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Chasing Zodiacs with Max Solo · The Elsa Kurt Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: A secret agency, a powerful corporation, and a man found alive with clues that set a dangerous chase in motion.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Today, Elsa welcomes author Max Tolo to discuss his book Chasing Zodiacs to Repair the Soul of Humanity.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: They'll explore the inspiration behind the story, the people caught in its secrets, and the search for hope when the stakes couldn't be higher.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Elsa Kurt Show.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_05: Well, hello, my friends, and hello, Max, my man of mystery here.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_05: So welcome to the show.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_05: How are you today?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very well, thank you.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure to be here, and thank you very much for having me.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_05: It's absolutely so um your your book sounds so, so intriguing.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm so excited for us to get to share some no spoilers, guys, no spoilers, but some information about the book and behind the book.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_05: You know, instead of behind the music, it's behind the book.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_05: So um your book takes on a deeply serious subject through a story full of danger and secrets.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_05: So let's start with what brought you to this story.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's quite an unusual background because um I'm working with trucks and trucking, and we've been developing trucking software for the last few years to integrate with um AI to simplify all processes for anyone driving trucks or vans or even bicycles and motorbikes across the world.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we were developing the mapping systems and GPS technology integrating with AI for route planning, load planning, etc.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we found that there was so much human traffic being moved by these vehicles, trucks, vans, ships, planes, and they were being moved in vast quantities of people around the world.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um I just couldn't believe the figures I was looking at.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and I started looking behind those figures on where they were coming from, where they were going to, who was behind it, which countries.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't get to the bottom of it because it's such a vast problem, but it's it's one that's being controlled by the very top people on this planet, very much as normal as we tend to find in these circumstances.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to be careful what I was investigating and what I was writing.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I just fell into it, how to make a story out of this.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I needed to create some characters and a reason for someone to save somebody.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: There had to be a hero or heroine in it, and they had to have a purpose, and they had to have a past that related to it, and the characters had to have some part in that past as well, and the way things are moving forward.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know that sounds a bit of a mouthful, but um I can't keep it any simpler than that.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, no, that's so fascinating.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I do understand that, you know, sometimes just the smallest thing, or I guess in this case, the biggest thing just triggers this concept, this idea and story in your head.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_05: And it's almost like a compulsion, right?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_05: Like that you have to write this, like it's it won't leave you alone.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_05: So you have to write it.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_05: Did was it like that for you?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because um I've got three sisters, and um, and I'm sure you understand what being a boy amongst three sisters means.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought about uh, well, most women understand um you know the star signs and the zodiac and everything, and they all relate to some way to some person.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we all see people and say, Oh, you're of you're an Aries, you're a this, you're a that.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I started thinking, well, why don't I design characters around the Virgo signs and put them into a sequence where they become part of the plot and not not to give them too much credit, but to make them be part of it in a good and a bad way.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone thinks you know you're in control of millions of slaves, but there's usually a reason why you're there, and it's not always because you're a greedy, ignorant, or selfish or obnoxious person, other other things come into play.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to give them a history and how they all related to the person who was going to come after them.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that was quite intricating because I had to do it around the world and build the characters up with different countries, but at the same time not to give too much away in the first book.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um that was the hardest part, keeping keeping it relevant and putting clues in as to why something's happening and seeing if if I if I could work it out myself, because it was hard enough putting some of the clues in.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thinking if I put this in, will I understand where this came from, where it's going to?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And will the people understand the characters and how they've been formed and how they got there, and what are their ambitions and what terrible things are in place for them, or good as the case may be.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um not everything in this world is all bad.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of good in people, and sometimes they don't have a chance to bring it out.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Some good in people that goes the other way, and they actually turn around and become the real horrors of the world.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's difficult to balance them to keep a story together and make it interesting for anyone who wanted to read it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, now I I gotta say, Max, you took on uh quite an endeavor, really, for a first-time novelist, right?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_05: Because you're talking about multiple characters with, you know, and of course, you with with layers, and you have to develop these characters and and bring them to life and make them characters that feel believable.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_05: So I I commend you for taking on such a huge undertaking and making this all sound so compelling.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, one of the most interesting, I mean everything about this is interesting to me, but one of the most interesting parts was that um the essence, and please correct me if you need to, of the story is it revolves around modern day slavery.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so what gave you the idea to first even write a story that that tackles that?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_05: Because that's obviously a huge topic.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um the main thing is because the numbers are so vast.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're talking to from 30 to 50 million people around the world that are involved in slavery at the moment.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's being quite um disingenuous to them because there's a lot more slavery in the world than we give it credit for.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Minimum wage is almost slavery.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what job you're doing, people can't afford a car, a house, anything.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're just working for the sake of working.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um I have to give someone hope that they could get out of that predicament.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And someone does actually care.