One of my favorite things about Edward ashton is how great of a writer he is. And I say that because this bio that you can find on his website is a great example of what I mean. So I'm going to start out this conversation by reading it aloud to you. Edward ashton is the author of the novel's Antimetter Blues mickey Seven now a motion picture directed by bong joon Ho and and starring Robert pattinson
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:00
So for those who maybe are just discovering mickey Seven and now obviously antimatter blues, could you say just a little bit about the story and what they can expect in this follow up? And also I'm really curious if when you started mickey Seven then you knew that antimatter blues was going to follow or if the process worked a little differently for these particular stories
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:03
As mentioned in your bio, Mickey Seven is being adapted into a major motion picture. I am so excited because some of my favorite actors are in this adaptation, including Tony Klee and Mark Ruffalo. Like, oh, my goodness. 2024 cannot come here soon enough. That is the latest release date as far as I could see online. I would love to hear what this process has been like for you in getting Mickey Seven adapted
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:53
What are you maybe still trying to figure out or think about in relation to failure? I would love to hear anything about how it is part of your story as a storyteller and a beautiful, very funny writer
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:11
Lastly, I would love to end by just saying congratulations and having another book come out that I can say many of us, lots of us, loads of us are very excited and can't wait for it to be here. I know that writers, myself included, can tend to get pretty obsessive and just very steeped in their ideas when they're working on them
Ed Ashton
@BucketOfSpiders · 1:20
His job is to take on dangerous to suicidal missions, which it turns out there are surprising number of on a trip like this, with the understanding that when he dies, he can be reconstituted in a fresh body with his recorded memories and personality intact. By the beginning of Mickey Seven, he's already died six times and has figured out that signing on for this gig wasn't his smartest move ever. But this is the one job in the world that you can literally never leave any matter
Ed Ashton
@BucketOfSpiders · 1:18
Then six months later, still long before the book is published, I'm on a two hour zoom call with Bob June Ho, where it quickly becomes apparent that not only has he actually read the book, but he's seriously thinking about moving forward with it. And another year later, I'm actually on set in Levinson, watching hundreds of people working to bring all this stuff I dreamed up to life. Things just keep getting weirder and weirder
Ed Ashton
@BucketOfSpiders · 1:46
A few months after that we had an offer of publication for the book from Harper Collins, and the book came out in 2015. Wind up selling about 10,000 copies and getting picked up for translation by a German publisher, which is a pretty good outcome for a debut novel. It was good enough, in fact, to get me a contract for my second novel, the End of Ordinary. That one did not do so well
Ed Ashton
@BucketOfSpiders · 0:44
Well, my next book, Mao Goes to War, is already off with a copy editor somewhere. It's tentatively scheduled for release in April 2024, right after the premiere of Mickey 17. Conveniently enough, it's not actually Mickey related, but it's got similar vibes. I think. It's got a lot of the same dark humor and questions about who counts as a human and who gets to decide, and I think fans and Mickey will take to it
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:24
Thank you so much for giving us so much insight into just the trajectory of your writing career and also where you are shortly before the release of this next novel. I think it was really interesting to hear you talk about what you later realized was actually not that much rejection, all things considered, when it comes to the query trenches, because I think a lot of us starting out it's really difficult to know