Christopher Farnsworth's Blog, page 2
May 3, 2018
Why Tony Stark Is A Terrible CEO

I know this verges on heresy, but I'm just going to come out and say it. It might be possible that Elon Musk is not that great at making cars.
Today, after Musk was kind of a dick on a conference call, a bunch of analysts are waking up to the fact that Tesla has spent a billion dollars a year for ten years, and they're still producing fewer than 30,000 cars per quarter. (Not to mention all those injuries on the production line.)
And yet Tesla, which lost $675.35 million last quarter, is worth more than Ford — which has been building cars for more than a century and made $1.74 billion in profits last quarter. Ford currently trades at about 11 bucks a share. Tesla trades at about $277.
I know people who will say, sure, but Teslas are cool. I have several friends who own them, and they say it's the best thing they've ever driven. The car of the future. They go at ludicrous speed!
Which is not a great argument. Ford could build a car that sold for $100K and it would have most of the neat stuff you find in a Tesla. And I bet it would not be struggling to get its "flufferbot" to work.
The problem is, Ford doesn't make cars just for millionaires who live in California. They're in the business of selling the most cars to the most people.
So what makes people think Tesla is fundamentally different than Ford, which is far more successful at moving cars off the assembly line and actually delivering them to customers?
Only one thing: Elon Musk.
This is probably obvious to anyone who's been paying attention, but it's been banging around my skull for a long time. Tesla is not a car company. Tesla is a company that sells Elon Musk.
You buy a share of Tesla, and you're buying into a dream. You're buying a piece of a superhero, a visionary intellect who shoots cars into space and promises to build colonies on Mars.
I'll admit it: I'd like to believe in that. Aside from his apocalyptic predictions about AI, Musk is one of the few people who seems to believe in a boundless future. I know he's way, way smarter than I am, so I would love to let him deal with global warming and space travel and he'll solve it on a spare weekend.
But that's the problem with celebrity. It distorts our picture of real people, and turns them into symbols. And eventually, if you treat people like celebrities, guess what? They start acting like celebrities.
I don't think it's entirely their fault. I think it's an almost-rational response to the pressure of being the most popular kid not only in school, not only in town, but in the entire world. It's hard enough to live with the expectations of the small circle of people you know on a daily basis: your family, your friends, your co-workers, your boss. Now imagine that you also have to live with the needs and wants of literally millions of observers every day you wake up; that your livelihood and the jobs of hundreds or thousands of others depends on how you conduct yourself; that you're treated like a god some of the time, but the trade-off is everyone feels they own a piece of you, because they helped make you.
Yeah. That sounds insane. And so it should be no great surprise that even the most stable, well-rounded individuals sometimes lose it a little. If you're not a stable, well-rounded individual — if you began with a need for attention, or love, or success to fill the hole inside your chest — then just imagine what might happen.
Musk is compared to Tony Stark all the time. So, if this were a movie or a comic book, the conference call yesterday was basically that scene in Iron Man 2 where Tony was a cocky asshole to the Senate committee investigating him. And eventually, it turned out that Tony was right, and the senator was a Hydra agent, and the good guys won.
In the meantime, Stark Enterprises gets reduced to rubble roughly once a year, and its stock price regularly tanks because Tony is so busy being Iron Man or chasing supermodels that he doesn't care much about getting the latest StarkTech out the door.
Which is great, as long as the world actually gets saved. The problem is, that sort of ending generally only happens in comic books and movies.
Pretty sure there's a lesson there for anyone who wants to see it.
April 18, 2018
Happy Birthday, Superman

I don't remember the first time I saw Superman. It feels like I've always known him, like I was born with the knowledge of Clark Kent and the Man of Steel, like the S-symbol was encoded into my DNA. Grant Morrison has pointed out that his origin is so well-known and so simple that it can be told in just eight words: "Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Kindly couple."

Today, 80 years after he first appeared on the cover of Action Comics #1, he remains one of the most popular fictional characters of all time. He's been adapted into every possible medium from books to film to TV to video games. He's generated untold billions in revenue. He's been plastered on everything from peanut butter to underwear. His shield is tattooed into people's skin. People love to say that Batman is cooler, but honestly, everyone really wishes they could fly. (And Batman vs. Superman? Please. Shortest fight in recorded history.)