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just one that cares, it's a lot of people care, but they don't want to be in the predicament themselves.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: They'd rather avoid challenging the question.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Most people live very near slaves without even realizing it.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the horror of what people go through is what people want to avoid, and they don't want to question it, and they don't want because they don't want to be in that position themselves.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: If they could do something, they would, but everyone feels alone and that that doing something they won't make a difference.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas bringing it to attention of a lot of people and challenging them to see what they see every day is probably more beneficial for the hope of solving it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is uh that's the only way I could really approach it to make a difference.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And even if it saves one slave, then I've achieved something.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_05: Now you've described the book as not fully fictional.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_05: Can you help us understand which elements come from um real events or from research and which parts you created for the story?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's quite a difficult question because they all crossed different boundaries.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um so much on the research, I I couldn't believe the aspects of where the slavery was occurring.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to go back and find where people were moving from and going to and the reasons for that.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to investigate the countries and why people were being rounded up and moved to other places, like uh Indians and Pakistanis being moved to the Middle East for building project work, and they never get paid.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: They've shipped in, they're put into housing areas, they're not allowed to communicate with anybody, and then they get shipped out without even being paid.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a that's a global problem.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um and at the same time, I had to investigate countries and bring out the um aspects of cities and countries that could uh be part of the character.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the Chinese person would have aspects of China and all the implications of the Southeast, and where the um where all the slavery came from and where it went to and how the climate affected that as well.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, you're hitting a lot of layers.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_05: That must have felt like you were going down quite the rabbit hole the more you researched and prepared for this book, yes?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it was very scary to be quite honest, because the more I got into it, the more I thought, oh God, I'm gonna never write this.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's too vast.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to be ruthless and choose certain countries and build characters around that country, knowing that I could only um bring forward a few of the members of the group, because not everyone needed to be in the location at the same time.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: There had to be other felt forces behind them and other good or bad aspects that could be brought up later on.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_05: Do you, in the in the writing of this book, and be because so much of it is based on and taken from um real life events and things that are occurring in the world right now, and you you know, wrote this book that probably especially to you and to the people who are in the know as to what you're talking about, um they know, you know.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_05: Do you have concerns of any kind of like retribution for writing a book like this that touches so closely on real events and real things that are happening in the world?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um I c I could be and should be, but I'm not.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ex-military and I've done an awful lot of things in my life that um some I regret, some I'm ashamed of, and some I had to do because uh someone else someone else needed it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've I'm a mixed character myself, and um no, I don't I don't really fear anything coming after me because if anything, it'll do my cause more good than harm.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh the first the first part is is very um it's not as scary as the next part.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is only giving you the beginning.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Boy.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're not you're not seeing the real malice and the and at the same time you're seeing the characters building up what they're trying to build a future, but they're they don't want to be there.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Their future is pretty grim.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: They might have everything, but they've got nothing else.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have a soul, they don't have a life.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: But um you you can't you can't wish for everything without losing a lot.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's so true.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And people people who wish for a lot usually end up losing everything.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: What what about this book and and this time that made you feel like like this is the time I need to release this right now?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um mainly because of what I'm doing in my day job.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're bringing some AI technology to the market that um with that's got built-in security factors to try and prevent a lot of the things that are discussed in the book.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um we know it that should make a difference.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um but we don't know if it will.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: It all depends if how, because you what the last question was, am I worried?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the biggest way for them to do to get to me would be to stop the technology we're developing for the trucking industry, which will stop tens of thousands of being people being um commuted around the world, and you you know, passed on as slaves.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can do that for a start, we we might achieve something significant.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that would be my major concern.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um Yeah, so it's very difficult because there are so many aspects to slavery that impact on people's lives without realizing it.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_05: Well, can you I I don't know how much you can explain um based on your position and and all of that.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, without giving spoilers away for the book, talk to me a little bit more about what specifically you mean when you say modern day slavery, like the ways that we are or people are enslaved right now.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh dear, there's there there are so many things in front of us that we don't realise.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Just the fact that in the West we try and have a minimum wage.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: A minimum wage is not a living wage.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: So to start with, there we've got tens of millions of people living on poverty line that can't even go up the ladder, but they can certainly go down it.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um so it and when you've got that sort of scale of people, then you bring in all the problems with the drugs, and the trafficking gets even worse because people think there's no hope.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So they take the drugs, then it creates another problem.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you can't solve one without solving the other.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the drug trade is is lives in tandem with natural slavery, and uh, you can't solve one without partially solving the other.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, talk to me a little bit about your protagonist, uh, also by the name of Max.