I mean, I don't want to say abandoned if if I'm on an airplane and the engine blows up, I will scream along with everybody.

That's a little.

I'm not going to sit there and smile serenely as we plunge into the ocean.

So I don't want to overplay that too much.

I think, though, and I think that's a little different.

But it's just it's a comfort that it is okay.

Wherever we're going.

again, I knew we were gonna get far afield here, let me get back to, the core of this conversation, which is with Ed Ashton, who is my guest, who is, we're claiming you as a Rochester in Rochester.

But, you know, you're not always a Rochester in Rochester.

And for how long?

And, I've lived in Rochester a total of 30 years.

30 is a little more than half my life.

Yeah.

So, we're glad to claim you as a Rochester.

And he's the author of Micki seven.

and it's the basis for the new movie Mickey 17.

There is an event that you mentioned on Sunday.

I haven't been talking about it because it's sold out.

I mean, it is the event.

It's at the little theater on Sunday.

Don't just show up trying to get a ticket because it's sold out and it's going to be boffo.

I mean, this is, the book went very, very big.

The movie is huge.

It's got a big budget.

Is that was that correct?

$300 million?

It's actually about 120 000.

Okay.

See, I feel like I feel a little bit like Trump talking about what we've given to Ukraine.

120 is more than number.

I told that there be no politics.

still, it's a big budget.

It's a big budget film.

Yeah, it's it's budgeted like, you know, like a marvel movie.

but Bong really treated it like an indie, which is an interesting approach to take.

And I think it costs a little friction with the with the movie theaters or with the studios.

there's there were rumors that there were some arguments that he didn't Hollywood it up quite enough.

but one of the nice things about being where you are as as Bong Joon Ho, is that he has written into his contract that he has absolute creative control over everything, so there really was nothing they could do about it.

are you going to work with him on a sequel?

Oh, God, I would love to.

I would like that's up to him.

So there is a sequel.

Anti-Matter Antimatter Blues is the sequel, which came out in 2023.

Yep.

And, Ed, you have said that, part of creating this universe.

I say the universe of characters and rules and setting and all of those things that go into a fiction novel, as you did for Mickey seven, you have to do a lot of set up, because, as you've said, if the book is about Manhattan 2024, we get it.

If the book's a thousand years in the future, there's a lot of work to do to establish what that means.

Well, now you've done that.

You wrote a book that you wanted to be a standalone, because realistically, that might have been the last book that you wrote.

Well, now, it certainly won't be.

It hasn't been.

So you got you wrote a got to write a sequel in which your fans get to come along for the ride and take a new adventure in a place that's already established to me that says there could be limitless books in this, in this kind of universe that you've created.

No, I would love to to do more work in this space.

I have actually already outlined a third book in the series.

I've pitched it to my editor.

in the publishing world, though, there is a dichotomy between people like, you know, in science fiction, John Scalzi, Adrian Czajkowski and and if one of those folks comes to their editor and says, I would like to write a six book series, the editor says, thank you.

We would love to publish it.

for someone like me, that is not the case, because there's a basic assumption that each book in a series sells a fraction of the copies of the previous book, because nobody who didn't read the previous book will read the file on, and some of the people who read the previous book will not like it and won't pick up the sequel.

So they really want to see the sales prove out for the first book.

In the second book, before they'll greenlight a third.

And I think everybody has been holding their breath now for three years to see what would happen with this movie if this movie was actually because, you know, this movie has been delayed.

Now, I don't know how many times it was supposed to come out a year and a half ago.

And it's, you know, it's been it's been bounced around.

It's bounce on the schedule.

I think everybody on my publishing side has been kind of holding their breath, seeing if it would ever actually come out and if so, how it would do.

So we'll learn a lot.

But the the reviews have been outstanding.

That's got to be gratifying.

So far so good.

Yeah.

Everybody seems to like it, which I appreciate.

I liked it, I thought it was a great film.

when it comes to your previous books, before Mickey seven has Mickey seven success, you know, do you feel like, well, we better print more of those because they had very different experiences for you?

as a writer.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, you know, a debut novel is is a chancy thing for everyone.

a lot of people think once you've published with Macmillan or with Harpercollins or something like that, you've made it right.

You've, you've you've hit the big time.

that is not at all the case.

95% of people who publish a debut novel with a traditional publisher are no longer writing in five years, or out of the industry.

There is a very, very high attrition rate.

and I came very close to being part of that attrition rate after my second book.

you kind of alluded to that.

but yeah, the the success that Mickey Seven has had, a rising tide does sort of lifts all boats in the, in the publishing world, less in other places.

and we're actually, working on cover art for a new release of the of the older two books of The End of Ordinary in three days in April.

from Harpercollins, with a little new cover design and, snazzy new, snazzy new design.

Where do you want people to buy your books from?

On a fundamental level, I, you know, it doesn't matter to me for a financial standpoint where you buy your books.

But, I mean, obviously, I love indie bookstores.

I have really great relationships with most of the indie bookstores in the Rochester area.

and those folks need our support.

So, you know, if you want to go someplace like the fridge books or the dog eared book or another chapter in Fairport or someplace like that, that's that's that's great.

If anyone actually wanted my advice, that's what I would say.

What's another big question that you think science fiction should should tackle?

I mean, that that's such an open ended question.

you know, I think, where we are going right now with artificial intelligence is a really a really is going to be real important question for the future of humanity.

artificial intelligence is a force multiplier.

And it's like other force multipliers that we have seen in the past, things like things like combustion, things like nuclear technology, things like, the communication technology that we have, it puts or things like genetic, modifications.

It puts power in increasing amounts into smaller and smaller hands.

and that can be used for good in that, that can be used for ill, you know, Crispr can be used to, produce cures for diseases.

Crispr can also be used to produce new diseases, which could wipe us off the face of the planet.

and so I think the way that these technologies are channeled and the balance between development for good and control of the evil things that can occur is, is going to be really, really critical.

And I would like to see more fiction take on those sort of questions last minute.

You think it's more likely that artificial intelligence will lead to.

AI even how you define better lives better, a better situation for humanity or worse?

I think it will lead to a different situation for humanity.

And like and like with every other change, there will be winners and losers and what will define us as a people is how well we take care of the people who are harmed by this, by this technology.

And there will be plenty of people who are harmed in terms of loss of jobs, in terms of loss of purpose in their lives.

this allows this a technology that will allow the concentration of wealth.

We need to, in my opinion, make sure that we don't permit that gross over concentration and that the material abundance that this can potentially produce is fairly distributed.

Let's hope, infused in not only this conversation, but your work is real humanity.

it's what sets this work apart that you're doing.

Congratulations for the success.

Very, very well earned.

And, I look forward to every new book and movie come on back and talk to us.

I think there's going to be a lot more.

I would love to do that.

Thank you so much.

It's an amazing story.

Edward Ashton, the author of Mickey seven.

That book is, of course, available now, along with other books by Ed Ashton, and it is the basis for the new movie Mickey 17.

You should go see it at the little Theater starring Mark Ruffalo, Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette.

I mean, I'm not going to get everybody and but it's got a huge cast and the critics love it.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching.

If you're watching on the YouTube stream, stream wherever you are.

Have a wonderful afternoon and we're back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

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