The 'Guts' Cover, With Art From Tony Moore

Here it is, the cover to "Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead," with art by Tony Moore:

Grisly, right? I love it. Tony was the original artist on the graphic novels, a childhood friend of Robert Kirkman's, and they developed the story together. It was a big deal to get him to do the cover art for the book, and I'm very excited about it.

Publication is set for October, right around the time that season 8 of the show will premiere. If you want to order it now on Amazon, the page is here.

A Better Vader: How the Prequels Could've Been Saved

Darth Vader is one of the most iconic villains in film history. Yet the story of how he became that villain is a mess.

I've been thinking about this post for years. It probably started about four minutes after I walked out of my first viewing of The Phantom Menace, but I've been thinking about it more with Rogue One coming next month. The problem with the prequels is simply the clumsy way the central story is told: how Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader. He's introduced as a slave boy, who becomes a powerful warrior, who turns to utter evil. The device they chose to get Vader to turn is his forbidden love for Amidala. He fears she will die and submits to the dark side in a fruitless effort to save her.

That's not awful in theory, but it's terribly unconvincing in its execution, and the three movies just collapse because of it. What's really needed is a story that makes his dark-side conversion believable, and also sets up his later redemption when he saves Luke and kills the Emperor. The prequels do not achieve this double-purpose at all. You need to show how Vader became a servant of the Emperor. Vader becomes a vassal of the Emperor, not a partner, and in that subtle reordering we will sow the seeds for Vader's eventual redemption.

The elements are there. What's needed is a tight story that brings them together.

What I've come up with is a story that builds from Episode I to III amid a corrupt, decadent Jedi order and a crumbling Republic. It turns on a new Jedi order established by Qui-Gon and including Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Amidala. The order is dedicated to restoring the old glory, and to fight a group that is killing Jedi, a group led by Darth Maul, whose role will be greatly increased. The final confrontation between Maul and Anakin is the event that turns the latter to the dark side. And that's not even the crescendo. The dramatic peak is an epic battle between Qui-gon, Obi-Wan, Amidala, Yoda, and Vader and the Emperor.

"Trekonomics," with Author Manu Saadia

This week I sat down with Manu Saadia, the author of "Trekonomics." We had a great, wide-ranging talk, about Star Trek and the vision of the future laid out by Gene Roddenberry. We talked about the elements that contribute to the economics of the 23rd and 24th centuries, and we explored how many of those elements are either with us today, or exist in very nascent form.

It's very surprising to find that nobody's ever written a book about the economics of Star Trek before. You'd think somebody would have. What fascinating about it is that the path to the kind of world Roddenberry envisioned will have as much to do with economics and politics as technology.

Getting to a world where people work together, and racism and poverty is a thing of the past, may not be a question of technology, but rather politics. The tools will exist, the question is how will they be distributed. Ultimately, the question of whether our future looks like Star Trek or Terminator is less about the machines than it is about mankind. Have a listen. This was possibly my favorite podcast yet: Star Trek, economics, and even some bitcoin thrown in there, too.

 

That's not exactly the bridge of the Enterprise in the picture, but it's close. It's from the exhibit at Star Trek: Mission, the convention at the Jacob Javits Center this past weekend. It was built by James Cawley and his team, a group that's been making Star Trek fan films for about 15 years. I've got a feature in the works on it.

Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Orphan Black, Mr. Robot, Z Nation, Humans, Even Rick and Morty - an Epic, Seven-in-One Piece of Fan Fiction

This is going to be the best "very special episode of" ever.

Who doesn't love a good crossover? You know, like Ray Romano showing up on King of Queens. The doctors from St. Regis having a drink at Cheers. Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies appearing on Mister Ed.

I guess that was on my mind lately. I was wondering - as many have - if there was any way to connect the cast of The Walking Dead with the spinoff show Fear the Walking Dead (I recap both shows for the WSJ, as you can see here and here, so I tend to think about them quite a bit.) The former is set in Georgia, and the latter in Los Angeles, and in case you don't know, the trains aren't running. So having these two groups of apocalypse survivors meet is pretty unlikely, but not impossible. Maybe it would have something to do with the cast of Z Nation? After all, they're in the same zombie boat, and trying to get from the east coast to California.

