>> and i think that would be highly irresponsible to make that argument, and that's also, that's the easier argument to make. it's easier to say, you know what? we blew it. we're going to go right off the edge, and it's all over. it's more difficult to say, okay, wait a minute. despite everything and all these problems, how are we going to deal? we are, after all, a very intelligent species. we have created lots and lots of technology. there is enormous amounts of wealth that can be channeled into the -- it's not that we don't have the money, we just don't have the political will. it's according to the federal reserve $1.8 trillion, if there was proper government cues and regulation, that money could move into both climate mitigation and climate adaptation. so i think it's highly irresponsible and demoralizing to say we blew it, enjoy your life before the apocalypse. so that's why i, you know, that's why i don't contemplate giving up like that. anyway, thank you all for coming out, and i'll sign books. [applause] >> you're watching booktv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> next, ben mezrich tells the story of that'd roberts a fellow at nasa's johnson space center who stole moon rocks from all six of the apollo missions and tried to sell them on the internet. mr. mezrich will be booktv's guest on "in depth" life on november 6 -- live on november 6th. [applause] >> thank you. and thank you. isn't it great to be here for late nights at the dma? it's wonderful. [applause] so thank you for joining us for this and, certainly, all of the other programs. i have to say, this is my third opportunity to host one of these conversations for this season, and it's just great. not only the wonderful talent that it's been able to attract, to bring to dallas, but also the fact i always walk out, and i see a room full of people who love reading and writing as much as i do, and that great community we share where we're able to talk to authors and talk about their works and enjoy that. i've always said that the dallas museum of art is a special place for me since i grew up here, i took my first field trip to a museum here when i was a student at williams high school, so to have the chance to participate in a program like this is very special. and it's also special to have somebody like ben mezrich here tonight. i was talking to one of my writer friends today and told him what i was doing this evening, and he was like, oh, that ben, he gets all the great stories i would love to write. i think that's true, he is now the author of 12 books though he says to one read his first six. you know him, i'm sure, for the book "bringing down the house" which was made into a movie with kevin spacey. i'm sure you know him for a book made into a movie called "the social network," and we'll know him for this book "sex on the moon." it's centered here in texas, and so many of the places that are featured in the book from the johnson space center to a night out on the coast in galveston, i think, will be so familiar to many of you. so, please, welcome to that's and welcome to the stage ben mezrich. [applause] [background sounds] >> so am i wrong that when i heard that the title of the book was "sex on the moon," i thought that was a drink that the college kids have in south padre? [laughter] >> it does sound like a drink. my wife actually came up with the title, so i was not the dirty mind. the main character spread rocks on a bed and had sex with his girlfriend on the moon. i'm afraid it's getting caught in spam filters. [laughter] >> whenever the e-mails go out. >> i know, yeah. >> as i was reading it, i kept thinking, you know, sort of processing the title and where did it come from, and as you say, you get to a moment later in the book where it becomes evident -- >> right. >> very quick, i'm guessing many people have not had the chance to read it, so this is one of those delicate things -- >> right. i tend to give away too much. >> let's just say, tell us about thad and what he is and what he does. >> sure. >> you said he is the most complex individual you have written about in any of your books. take that, mark zuckerberg. [laughter] >> right. >> so tell us a little bit about him and what mainly attracted you to tell his story. >> well, i mean, thad roberts basically came from a very hard background, a very fundamentalist mormon family. he admitted to premarital sex at 18 and was kicked out of his house. then he decided he wanted to be an astronaut, and he kind of became james bond, and he majored in geology and physics and astronomy at university of utah, and he learned how to fly airplanes and scuba dive and spoke be, what i said, five languages, and then he got into nasa's johnson space center. it's a co-op program, so it's for college kids, but it's really a feeder to the astronaut training program. so he was achieving his dream. he was a big star, he became the social leader of all the co-ops and interns, and then he fell in love with a young intern. and, you know, we've all done something stupid out of love. he stole a 600-pound safe full of moon rocks from his professor's office, and as i said, spread them on a bed, had sex with his girlfriend and then tried to sell them over the internet