Courtenay Hameister brings her friend Chelsea Cain, best-selling author of “Heartsick” and “Kill You Twice,” and there are indeed, some interesting places to go inside her head. It begins, as most interviews with ridiculously successful thriller-writers with properties optioned by FX do: On a D&D table, discussing the properties of the vorpal blade. From there we find out who really inspired the main characters of “Heartsick,” and how she gets those stories out of her, except of course, for the stories she doesn’t want to tell. Stories of chocolate and perineums. But that’s the kind of darkly comic landscape we’re working with here. Other topics include: Why the laugh isn’t always the most appropriate of human functions; and Matt Inman’s propsed Tesla museum: Is there actually a plan, or do we just love Tesla so much we’re hoping someone comes up with a good one. Because Bobby has a pretty good one.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Chelsea Cain’s way of planning her books sounds brilliant. Also, it was interesting hearing her inspiration for the series.
Great show.
I don’t read a lot of crime fiction but her books sounded so interesting I searched for Heartsick on my local library’s web database and will go pick it up later tonight! Of course, they ended up not having the English version but the local translation but that’s fine, and good on her for being so popular in multiple languages.
So no books sold but at least she gained a reader in a poor student!
Is it just me or has anyone else had problems Wednesdays show playing on their iPods or mp3 players? I think my iPod may have gone all woman hating cause its only Wednesdays shows. The others work just fine but none if Wednesdays. This is the third Wednesday its happened. Please any help is appreciated.
On the Prince thing, I know he wanted to do the music for Batman and did, but allegedly Warner Bros. didn’t like it that much. This is the reason why there’s “Batdance”, which is an assembly of various Prince songs:
200 Balloons
The Future
Electric Chair
That was the end result of a massive push for the movie and thus soundtrack, with a budget that outdid most of Prince’s albums of the 1980′s. It seemed that Warner Bros. found the perfect financial follow-up to Purple Rain, and since all of his albums failed to do what they didn’t expect from Purple Rain, it was a bit of “aw crap, what is this?” This is why record stores would have an endless supply of the limited edition Batman tin can soundtrack CD, because it got to a point where no one wanted it. Reason? The album was okay but the deep fans were still enjoying the unreleased-Black Album.
I mention this because of Prince being discussed in a previous podcast this week, but… I think back in 1989, there weren’t many other options to see a movie other than VHS, the few who were still hardcore about laser disc, and cable. Mainstream audiences didn’t care go to the swap meet or flea market to buy the bootleg or counterfeit copy. If they did, it might be someone who had snuck in a bulky camcorder. Quality was an issue but since something “of quality” wasn’t widespread, people were moved to see it. That, on top of the Batman hype.
I also think you can determine the success of a film or TV show with the amount of bootleg T-shirts that circulate. There was an article at Ego Trip about the short-lived “Black Bart Simpson” T-shirt phenomenon of 1989/1990, where you not only had the official Simpsons shirts, but all the bootleg ones where Bart turned into Michael Jordon, MC Hammer, or whomever. Look at all the countless Batman bootlegs and knock-offs. I remember going into a store back then and not being able to find a shirt. Who cares, you can go to your friendly bootlegger and he’ll have boxes of them, maybe in different color schemes. You want the Batsignal with blue or red trim instead of yellow? BOOM! You want to see Batman with the cast of “Full House”? Eh, maybe not but you get the point.
Even though Batman and The Simpsons were heavily booted, they (Warner and Fox) realized that became a type of marketing they didn’t have to pay for. These days, one is able to find a possible screener from a torrent side or wherever, so if quality is an issue, there’s a greater awareness of how to find it and where. I hope the movie theater experience will not die out for a long time, but it’s now an option that Hollywood fears because it takes away from them. For those who want, desire, and seek quality, or at least a means of entertainment worth paying for, they will always be there, and Hollywood has always catered to the potential ticket buyer.
I write all of my dialog first too! That’s the fun part any way.
So I downloaded the sample of Heartbreaker, got to the part where she breaks his ribs 3 pages in and went “I’M IN.” That’s all it takes for me.