Then it occurred to me that there are a bunch of shows I watch that could conceivably be crossed over. Besides the three zombie shows, I also like Mr. Robot, Orphan Black, and Humans. Could there be a way to write one story that combines characters from all those shows? Just for fun, as a sort of as a writer's exercise, I tried to dream up a way to do it.

It all tumbled together quickly. Within an hour had the outline of one story that connects every show I follow on a regular basis. Essentially, it's this: A hacker society knocks out power across the country, which releases deadly rats from a genetics lab that spread a zombie plague. The only way to stop it is for the scientists at the lab to get back the one man who is immune, but he's clear across the country.

You can see where it's going if you watch the shows. What's more, it works out in a way that is actually pretty organic. It connects several completely separate shows (well, sort of completely separate) and doesn't violate the internal logic of any of them, I think, taking only minor liberties.

I even figured out a way to get a Rick and Morty cameo in there.

The Walking Dead Premiere at Madison Square Garden

I was lucky enough to get a press pass to attend Friday night's "Walking Dead" extravaganza at Madison Square Garden. You can read my piece on it for the Journal here. But, I took a bunch of photos, most of which we couldn't use for the post, so I thought I'd share those here.

I will say, personally, it was a blast. It was very unusual to watch a TV show in a theater setting, with a huge high-def screen and pounding sound system. With more than 10,000 other fans cheering and screaming, it was unlike almost anything else I've ever experienced.

They really did a great job of creating the right atmosphere. They had people shambling around dressed up like zombies:

And they even trucked in the Governor's aquarium:

Home Movies Will Never Be the Same

Back in the spring, when I went to South by Southwest, I met up with Sean Ramsey, a Toronto production guy who had ditched his production company to start a new company building 360-degree cameras. He called it the bublcam, and that day he gave me a little demo of it.

This month, the company sent me one to test out for myself, which I've been doing. Here are some of the photos I've taken. It's not quite as easy as shooting with your cellphone, but your cellphone can't do this.

I was in Washington on the 10th for a conference, and took a little time to walk around the Mall.

The Washington Monument:

Lafayette Square:
The Lincoln Memorial:

Bitcoin at OnCue

I should've put this on here a while ago. It's the talk I did with Mike and the Economist's Matthew Bishop in June at the OnCue2015 conference in Boston. This panel was held in the Memorial Church at Harvard.

It was shot with a VSN Mobil 360-degree camera. I just placed the camera on our table, and let it run. The way the software works, it cuts the video in half for viewing in these kinds of environments, but if you watched this with virtual-reality goggles, you'd get the full 360-experience. It's kind of wild.

My 1914 Penny

UPDATE: So, my 1914 penny is not a 1914 penny, and it's not worth much more than a penny, either.

Took it to an appraiser in midtown, who took one look at it with a magnifying glass, said it was a 1917 penny, and mumbled something about its worth.

"It's what?" I said.

"A penny, a penny," he said real fast, not wanting to waste one second on it. "It's a penny and it's worth a penny."

Here's the original post:

This morning I was pulling some change out of my pocket, to dump into a little coin jar we have in the house. I'd just come back from grocery shopping. As my hand was going toward the jar, I just happened to notice that the penny on top - back side facing up - had wheat leaves on it. That automatically means it's an older coin. They stopped the wheat leaves design in 1956.

It first, I couldn't even make out the year, so faded were the numerals. I had to actually take a picture of the coin, and magnify the picture. As you can see, it's seems to be "1914."

I did a quick Google search, and found a pretty good piece about 1914 pennies. The bottom line is I don't think my penny is worth all that much more than a penny.