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_05: The character Max is found alive on a waste dump carrying clues from the past.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, that certainly gets our attention, right?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_05: Where did the idea for him for him come from?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_05: And why did you I'm sorry, why did you choose to introduce him that way?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's a bit of a problem here because uh there's the assumption from the start that um that Max is a male.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_05: Ah, yes, that is an assumption.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_05: Shame, shame, shame for making an assumption.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh most people, because of the nature of the sector it's in, would make an assumption that Max was male.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because various parts around the book it uh Max enjoys cigarettes, scotch, and various other things that are male-oriented or presumed to be from the female side of it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: But but we all share vices, and we all have vices, and those vices tend to come from where we were born and how we were brought up, and our friends and associates.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I I wanted people to make a choice.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Who is this person, and am I right in assuming that my assumptions are correct?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: I like that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I've given the reader a choice on assuming that Max is male.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, people's bias will mean that they'll look at the story differently because they'll they'll expect certain male traits, and uh anyone who's a really good reader will understand there's not something quite right here.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um I won't give too much away, but um you people like to see the good in people and they also want to see the bad.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because because bad people tend to make more interesting characters than good ones.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_05: That's true.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's an unfortunate thing, but uh but it means you can save the bad people, but um it's very hard to make a good person bad unless you're offering them enough.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes you have to find out what it is you're offering them that will turn them bad.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I've put a mixed bag of things in this.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, you did.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_05: It just gets more intriguing by the moment.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_05: Now I feel I already wanted to read the whole book, but uh now I'm even more compelled because I want to be the smart one that figure that figures it all out.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if I will be though.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, don't be don't be so disingenuous because um it's I didn't do it on purpose because I've got three sisters and they can be very sneaky and um and being a lone person amongst all this sneakiness makes you realise you've got to do things a bit clever in the world to get away with it because three against one is the sort of odds I've been used to, right?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I had to give Max a lot more odds than that.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Max had to get through a lot more tribulations than three sisters.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And don't take right, it's not that I've got anything against women or anything like that.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that it's more fun if if there's some deep-rooted envy or jealousy.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: I try to give all these characters a a different um set of values and make them all different.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I try to make them for readers, they don't want ugly old old people, they want someone who's got a bit of panache or charm or wit or something daring about them, and otherwise it's not very exciting.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's about entertainment, but make it interesting by telling a story throughout it.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I took ages.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Every village that's involved, I did research on it so that uh the streets would be recognized by people and uh the outfits the women wore would be relevant to who they were, yeah, and the jewelry and how they presented themselves.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And in the group of women, there are good and bad, and attributes come out that you would never otherwise suspect.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it was the it was the mammoth, and I don't know if I pulled this off, if I hadn't had my publishers giving me serious advice.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I am not an author by any stretch.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just someone with an idea who treats me.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_05: You officially are now.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_05: You are an official author.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_05: You are the real deal.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_05: You get to tag that title right after your name.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_05: So, yeah, absolutely.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I mean, this, you know, as we've been saying, it has been such a massive undertaking that took you down more and more paths.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_05: I have to ask, how long did it take you to write this story?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, nearly um to write it didn't take very long, but to put it together properly took quite a lot of assistance because I'm and my I'm not a um an English language expert, and uh the people I deal with every day, truckers and that, the my language is a bit more colourful than I could actually use in this.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_05: I love me some colourful language.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if our audience would, so we'll be our audience maybe wouldn't, so we'll behave, I guess.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very hard to do it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um but I enjoyed it because it brought Aspects of what I'm doing in my day job into how I could make a difference.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it made me think more about people and what inspires people to be good or bad, or how they can get out of a predicament that they know they'd rather not be in.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the hardest of all is to value yourself and to find yourself knowing that if you're a lonely, miserable person, you might be the wealthiest, but that's not a future.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And how can I get out of it?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_05: So true.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_05: So, so true.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_05: Talk to me a little bit about the subtitle To Repair the Soul of Humanity.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_05: What does that mean to you?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_05: And what do you hope readers take away from the book?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it can mean a lot of things to different people, depending on your religious views or your personal views or your family views.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: But to me, it was about giving everyone the right to be a human and to be free and to have a life that wasn't um impacted by other people.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And to to live a life that the best you could.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And to have that, you get your your soul back as a person.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that was um, yeah, it was difficult because soldiers and um other service members would know what that means.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can be fighting for someone who doesn't want it, you can be fighting for people who don't know you're doing it for their good, or or you're doing it for the wrong reasons entirely.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: But everyone has to have a soul.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: And humanity's lost a big chunk of theirs.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it'd be great if if it can bring some of it back.