John Dixon, Phoenix Island and Intelligence
Friday's meeting of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society featured John Dixon, a top-selling author. His first novel, Phoenix Island, is among Amazon's most popular and is very highly rated.
Phoenix Island is about Carl Freeman, a troubled 16-year-old orphan, who has an over-developed sense of justice and a passion to stop bullying that he cannot control. After numerous appearances in juvenile court, he is sent to Phoenix Island, kind of a last stop for good kids who do bad things.
Phoenix Island is a boot camp where they are going to make you into a good person whether you like it or not. Near the end of the book, "they" implant a chip in the hero's brain which gives him access to the totality of human knowledge, akin to the Internet.
Sounds pretty good, huh? John is planning up to six more sequels continuing his main character's journey. So what has this got to do with Rome's Revolution? Just that John is good enough and lucky enough that his book got into the hands of agents and producers who saw enough promise in the basic premise that it eventually became the TV show you know as Intelligence starring Josh Holloway.
John describes the Hollywood process as a "chop shop" where they took all his creative ideas, sliced and diced them, then recombined them into a show which is only peripherally related to his book. Except for the chip in the head, the resemblance is unnoticeable.
I asked John if he had ever seen the TV show Chuck and he said while he had personally never seen it, I was about the 150th person to ask him that question. The fact is, his book sounds nothing like Chuck. The TV show sounds exactly like Chuck but without a sense of humor.
Regardless, all of this gives me hope. It tells me that if I keep pushing, keep marketing, keep publicizing Rome's Revolution, The Ark Lords and Rome's Evolution, maybe I, too, can stumble across an agent or producer who might see the merit in an interstellar saga, culture clash and love story that can get chopped up and repackaged as a movie or TV show.
Therefore I will keep going!
Phoenix Island is about Carl Freeman, a troubled 16-year-old orphan, who has an over-developed sense of justice and a passion to stop bullying that he cannot control. After numerous appearances in juvenile court, he is sent to Phoenix Island, kind of a last stop for good kids who do bad things.
Phoenix Island is a boot camp where they are going to make you into a good person whether you like it or not. Near the end of the book, "they" implant a chip in the hero's brain which gives him access to the totality of human knowledge, akin to the Internet.
Sounds pretty good, huh? John is planning up to six more sequels continuing his main character's journey. So what has this got to do with Rome's Revolution? Just that John is good enough and lucky enough that his book got into the hands of agents and producers who saw enough promise in the basic premise that it eventually became the TV show you know as Intelligence starring Josh Holloway.
John describes the Hollywood process as a "chop shop" where they took all his creative ideas, sliced and diced them, then recombined them into a show which is only peripherally related to his book. Except for the chip in the head, the resemblance is unnoticeable.
I asked John if he had ever seen the TV show Chuck and he said while he had personally never seen it, I was about the 150th person to ask him that question. The fact is, his book sounds nothing like Chuck. The TV show sounds exactly like Chuck but without a sense of humor.
Regardless, all of this gives me hope. It tells me that if I keep pushing, keep marketing, keep publicizing Rome's Revolution, The Ark Lords and Rome's Evolution, maybe I, too, can stumble across an agent or producer who might see the merit in an interstellar saga, culture clash and love story that can get chopped up and repackaged as a movie or TV show.
Therefore I will keep going!
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Tales of the Vuduri
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