There were three series that year, from mints in Denver, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The Denver pennies have a D under the year, and are the rarest. They have the most value. The San Francisco pennies have an S under the year, and are also valuable. The Philly pennies don't have a marking, and are the least valuable.

It's possible that my penny has an extremely worn D or S on it, but I can't see it at all. Which would make it a Philly penny, and worth about 60 cents. I also found a coin appraiser just a few blocks from my office, so I'll bring it over there just out of interest.

Still, it is absolutely wild to me that this penny is 101 years old, and that it's been in circulation all that time and is still in circulation.

We've Gone to Bandcamp

We've gone to bandcamp. Really.

Bandcamp is an online site, for musicians mainly, a sort of sales platform and social network rolled into one. Artists can sell their music, set the prices, talk to fans, follow other artists, and so on. The website is good, and the mobile app is even better. They have a nice product for musicians, and have managed to sell a good number of albums over the years.

They've recently expanded into audiobooks, and the publisher of our audiobook, Gildan, suggested that we put the book on there for sale. I met the team running the site when we were out in San Francisco (they were literally a few blocks north of 20Mission, on the top floor of the US Bank building in Mission District, I think it was the 13th or 14th, in this big open office space with giant plate-glass windows and a phenomenal view of the city. I can't believe I didn't take a single picture.)

Not sure that I actually had much choice in the matter, but I was impressed by the site, and what they were building, and agreed that we should put the book up there. So we did. The player above provides an excerpt from the audiobook, narrated by Sean Pratt, and will take you to our page on Bandcamp.

Give it a shot!

The New York Times Review

Can't believe I didn't post this earlier, but the New York Times reviewed The Age of Cryptocurrency in its March 22 edition, in a piece written by Columbia University's Emanuel Derman, who called it a "thorough, timely and colorful book."

It's going to sound kind of silly, but to be blunt this is something I've dreamed about for decades. To have your book reviewed in the Times? There just isn't anything that tops that. I'll be honest with you, I get a just a little bit emotional even thinking about it.

This whole past year has been like a storm with this book. It's been a mad dash, and massive undertaking, like trying to run a two-hour marathon, and we never really had time, well, I never did at least, to sit back and just reflect on what it all means. Seeing the book on a bookshelf for the first time was one big moment, like a musician I'd imagine hearing their song on the radio for the first time. It's hard to explain exactly the feeling.

The other big moment is picking up the Sunday Times, and seeing your book reviewed there.

Bitcoin and the All Out Show

That's us with Lord Sear.

No doubt, the most fun we've had doing an interview so far was the half-hour we spent two Friday's ago on the All Out Show on SiriusXM. It's an uncensored (Sirius, after all) hip-hop interview and talk show.

This show was very different from all the other shows we've done, which have mainly been business-oriented outlets like CNBC and Fox Business. But these guys, Rude Jude and Lord Sear, gave us a lot of time to explain bitcoin. Sure, they ripped us bit here and there for "all your big-ass words," but they were genuinely interested in talking to us, and hearing what we had to say. It really did turn into, at least I thought so, a really good, informative interview.

We also took calls from listeners, which was rather interesting, to say the least.

The Age of Cryptocurrency, the Trailer

Mike and I made a trailer for The Age of Cryptocurrency. Book trailers have gotten pretty elaborate over the past few years, and it's no surprise. While once upon a time it didn't make sense to make a trailer to sell a book, the rise of YouTube and social media have opened this up as a new way to market your book. It's not a must have yet - I haven't seen any trailers for Stephen King books - but it's quite nearly mainstream.

There are an awful lot of trailers out there now, and some of them are quite elaborate, clearly made by professional production companies. B.J. Novak has a slick one for his collection of short stories, "One More Thing." It helps, of course, to have friends like Mindy Kaling and probably everybody who knew from "The Office" to help you with your trailer.

Then there's this one for Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story." Again, it doesn't hurt your trailer's chances if you can get James Franco to make a cameo as himself. Or Jay McInerney.