Other people have complained that Superman is too boring, that he's got a superpower for everything, and so there's no drama in his stories. Worse, he's such a boy scout. He doesn't lie, or cheat, or murder anyone.
But see, that's the secret. That's what makes Superman so enduringly popular, even now. Because his real superpower isn't flight, or invulnerability, or strength.
It's integrity. Despite having the power to make himself king, to crack the planet in half with a tantrum, or to burn everything he sees to ash, he chooses to help others. He chooses to do the right thing, no matter what. He humbles himself to lift other people up.

In other words, Superman's real superpower is being Superman.
I admit, it's been a rough couple of decades to be a smiling, optimistic hero. Superman was such a potent symbol during the first half of the 20th Century because he embodied the best hopes for the future. He came from a perfect world to make ours better. He really believed in justice for all. He wasn't made for dystopias.
But I am confident that Superman will soar again, no matter how many times we try to kill him. His other super-power is adaptation. There is something in him for every generation if we look hard enough. (These days, it's sort of fitting that Superman's arch-nemesis is a power-mad billionaire who puts his name on everything he owns. And that he was created by two geeky, Jewish kids from Cleveland.) There are still stories to tell.
I still love Superman, and I always will. Because he shows us how high we can rise, if we'll only look up.
Up in the sky.

FLASHMOB now out in paperback

Hey, if you've been waiting for a slightly cheaper copy of FLASHMOB -- one of Publishers Weekly's BEST BOOKS OF 2017, just saying -- with a more attractive cover, then have I got a deal for you.
FLASHMOB is now out in paperback at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and at your local independent bookstore through IndieBound.
If you have already bought and read FLASHMOB -- thank you -- please feel free to use one of those links to leave a review and tell everyone else what you thought of the latest adventure of John Smith. It helps a lot.
And as always, thank you for reading.
January 16, 2018
The Love Song of Dr. Johnny Fever

Let me tell you why I love “WKRP in Cincinnati.”
I watched a lot of TV as a kid. A good four to six hours a day sometimes. Which is especially amazing when you consider how little there was, compared to what we have now. (Three channels. No TiVo. No cable. My daughters simply do not believe this was the way TV worked when I was a kid. My daughters thought that Spider-Man was a real person, but they don’t believe me when I tell them this.)
But “WKRP” still stands out in my memory, and not just because it was good.
“WKRP” was a mildly successful sitcom in the late 70s and early 80s about life at a struggling AM radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. I got to see it both when it was first-run — my dad let me watch with him — and later, in syndication.
The show struggled to find an audience — it was moved around the schedule constantly — and was dissed by Mary Tyler Moore herself (“Let me put it this way: I wouldn’t watch it.”), even though her company produced it. CBS clashed with the series’ creators about the show’s direction, and it was canceled after four seasons.
Despite all that, the show produced some of the best television around at the time, including one legendary Thanksgiving episode. (“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”)
“WKRP” is the spiritual godfather to workplace comedies like “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” and “Scrubs” — a group of zany characters, all trapped in a zany place, doing zany things. Like so many other shows, it was about a bunch of lovable losers — and they were losers, there was no getting around that.
Andy Travis, the program director hired to turn the station around, was a success — and then he came to the lowest-rated station in a dead-end market. Dr. Johnny Fever was a big-time L.A. DJ once — and then he said the wrong thing on the air and was blacklisted in the business. Herb Tarlek is a terrible salesman and a failure even as a sleazy lounge lizard. Les Nessman, the station’s news reporter, can’t pronounce most of the names in his stories and is obsessed with hogs and communism. The station’s general manager, Arthur Carlson, only has a job because his mother owns the station.
They are all trapped together in Cincinnati. I know now that their sets were limited by the budgets and designs of TV at the time, but it really looked like they spent their time in an ugly office before going home to cramped, cheap apartments. I could picture them even when the camera was not on them, heating something out of a can, watching bad sitcoms from the couch, before shuffling off to bed and starting the whole process again in the morning. Their lives were lonely, and like most lonely people, they were weird and complicated and sometimes hard to like.
I suspect that’s what makes a show like WKRP so rare now. You saw glimpses of it in “Community,” but it's not easy to sell a show about losers to a studio or a network or an audience. Real life deals enough loss to all of us.
That's not to say there are no losers on TV anymore. But other shows invite us to laugh at those characters — that Michael Scott, he’s such a moron; that Kramer, he’s so weird; and so on. We get to look down on them from behind a thick, protective coating of irony. We get to be the winners while they struggle.
The characters at WKRP aren’t so easily mocked. (Aside from the fashions and music from thirty years ago, I mean.) They tried too hard, and there’s nothing that’s so repellent to ironic distance as actual effort.
Here’s a good example, from the first season — and one of my favorite episodes. WKRP sponsors a band called “Scum of the Earth” and it’s a disaster from the moment the exceedingly well-dressed men show up. After abusing and insulting everyone within spitting distance, they refuse to play. So Andy and Venus and (reluctantly) Johnny have to beat them up to get them onstage.
It’s probably the smallest joke in the whole episode. (Johnny’s weary sigh: “Rock and roll.”) But as a metaphor, it’s pretty perfect.
Everyone at WKRP knows, on some level, that they’re all stuck. They know they’re never going to make the real big time. The ones who were there before, like Andy and Johnny, know they don’t really belong.
But they never stop aiming for something a little better. Not too much better. They’ll fight for it. Literally punch people in the head for it, if necessary, for reasons that aren’t too clear anymore.
And most of the time, they still fail. We can laugh about it. They do. (Eventually. Usually.) But it’s hard to look down on them for that. It seems a little too close to what we all do every day. We all need to believe we’ve got a shot — or at least a sense of humor — or we wouldn’t get out of bed. Especially on those cold, gray, winter mornings in Ohio.
(Note: I first published this, with minor differences, on August 20, 2014. It was lost from the site when my host service crashed a while ago. I went to the trouble of finding it again and re-posting it now because Hugh Wilson, the creator of WKRP, passed away over the weekend. RIP, Mr. Wilson. You made something great.)
November 2, 2017
Best News