to a belgian gem dealer -- >> whose name is? >> axle 'emmerman. you couldn't have invented this guy. [laughter] he's never been out of antwerp in his life. he collects rocks and trades them every monday night in this huge center where all the guys in antwerp trade rocks. his hobby is a sport where there's a wooden bird on a hundred-foot pole, and all these men stand around it and shoot at it with cross brows -- cross bows. this is a real sport i'd never heard of. and he is this big believer in right and wrong, so he immediately called the fbi, e-mailed the fbi in tampa, and it became this big sting operation. and thad roberts was taken down -- i always give it away, but you know he got arrested. [laughter] there don't cross that line. >> right. >> you, obviously, have come off enormous success with not only the books, but also the fact that they are then converted to movies which -- >> although they always change the titles of my move views -- movies and it's really annoying, but sex on the moon i feel like they have the keep. [laughter] >> you're locked in. and you were working on this at the time that "the social network" was being filmed. i've always thought in the way that actors and actresses are only as good as the roles that they choose, writers are only as good as the stories that they pick. so what was it, i mean, all you just explained notwithstanding, of all the stories that you could have told, what was it that attracted you to this particular top snick. >> yeah. for me, i mean, the stories come to me. ever since bringing down the house i get 20 or 30 phone calls a week. just every college kid who does something crazy will call me. [laughter] i'd always want today write about nasa, i think it's amazing. but when you think of nasa, you think to have '60, you know, you think of tom hanks in a little silver capsule, and this let me get into nasa today. thad roberts contacted me, he had just gotten out of prison, and it was weird because i'd never met someone who had spent almost a decade in prison before, so i arranged to meet him in a crowded hotel lobby. [laughter] he was the most charismatic, smartest, nice looking guy who had done something stupid. >> the nice e fellow you had ever met. >> he was. there had been one article in the l.a. times, but i had not seen anything about this. and i just couldn't believe it. and so the first thing i did was i filed a freedom of information act with the fbi to get the fbi file which is thousands of pages. i mean, i even got when the fbi agents took him down, they were wearing wires, and i got the transcript of everything that was said on the wires, and the first thing thad said when he walked into the restaurant was if you're wearing a wire, i'm screwed. [laughter] that's on tape. and it was a year long interviewing everybody i could. >> i see. and so there's one section in the book which i think is just great, too, where there's that correspondence between thad who's going by the name orv robinson? >> right, it's like a play on words. >> you're actually reprinting their e-mails, so those are, in fact -- >> 'emmerman sent me those, actually, he was very excited i was writing this book. nasa gave him as a gift for solving the moon rock caper, they named an asteroid of after him. but, yeah, everything in the book is, you know, reprinted directly. and a lot of the dialogue is actually, um, you know, straight from the transcripts and everything. so, you know, i do get attacked a lot in the press for my style which is a very kind of dramatic, cinematic way of telling a nonfiction story. but the reality is that everything in here, you know, is from the files. >> sure. well, you brought that up, and so that's something i wanted to visit with you about a little bit. >> yeah. >> certainly, that came out a lot in "bringing down the house," so i wondered if you could talk about that technique that you employ as a writer. >> my controversial technique. >> your controversial technique. >> exactly. >> how you employ that, and i have to say "the new york times" review that came out just yesterday -- >> yeah, she hates me. >> she hated you. [laughter] i mean, i think that's part of it. >> right. >> so tell me as an -- >> you know, it's been like this my entire career. i am a very cinematic thinker, and this is the kind of stuff i like to read. it's a form of new journalism, i guess. but i get all the information, i interview just about everybody, get thousands of pages of court documents, all the fbi stuff, and then i sit down and tell the story in a very visual way. and there are going to be journalists who do not like it, um, certainly janet -- >> janet was one of those. >> but, you know, i don't necessarily write for janet, i write for me and the people who like this kind of book. the reality is it's a true story, and it's as true as any other thing on the nonfiction list. you see a biography of cleopatra, right? i mean, come on, nobody knows anything about cleopatra. and you see a biography of abraham lincoln, and you see, you know, obama's biography has invented characters. it's a process, you know? up to take the -- you know, you have to take the facts and write it in a certain way. i choose to write it in a very cinematic way. so, for