We didn't have access to Mindy Kaling. Or Jay McInerney. Or James Franco. Or Satoshi Nakamoto, for that matter. What we did have access to was Times Square. So Mike and I waited for one sunny afternoon and took our iPhone out into Times Square and asked people one simple question: "What is bitcoin?"

It's really the crux of the entire book, to answer the question, "what is bitcoin?" It's the question that got Mike and I interested in the first place. It's the reason we dug into the history of cryptocurrencies, and cypherpunks, and the history of money, and why we went to China, and Silicon Valley.

What is bitcoin?

Getting Closer to Jan. 27

We are getting closer.

A Funny Little Modern Oddity

Yesterday, the oddest email landed in my inbox. It was from Amazon. "Paul Vigna," it said, "are you looking for something in our Industries in Business & Money eBooks department? If so, you might be interested in these items."

Now, what item do you think was at the top of the list? The Age of Cryptocurrency. Now that, I thought to myself, is fantastic. Amazon is promoting my book in its little email circulars (does anybody use the term circular for these kinds of things? Am I showing my age there?) I actually started getting pretty excited about it.

Then I thought about it for a second, and it dawned on me why that book was at the top of the list.

It was at the top of the list because I've been going to the website and looking the book up (this is the page, in case you're interested in a preorder). Not daily, but a lot, pretty much daily, probably more than anybody save maybe Mike. So, of course, what happened is obvious: Amazon's tracking software records that I've been there, and it almost certainly also knows I haven't placed an order (although that certainly shouldn't stop you). When it comes time for Amazon's algorithms to select the books I'm most likely to buy, because they're the ones I've been looking at, what does it pick?

The Age of Cryptocurrency.

Now, on the one hand, that's a nifty piece of software Amazon's got there. I'm quite sure they spend an awful lot of money to get that stuff right, and to be able to match people up with the things they are most likely to buy.  But on the other hand, it's a failure, because it sent an ad to the least likely person to buy that book. I mean, I've, like, already read it. The computer read my name on the sales side, but didn't read it on the author side. Or, if it did, it couldn't discern that they were the same (it's not like my name is Joe Greene, after all) and that it shouldn't try to sell me a book I wrote.

Modern living, man. It's a blast sometimes.

Still, I was excited to see Cryptocurrency there, and I'd imagine, or hope, it will be included in other circulars, to other people. So all in all it's a good sign.

Coming Soon: The Age of Cryptocurrency

Things are going to start happening quickly now, I think. "The Age of Cryptocurrency" is 75 days away from publication, Jan. 27. We got our first review, too, from Publishers Weekly. It's what they call a starred review, meaning it's got a little star next to it, which I'm told is their way of indicating this is an important book.

I sure as hell they're right; Mike Casey and I poured a lot into this book, and we really do think this is going to be the first comprehensive look not only at bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, but at everything that's gone into bringing them about and pointing at where they're going: their genesis, their cultural influence, their potential, the technology, where it can fit into the mainstream world, and what challenges that presents.

Publishers Weekly didn't do a full-blown review for the general public, mind you; that's not what they do. These reviews are mainly for media and book buyers, it's a way of telling them what's coming up.

Anyhow, it's pretty exciting. Now that we're done with the writing and editing (I believe), we're into planning the marketing and publicity. This is a completely new world for me.

Even though I never wrote a book before, I've certainly written. But I've never done press interviews, and book launches, and marketing, and everything that comes along with trying to sell a book. It's kind of fun.


Anyhow, here's their review:

While many readers understandably have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept of non-government-backed currency, journalists Casey (Che’s Afterlife) and Vigna, who blog about cryptocurrency at the Wall Street Journal’s MoneyBeat blog, here use their considerable expertise to make the Bitcoin phenomenon accessible. They take a thorough, multidisciplinary approach to the topic, including a fascinating examination of the origin of money. The authors are appropriately cautious, warning that despite increased public awareness of Bitcoin, it remains a niche product, and the jury is still out on how far and how quickly it and other digital currency will spread. However, newcomers will gain a better understanding of the revolutionary potential of digital currency, especially for the “roughly 2.5 billion people from Afghanistan to Africa to even America who have been shut out of the modern finance system.” And the explication of the non-currency applications of the concepts behind Bitcoin—such as tamper-proof records of verified information—will be valuable to any reader. Agent: Gillian McKenzie, Gillian McKenzie Agency. (Jan.)