I was floored to find out that FLASHMOB was named one of the Best Books of 2017 by Publishers Weekly in mysteries and thrillers. I'm honored to be included with some amazing authors and books, and very grateful to PW for including me.
June 27, 2017
FLASHMOB is here.
Today's the day. FLASHMOB hits stores everywhere.

Gifted troubleshooter John Smith, introduced in the acclaimed thriller Killfile, must take down a shadowy figure who has weaponized the internet, using social media to put a price on the heads of his targets in this intense, unstoppable thriller from the author reviewers have compared to Michael Crichton, Brad Thor, and James Rollins.
As a fixer for America’s one percent, John Smith cleans up the messes of those rich enough to afford him. But he’s no ordinary gun for hire. Smith is a man of rare gifts, including the ability to read minds. Arriving at the wedding of Kira Sadeghi, a reality television celebrity he recently saved from kidnappers, Smith witnesses a group of gunmen open fire, hitting the bride and others. Though he’s unarmed, Smith cripples one of the killers and is able to pry one word from his mind: “Downvote.”
Eager to learn more, Smith hacks into the brain of an FBI agent to discover the Bureau has been investigating a nefarious new threat called “Downvote,” an encrypted site on the “dark net” that lists the names of celebrities and offers a hefty bounty for anyone who can kill them—unleashing an anonymous and deadly flashmob with a keystroke.
Finding a mastermind on the internet is like trying to catch air—unless you’re John Smith. Motivated by money and revenge, he traces a series of electronic signatures to a reclusive billionaire living at sea, accompanied by a scary-smart female bodyguard who becomes Smith’s partner in his quest. The hunt for their prey will lead from Hong Kong to Reykjavik to a luxury gambling resort deep in the Laotian jungle. Yet always this criminal mastermind remains one step ahead.
The only way Downvote’s creator can stop Smith is to kill him . . . because while this diabolical genius can run, there’s no hiding from a man who can read minds.
You can read the first four chapters and order your copy here. You can also listen to the great Bronson Pinchot read the audiobook version here.
Publisher's Weekly called it "brilliant... intelligence and knuckle-biting suspense. Many will want to read this novel in one sitting.” Booklist said, "Farnsworth is a genuinely gifted storyteller, able to take a fantastic premise and build onto it a story that feels not just plausible but completely natural... A fine genre-bender." And Kirkus Reviews said it's "a smooth, assured effort... another entertaining performance by Farnsworth, who brings an edgy sense of humor to the proceedings."
FLASHMOB was also named a hot summer read by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Huffington Post, Bookish, and Inverse.com.
And if you want to pick up a copy in person, come to one of my events, and I'll sign it for you at no extra charge.
Once again, thank you all for reading my books. I am very lucky -- and very grateful. Hope you enjoy the latest adventure.
May 8, 2017
PWned.