instance, i'll interview thad roberts, i'll interview the other kid who was there, this guy gordon who's later in the book. so i know there was a conversation that took place ten years ago between these people, and i know what was said, but i don't know the exact words. so one journalist might, you know, they talked about moon rocks. but to me, that's a very boring and weak way of telling that scene. i know they talked about moon rocks, i know what they did with the moon rocks, so i describe what they did with the moon rocks. and there are some journalists who love it, um, and some journalists who don't. and, you know, it'll be a controversy in terms of certain journalists will never like it. with the social network and accidental billionaires, mark zuckerberg came out and said it's not true, and he called me the jackie collins of silicon valley -- [laughter] which i loved, it was great. but he never pointed out anything that wasn't true. he never said this isn't true and this isn't true, he just said the whole thing's not true, and then he said he didn't read the book. [laughter] the reality is it is a very true story. he laid the -- you know, he meant to have sex on moon rocks because he wanted it to be like having sex on the moon. he spread them on a bed, and he had sex on the moon. janet had a problem with that scene saying he just put them under the mattress, but that's actually not true. he did this on purpose. and so i use the facts, but i tell it in my style, and, you know, some people like it and some people don't. >> right, right. o so you're saying some journalists may not like it. what do you think of yourself as? are you a journalist? >> you know, it's funny, i always saw myself in the entertainment business, and i only stumbled into true stories. i always hated nonfiction. i grew up, you know, watching really bad television, and i was a fan of pop culture and movies, and then i met these mit kids in a bar, and i was hanging out in a bar in boston called crossroads which is like an mit dive bar. [applause] there you go. if you can imagine, it's a bunch of really geeky guys -- sorry -- [laughter] a bunch of geeky guys. i'm a geeky guy too. but these guys had all this money, and it was all in $100 bills. and in boston you never see $100. i don't know what it's like in dallas, you probably do see them -- >> thousands of them. [laughter] >> that's right. oil, right? well, in boston, you never see them because it's all college kids. and i couldn't figure out why. and i went over to the main guy's house, and in his laundry was $250,000 in banded bags of hundreds. oh, he's got to be a drug dealer. but he wasn't. and the next day we flew to vegas, and it was the blackjack team, and i ended up joining the team. that was my first true story. so i fell into nonfiction, but i wrote it like a thriller because that's what i'd been writing. it wasn't i sat down and i'm going to write nonfiction in this way, i was writing fiction, and it was a true story. i'm sitting at home at 2 in the morning, and it's a harvard senior -- he's actually from houston -- and he said my best friend co-founded facebook, and no one's ever heard of him. so i go out for a drink -- it always involves drinking. [laughter] mark zuckerberg screwed him, and suddenly i was in another true story. so it's been this weird kind of stumbling my way -- >> there's been an emergent experience for you where you actually were part of that culture, and that's what brought you -- >> yes. >> okay. i want to stay with this for a minute because it's interesting in terms of what readers expect when they sit down with a book as to how it's marketed and what it's billed as. i think we all have that classic notion of the suspension of belief. so your point with cleopatra, i think, is well taken. in "bringing down the house," there were scenes that were createed to help move the story along. right? >> you know, i disagree. >> okay. >> there was definitely claims by people who were not on the mit blackjack team -- >> who said that -- >> who said those scene didn't happen. the reality is it played pretty close the what happened. >> okay. >> there's a scene, you know, the big scene people talked about is when they used the strippers to change in the chips, and i was told that by two members of the team that were there. maybe you can discount their story. i definitely interviewed a few strippers, and you can probably discount their story. [laughter] but you can only go so far in terms of how many interviews you do. all journalists make choices. >> absolutely. >> it is what it is. accidental billionaires, of course, it's much more heavily vetted. aaron sorkin writing the screenplay for the social network, obviously, there were lawyers and everyone's involved in terms of making a movie like that. so it's pretty accurate. there's another guy you couldn't invent. 