Money Quotes

In line with a project I've been working on, I compiled a bunch of quotes about money, i.e., money quotes:

“Cursed he be above all others who’s enslaved by love of money.” – Anacreon, Greek lyric poet, 500 BC

“Of all the foul growths current in the world, the worst is money.” Sophocles 442 BC

“Love of money is the mother of all evils.” Diogenes the Cynic, 400-325 BC

“By right means if you can, but by any means makes money.” Horace, 13 BC

“Money, it has been said, is the cause of good things to a good man and of evil things to a bad man.” Philo, 20 BC-45 AD

“O cursed lust of gold!” Virgil, 19 BC

“The love of money grows as the money itself grows.” Juvenal, 60-140 AD (Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit)

“He is bound fast by his wealth…his money owns him rather than he owns it.” St. Cyprian, 200-258

“All things obeyen to moneye.” Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1387-1400

Daredevil Joby Ogywn Recounts Everest Avalanche

On the morning of April 18, Joby Ogywn was lying in his sleeping bag, in a tent, at a base camp on the side of Mt. Everest, when he heard the awful sounds of the avalanche that would claim 16 lives, including three members of his own team. It was the single worst disaster in the history of the world's tallest mountain.

Ogywn, a famed daredevil, was prepping for an audacious stunt: climbing to the top of Everest and jumping off in a wingsuit. He canceled the stunt the next day (Discovery Channel was going to air it live), and started a relief fund to help the families of the victims.

He stopped by the newsroom to talk about that day, the relief fund, and why the the tragedy won't stop him from doing what he does for a living.

Norman Reedus

I should've posted this a while ago, just been busy on a whole load of other things, which I'll be talking about more over the rest of this year. In the meantime, we were lucky enough to snag Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl Dixon on "The Walking Dead" for this interview back in the beginning of March. 

Also, if you've got nothing better to do, here's my season finale recap. The last three episodes, we were not provided with screeners, so I was watching, taking notes, and writing all at the same time. Wasn't easy. Anyhow, it was a fun season - I know "fun" sounds odd to attach to a show about human catastrophe - and I'm already looking forward to October, when the show comes back, the Grimes clan fights it way out of that rail car, Carol and Tyreese find Terminus, and we finally find out what happened to Beth. We have to find out what happened to Beth.

I Died on Broadway

If I work for another 40 years, I may not have as much fun as I had today in making this video.

Broadway has been turned into Disneyland for football fans this week. From 47th to 34th, the whole thing is one big Super Bowl carnival; nothing but football fans and football games and football rides and the Lombardi Trophy. I don't know how you could not like it.

(Yes, that's a GoPro camera on my head. Sadly, none of that footage made the final cut.)

So anyhow, on Friday we grabbed a bunch of the WSJLive on-air talent and headed out to Times Square for a little field-goal kicking competition. I'd seen the goal posts set up on Broadway and 46th Street earlier in the week, and wanted a chance to get on there.

I got in touch with the NFL people, who were really very helpful, as they were earlier with our Lombardi segment. Honestly, I was surprised that we asked for two segments the week of the game, and they got back quickly and made we had everything we needed.

They blocked out a half-hour for us, and then it was just a matter of us making our kicks.

As a team, we weren't so hot. We went three for eight. Personally, I had an even worse performance. I was 0-3, shanked every one wide right. And on right on the Great White Way no less. The indignity.

Super Bowl Indicator and the Lombardi Trophy

Having some fun with the Super Bowl Boulevard thing they set up on Broadway this week. Went down to see the Lombardi Trophy and talk stocks with JC Parets.