Flashmob: A Novel
By Christopher Farnsworth
Well, this is a pretty great way to start the week. FLASHMOB just got a starred and boxed review from Publishers Weekly.
“The main elements of Farnsworth’s brilliant second thriller featuring the man known as John Smith would individually be enough to sustain interest; the combination of a telepathic lead and a terrifyingly plausible effort to use the Internet for social manipulation produces intelligent and knuckle-biting suspense… Farnsworth credibly ups the ante for his hero and makes accepting his paranormal abilities easy. Many will want to read this novel in one sitting.”
You can read the entire thing here.
Booklist gave FLASHMOB an excellent review as well. (Not online yet, but here's the highlights.)
"Farnsworth is a genuinely gifted storyteller, able to take a fantastic premise and build onto it a story that feels not just plausible but completely natural... A fine genre-bender."
Kirkus Reviews also had some kind words for FLASHMOB:
"A smooth, assured effort... another entertaining performance by Farnsworth, who brings an edgy sense of humor to the proceedings."
And remember, if all this fulsome praise from the world of reviewers makes you want to pre-order FLASHMOB, you can get a free Nathaniel Cade ebook. Details are here.
FLASHMOB hits stores on June 27. You can get your copy through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, iBooks, Kobo, and from your local independent bookstore through IndieBound.
April 28, 2017
THE RETURN OF NATHANIEL CADE
About once a day, I get an email or a message over social media from someone I’ve never met before. It’s always the same question, phrased in different ways.
“Hey, when are you going to write another book about Nathaniel Cade?”
“When are you going to tell us what happened to Cade and Zach?”
“When are you going to do the next book in the President’s Vampire series?”
And I’ve always had the same answer: Eventually.
It's incredibly flattering that so many people like my vampire so much. And I've wanted to write more about him. But Cade was stranded several years ago when I switched publishers, and I’ve been busy writing other books since then. I always intended to get back to him, but I didn’t know when it would happen.
Lately, however, I’ve been getting a lot more questions about Cade. For some reason, the last election inspired a lot of people to start thinking about monsters in the White House again.
It’s inspired me, too. I’ve written a new short novella about Nathaniel Cade: DEEP STATE.
It’s been four years since a new president ascended to the White House. Zach Barrows has not seen Nathaniel Cade, the President’s Vampire, since being fired from his position as Cade’s handler and sent to a small, cramped office in a government building in Nebraska.
Once, he and Cade fought a shadow war against the monsters, spies, and demons that threatened the United States. Now Zach pushes papers and listens to conspiracy theories from people who have no idea how dark the real world can get.
Then Zach is summoned to the Situation Room by President Lester Wyman, who is both the commander-in-chief and a possible traitor.
But he and Cade are bound to follow Wyman’s orders. They are told to find out why a top-secret missile silo has gone offline. If they fail, a nuclear warhead will launch, and the world will die in a hail of fire.
In other words, it’s just another night on the job.
After a long absence, Cade and Zach are back in action together — for what might be the last time.
So, everyone who wanted Cade back? Well, he’s back.
HERE'S HOW YOU GET HIM.DEEP STATE is not available in stores or on Amazon. There’s only one way to get this ebook: it’s free to anyone who pre-orders my next John Smith novel, FLASHMOB.
FLASHMOB is the sequel to KILLFILE, and in this one, John Smith must use his psychic talent to track down a shadowy computer genius who has weaponized the Internet.
Arriving at the wedding of Kira Sadeghi, a reality television celebrity he recently saved from kidnappers, Smith witnesses a group of gunmen open fire, hitting the bride and others. Though he’s unarmed, Smith cripples one of the killers and is able to pry one word from his mind: "Downvote."
Eager to learn more, Smith hacks into the brain of an FBI agent to discover the Bureau has been investigating a nefarious new threat called "Downvote," an encrypted site on the dark net that lists the names of celebrities and offers a hefty bounty for anyone who can kill them—unleashing an anonymous and deadly flashmob with a keystroke.
Finding a mastermind on the internet is like trying to catch air—unless you’re John Smith. Motivated by money and revenge, he traces a series of electronic signatures to a reclusive billionaire living at sea, accompanied by a scary-smart female bodyguard who becomes Smith’s partner in his quest. The hunt for their prey will lead from Hong Kong to Reykjavik to a luxury gambling resort deep in the Laotian jungle. Yet always this criminal mastermind remains one step ahead.
The only way Downvote’s creator can stop Smith is to kill him . . . because while this diabolical genius can run, there’s no hiding from a man who can read minds.
All you have to do is email me a copy of your receipt at flashmobpreorder@gmail.com, and you will be on the list for DEEP STATE. On June 27, when FLASHMOB is released, I will email you a copy of the ebook in PDF format, which is readable on any device or computer. You can even print it out on actual paper if you want to go old-school.
But wait, there’s more. You’ll also get excerpts from the CODENAME: NIGHTMARE PET briefing book, a historical timeline of the secret history of the United States, and “Cade vs. the Bloody Benders,” a deleted scene from Red, White, and Blood where Cade battles an infamous family of serial killers in the Old West.
You can pre-order FLASHMOB from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, iBooks, Kobo, and from your local independent bookstore through IndieBound. A receipt from any one of those sent to flashmobpreorder@gmail.com will qualify you to get the free ebook of DEEP STATE.
To my UK readers -- the same offer applies to you, but for a different book. Over there, FLASHMOB is titled HUNT YOU DOWN. Pre-order HUNT YOU DOWN and I will send you the free ebook of DEEP STATE. Again, send your receipt to flashmobpreorder@gmail.com.
This free ebook giveaway lasts until June 27, 2017 in the United States, and until November 2, 2017 in the United Kingdom.
Please share this with anyone you think would like to see Cade again.
I know a lot of you have missed him, and I hope you'll be happy to see him back in action. I know I am.
Thanks so much.
April 24, 2017
BIG DAMN WEEK
It is a big damn week here at Secret Farnsworth HQ.
FIRST, I was at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books all weekend, thanks to the grace of the incomparable Maret Orliss, who runs the whole thing. I got to shake the hand of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was very gracious despite my squealing like a little schoolgirl. I saw friends and family moderate panels on literary families and prisons and punishment. Then I signed books at Mystery Ink before sharing a panel with big damn heroes Lee Goldberg, Eric Jerome Dickey, Gregg Hurwitz, and Daniel Suarez. We had a great time. Hopefully the audience had some fun, too.