6-5, twins, olympic rowers. when i first met them, i don't know if it was tyler or cameron, and tyler's like you look at us, and you think we must be the bad guys, you know? if this were an '80s movie, we'd be dressed in skeletons chasing the karate kid. so i put that in the movie, and then ralph macho called and said, i love that line. that was cool. [laughter] anyways, you know, a lot of different sources a lot of different opinions of what happened. >> right. um, well, we've touched oen a couple of things. one, you talked about the cinematic quality of your writing. i want to hold that a little bit because i think the audience would be interested to know the sort of jump you have made from sitting at your desk by yourself pounding out these books and then the translation to the big screen because i think that is, that's an experience in its own. so let me hold on that and say one of the things we've seen particularly in these last three books is you're sort of drawn to a particular type of character, it seems to me -- young and smart and pushing the envelope of whatever it is that they're doing. is that a fair characterization? >> yeah. young, geeky, you know, it's always been guys so far, but that's not really by choice, that's who calls me. >> what was it about that world that appeals to you. >> is. >> i think i live vicariously through them. i was a geeky guy. i still pretty much am. and the idea that you could go from there to rock star or mark zuckerberg sitting alone in a room suddenly a billionaire. even thad roberts, you know, he's a guy who went from nothing to almost being an astronaut to then stealing a safe of moon rocks. it's a vicarious thrill ride for me. >> that is interesting because i think you make the point one as a result of his upbringing, two, him coming to houston and not knowing anybody, he really was determined to reinvent himself because he wanted to be the guy that people recognized as the social leader and the person who was coming up with all of these not exactly pranks, but, you know, who could get into the space shuttle simulator, and who could kind of push the bounds. >> right. >> i guess that, obviously, does help drive the narrative in terms of building up to that climax. >> yeah, i mean, absolutely. this is a kid who he needed everyone to love him, you know? he was on cbs sunday morning, and that was what he said. i needed people to love me. there's no bigger need than that, and he department have that love going -- he department have that love growing up, and that's what he did. yeah, that transformation is what i like to write about. >> you were saying you obviously met with eduardo salve vin, the winklevoss twins, not mark. but here it's flipped, thad is your main source. >> right. >> how was that different in writing that, and were there moments where even his story started to seem too fantastic? because there really are some moments in here that really kind of stretch the bounds. >> right. >> it seems to me. how do you go about vetting whether or not what he is telling you is correct or spinning you a tale? >> right. and, you know, with mark zuckerberg i spent a year trying to talk to him, and he just refused. it was his right, and he was very nice but in the end, no, no, no. thad wanted to tell his story, and i got hundreds and hundreds of hours of him on tape telling it. and, you know, in the beginning he wasn't telling me the truth. and it was a matter of once i had all the fbi files, i could confront him and say, you know, that's not exactly what happened here or according to the fbi and the court transcripts and the other people who were there. and then he would back off, and he would wait a little bit, and then he would say, okay, this is what really happened. so, yeah, there is that aspect. and i guess if i'm a journalist, that's the main form of my journalism is seeing where people are lying to me. but, you know, in the end he was very open and honest. i said, here's the deal, especially with my books, they will be picked apart. so you need to tell the truth. >> right. >> and so, um, he did n. the end, he did, and he was very open and honest with me. and be, you know what? there is that thing where i did start to like him a lot, and as a writer that's where things get really tricky. what he did was pretty bad. i mean, my dad who is an engineer, scientist read the book and said, i hate this guy. [laughter] you know, this guy stole our national treasure. you know, men gave their lives, you know, to get moon rocks, and he stole it for, you know, petty reasons, right? and there is that. and when you look at it objectively, yeah, you know, that's horrible. but at the same time you're sitting with this kid, and, you know, he's tearing up, and he screwed up his life because he just, you know, thought it would be cool. um, and it's hard not to feel bad for him and then start to like him. and i'll tell you, anybody here who let -- who met thad roberts would love him. he's a very lovable guy who just did a bad thing. >> right. >> and so for the author that may be my main problem, i get very close to my summits because i want -- subjects because i want to be a part of it. so, yeah, i guess there is that, but, yeah. >> i think he does come across very sympathetic, and i think that you, i mean, you know where this is headed. but as he's establishing himself as gnat saw, you see that -- nasa, you see that he's working hard and trying to improve himself, i think there's a question as he said in his interview on the cbs sunday morning program he doesn't exactly know why he did what he did. so i think that's the puzzling aspect