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_05: Knowing what we know about AI, or knowing what you know about AI, and just this overview that you have of all this, do you do you wish that Pandora's box was never opened?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think um Pandora's box had to be opened.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's going to give um opportunities and intelligence that we never knew was there.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at the moment we don't even know what half of our brain does.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_05: True.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of people who don't know what all of their brain does.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_05: Even more true.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: But that's hard.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: But AI is is just a tool.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: But it's and humans can use it in lots of ways.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: When I was a kid, everyone told me, Oh, computers, you will never have a job.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: You do blah, blah, blah.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna live in fear the rest of your life.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: The total opposite happened.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: There were double the amount of jobs, double the amount of careers, and it was so much more exciting.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um and wouldn't it be a boring world if everything was perfect and we all lived in peace and happiness?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because humanity would lose everything.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: You'd lose hope.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: You'd lose courage, you'd lose love, you'd lose the risk of doing something for someone with your life on it.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: You'd lose you'd lose so much of humanity if we didn't have struggles.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I love that you you tackled these really dark subjects, these dark themes, um, but you do have this underlying and and overt um hope that's woven into it and that's encouraged in it.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_05: And and I think that's so important because, you know, as you well know, as we all well know, uh, we are living in what looks like very, very, very dark times right now.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_05: And if you lose hope, you you lose purpose, right?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Very true.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh without hope you lose the essence of ever attaining happiness.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, some people are miserable when they get up in the morning for a lot of reasons.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm miserable before I have a cup of tea in the morning.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that that little thing changes it for me.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: But other little things can change people's lives dramatically.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just being free is one of them.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_05: You um I caught it.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_05: I hope you all caught it as you were listening and watching as well.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_05: I heard mention of a sequel.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_05: Talk to me a little bit about where you're at with that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because of the world's changing so rapidly, in the first book, you'll see the mention of rare earths, and rare earths are needed for robots, and robots are replacing humans.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that should, in theory, mean the reduction in slavery.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: But whether it does or not is yet to be seen.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because to give you an indication, Russia needs to mine the minerals to make robots.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now they haven't got enough people to do that, so they need to build robots to do it.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's the dilemma.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my goodness.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_05: Do you think there'll be a book three?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_05: Like, where do you envision, or are you just gonna let this carry carry itself to where it needs to go to?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm I I think it will it'll have a life for a while because uh this book only introduces a few characters.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the next few are even meaner, nastier, and obnoxious than the first group.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: But if that's possible, but there's redemption is always around the corner.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love that and twists and turns can happen in most people's lives.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can cross the road one day and everything's hunky-dory, you can cross it the next, and you get hit by the bus.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So there's gonna be some buses hitting people, and there's gonna be some a bit of passion.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not really I'm not an expert on that front, but but you you need to have people with um that need fire in this in themselves and find themselves and a reason and lots of other reasons to for living.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's good people and there's bad people who want to be good.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so you might see some good come out of it, or you might see some more bad.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: But they without both, you don't have very much of a world.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so true.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_05: Max, what do you hope people will, you know, when they close that back cover, what do you hope they walk away with um from your book or from your series, I should say?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing would be I hope they they're right about their assessment of who Max is and were the clues ones that they understood and and helped them get there towards the end of the first book.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because um we all have clues in our life about where we're going, and sometimes you take you take the hint, and sometimes you don't.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's lots of ways your life can turn.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to make it that people I don't know where this one's going yet.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: But you you you're gonna be as excited as I am.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_05: I love that.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_05: Max, I can't thank you enough for joining me today.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, this has been so intriguing, and and I look forward to uh sharing.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_05: Guys, I I tell everybody in the audience all the time that the links for the book will be in the show notes.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_05: Max, is there a website they should be going to as well?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um there should be.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I should know what it is.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_05: I'll find it.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_05: No worries.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_05: I will find it and I will put it in the show notes.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_05: Guys, everything you need to know will be in the show notes.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_05: You'll be able to access the book and future books uh right away.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_05: And uh again, Max, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_05: It has been an absolute pleasure.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: You've been an excellent host, and and uh I hope everyone is enjoys it as much as I enjoyed doing it.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you very much for having me.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a real pleasure.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_05: Wonderful.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_05: Take care, guys.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_05: We'll see you in the next episode.