NEXT UP: TUESDAY, APRIL 25, the paperback edition of KILLFILE hits shelves. If you've been waiting for a snazzy, portable version of the story of a man who can read minds, now's your chance. Pick up a copy at your local indie bookstore or online.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, my first comic book, 24: LEGACY -- RULES OF ENGAGEMENT from IDW Publishing will be out. This is a prequel to Fox's hit series, and basically tells the origin story of Eric Carter, the man who has to fill Jack Bauer's shoes. You can get a copy at any comic book store or at Comixology.com. If you'd like to see a free preview, check it out here.

And FINALLY, as if that wasn't enough, later this week I will make an announcement about Nathaniel Cade. Not too huge, but it should be welcome news for anyone who's missed the President's Vampire... So stay bloodthirsty, and stay tuned.
January 17, 2017
24: LEGACY: RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

The secret is out now. As told in the Hollywood Reporter today, I will be scripting the comic book prequel to 24: LEGACY for IDW Publishing.
This is my first published comic book, and it's a pretty big deal for me. I love comics. I learned to read from them. And after five novels, multiple screenplays, and countless news articles, I'm finally getting to write one. Lifelong dream unlocked.
I'm very grateful to Ted Adams, Chris Ryall, Denton Tipton for letting me do this. And of course, to the legendary Beau Smith for opening all the doors.
Look for the first issue in April. Antonio Fuso's art is going to be amazing. And I hope my writing will live up to the TV series.