of it. but i think you do get the sense that part of his personality that made him great at those things also led him to derail. >> absolutely. you know, this was a kid who could do anything and then decided to do this. [laughter] >> right, exactly. >> yeah, yeah. >> you talked about writing in a cinematic way. >> uh-huh. >> you referred to that a couple times already in our conversation. so tell me, when you're sitting down to write these books, are you already thinking of what may happen in the movies? >> yes. >> you're already -- >> i'm 100% that way. >> when did you start doing that? >> starting with my first book called "threshold" in 1996. i've always been a cinematic writer. and then with "bringing down the house" when it actually became a movie, kevin spacey became my first reader. so i was writing books, kevin and his business partner and now scott ruden and mikety luca who are like gods in this industry. so i do think, you know, this could be a movie, and i'm not picturing justin timberlake running around nasa, but i am picturing -- not that i don't think he'd be great, which he would. i'm picturing a visual setting in that way because i think there's a real synergy now. you know, books become movies more and more frequently, i feel. at least, i've been fortunate in that respect. and this one we sold to the same people who were making "the social network," so same producers, spacey and sorkin -- not sorkin, sorry, diluca, and it's going to be a movie. but you know what? movies are much more fun. for me, when i sit down in my cold, darkroom in boston for three months of solid loneliness, you have to be picturing a big screen in your head. [laughter] >> would you rather be reading a week or watching a movie? >> reading a book. i love reading books, and i'm sad in a way that i like the kindle. [laughter] you know? >> >> right. >> is and that it is a great device. >> right. >> because books are so wonderful, and i read all the time. and i watch a lot of tv, and i watch a lot of movies, and i kind of consume all forms of entertainment. but books are great. i mean, i grew up with books, and i wish that they could last forever. >> right. okay. the hollywood aspect has, obviously, been very good to you. i think you said you went to the golden globes as kevin says si's plus one? >> yes. it is a weird experience because normally someone like me would not be sitting anywhere near actual celebrities because i write books, and in hollywood that means you're down here. [laughter] but my table was kevin ask nicole kidman and keith urban and megyn fox and brian austin green and scarlett johansson, and right behind me was bruce willis, and it was crazy. i mean -- >> you find yourself -- >> i had to go to the bathroom, and and you only get three minute breaks, and i run right into bradded pit and -- brad pitt and angelina jolie, and you go, whoa. you guys really are good looking. [laughter] it was a wild experience. i really see myself as just this guy from boston. i'm not -- you know, i'm always just kind of wandering around the corners of these things, and it was just a wild, wild experience. >> tell us about how involved you are in the production, in the actual creative process behind the film. obviously, aaron sorkin -- >> when you get a guy like sorkin, you do whatever he says. >> i've had, you know, in writers that i've talked with over the years or writers that i know who have had books made into films, you know, there's one school of thought that it's mine, it's mine alone, and i'm going to protect it. john grisham, i think, is famous for saying once it goes -- >> with right. >> -- i could care less. it's not mine anymore. >> right. >> tell us about how your creative involvement will be in the "sex on the moon." >> for me, i'm mostly involve inside terms of when the screeny play's written. i wasn't finished with the book yet. that was a very strange situation, so i was literally handing him chapters, and he was writing the screenplay, so that was a really cool thing. once they're onset, you know, the director is god. i mean, he runs the god. and david was, you know, god, god, god. and, i mean, the set really just runs, and you're just there. my involvement is, you know, i'm there, and if they have any questions, but you have no control. once you kind of sell the book. they ask you things and you do have input, and certainly with a story like this, you know, i'll be involved in terms of that. but, you know, it is kind of like what john grisham says in a way. once you sell it, you know, it is theirs. your book, it's their movie. it's hard to say that, but at the same time i've been very lucky. i thought "21 "was a great, fun movie, and i love "the social network," so so far it's been great, you know? you never know what's going to happen. >> would you ever just write a screenplay? >> i've done a couple screenplays. i did a draft of one of my early books, "ugly americans," which hasn't gotten made, sadly. the books for me are my main bread and butter, but for me it's they have to want me to. i spent a long time as a struggling writer, and i don't want to go through that again. >> right. >> and, you know, the truth is they don't necessarily want you to adapt your own work for whatever reason. it's not normally the first thing they go to. >> right, right. >> so, you know, we'll see. >> who should play thad? >> i get asked that a lot. and that, again, is going to be up to the director and the producers. but it's got to be a good looking guy who could be both athletic and a geek. so it's kind of challenging in that, you know, you can't -- i've heard names like shia labeouf, and i've heard timberlake, but, i mean, there's definitely a lot of young guys who could pull it off. it's, i think, a real juice key role for -- juicy role for a guy. >> right, right. let's talk about the other aspect of the book business which i think is, also, typically interesting to folks. you're now on a whirlwind kind of promotional tour, 5 a.m. flights and in a city and multiple interviews a day. how does that square, again w the writer that we always think of as being kind of cordoned off from the rest of the world as he's trying to get that last chapter right. now to be dropped in the world of sort of the media push. >> it's like culture shock because you spend half your year lock inside a room and the other half talking to people. i love it. i mean, i like the entertainment aspect of it. but it's weird suddenly having scheduled toes because normally you just write, and you get deep into the project, and you have a lot of control over your life. and when you're on a tour, you have no control. but it's also wonderful. this is amazing. i remember my first book tour, my first stop was something called tunnel radios which is a radio station that only airs in the callahan tunnel in boston. [laughter] so it's, literally, an am station in 100 yards of a tunnel, and it was a traffic station that someone got the idea of putting authors on. first of all, no one wants to hear you, right? because they're trying to get the traffic report. [laughter] and then my second stop was in needham, massachusetts, it was a public access television station, and i had written a book called "threshold," it was a medical thriller, and somewhere in the book i had mentioned in the future there may not be dwarves because we'll be able to genetically choose our children. it was a little sentence in the book, and i never thought of it. and i show up at this public access station, and there's two chairs like this, and in one chair is a dwarf. [laughter] and it was my second publicity stop of my life. and i sit down, and i start to think, wait a minute, this isn't good. [laughter] and it was a debate. and i was, like, i didn't say there shouldn't be dwarves, i said there may not be -- and then he was, like, well, you mean people won't want to choose dwafers? but then there was no budget, and so after the interview ended we go outside, and the dwarf had to give me a ride home. [laughter] so i don't know, it was a, it was a strange day. >> your next book the lead character -- [inaudible] >> well, listen, i'm a big fan. i mean, i watch game of thrones. i love game of thrones. i think he's awesome. >> speaking of projects, you said you don't have your next one lined up right now. obviously, you're going to enjoy this and continue with the media push. how will you begin to decide? you say you're getting all of these e-mails people telling you their stories, but what will you be looking for for that next project? >> i mean, i look through all of these ideas, and 99 percent of them are really bad. it's like, you know, every person who commits a crime now is sending me mails. [laughter] but, you know, i need that young kid, really smart who's not a bad person who's kind of in that gray area. this is the first heist i've written, the first person who actually committed a crime. and there have to be all those elements that i like, you know, the betrayal and the sex, all those things janet doesn't like. and then there has to be some level of fun for me. so it has to be in a place where i want to go because you have to spend six months to a year doing it, so for me going to vegas, awesome. but, you know, i wouldn't go somewhere that would be horrible. >> right. >> so, yeah, those are kinds of the things that i look for. >> for the next project you're going to be looking for that type of character and perhaps that type of story. >> yeah. i was thinking it would be cool prince harry -- because i don't want to write william, but harry' got a story, right? you know he's got a story. so if anybody knows him -- >> yes. mail address, strike up -- e-mail address. >> i just wait and see. >> right, right. what are you reading? what are you doing when you're not working on the books? and as you say, just all the time that you're spending with the research, what are you reading and what writers inspire you? >> right now game of thrones, i think, is amazing. of those books are just, you know -- >> you mean that because of the hbo -- >> no, i had started one before it, and then i watched it, and i was, like, oh, this is great. now i'm reading it all. those books is the reason kindle is great because carrying those books around is serious business. those are great. i read a lot of what comes out, so i think sebastian junger is a phenomenal writer. and he's hard core. that guy will go to afghanistan and embed himself. while i'm embedded in vegas, he's embedded in afghanistan. good for him. [laughter] who else am i reading? i read it all that comes out pretty much, i loved the hunger games trilogy which is odd that i would like it, but the really good. >> right, right. and do you see yourself, are you more comfortable now with screen writers as opposed to other authors? >> my friends? my friend aren't, i mean, i have a lot of writing friends, but overall, you know, i don't know that many screen writers because i don't live in l.a., and they're all there. but, yeah, you know, i don't have a lot of close friends who are writers. i have a couple. a guy named matthew pearl is a good friend of mine, and a guy named joe fippedder who has a book out -- fender who has a book out. we don't sit around in turtle necks and drink coffee. >> right, right. [laughter] >> yeah. but, yeah. >> we're starting to come up on the time, as we say ben is going to be doing a book signing immediately after this, and then there are other events, obviously, with late nights at the dma. i want to ask you a couple more questions, but what we would really like for the audience to do is if you have a question, please, come down to one of the standing mikes, and we'll take you sort of in order for 15 minutes and then wrap up the evening at that point. so if you have some questions, you might begin to kind of think of those, but let's continue a little bit more and then turn it over to the audience. how would you describe how your writing is changed? you made the joke which i thought was funny that nobody had read your first six books. you graduated from harvard, you knew you wanted to write books. so you lock yourself away. >> yeah. >> how did you, how do you feel like you matured as a writer and that you're better as a writer than you are now? >> oh, i was horrible. >> what have you gotten better at? >> i locked myself in a room, and i wrote nine novels, and they were deep, dark stories that took place in bars in new york city. none of them got published, i got 190 rejection slips, i was rejected by everyone in new york. and then, and then i read john grisham and michael crichton, and i wrote a thinker. and they were pretty trashy. they were fun, pop culture medical thrillers, evil scientists, one of them was a tv movie called "fatal error," if any of you saw it. i starred antonio sabato jr., the underwear model, and he plays a surgeon in the show. he's actually great. but there's a scene where i was watching it with my dad, and he leans over the patient's chest, and he goes, we've got a subdural hematoma, and my dad turns to me and says you know that's this the head, right? -- in the head, right? [laughter] so i think i've gotten a lot better than that. but, you know, i think my style is improving. i feel strongly that "sex on the moon "is my best book. >> okay. >> i think "bringing down the house" for me was a transitional moment in my life because i realized i could write a true story. and that book i wrote in six weeks in vegas. literally, i stayed in a different hotel suite each night. publishers hate it when you say you wrote it that quickly, but the reality was it was just this crazy -- i was living and writing it, and it was just nuts. and that became the submersion technique for me where i just go inside and live the story. but i will say anybody out there who wants to be a writer, you know, those days of rejection are kind of the most noble and romantic in your life, and you should look forward to the rejection. i, being a geeky guy, had much rejection in my life up until that point with women -- [laughter] and then it became books, and each one would become this thing where i'd have to beat that rejection. and i will say when i finally started to sell my books, every person i worked with i had a rejection letter from which was kind of cool. owd you'd go to a meeting, and they'd be like, we love your stuff, and i'd be like, what about this? [laughter] you department love this, right? so, you know, you learn from the rejection. and there's this huge wall in publishing it's impossible to get oh this wall. i mean, you know. it's a tough business. but it's that climb over the wall, i think, that makes you better. >> right. >> and i feel like now, you know, um, i'm a very different writer than i was in the beginning. >> right, right. you say that you think this is your best work, your best effort. what is it about -- >> it's the most complex perp i've written about -- person i've written about, as i said. most of the geeky guys i wrote about before were unable to get laid, and this is the first character in which falling in love became his problem. [laughter] and it was his downfall. and it's really new for me to write a romance. the love letters he wrote from prison are within the book. the access i had to him, you know, even when i was with the mit kids, you know, this was different. this was a kid really laying it out and saying this is my life, and i screwed up. and so there's more in it than anything i've written about before. and during writing this book i had a kid which, you know, a lot of you probably know changes your life in a dramatic way. and i think that is ip fused in it -- ip fused in it, to me anyway. because you're not sleeping, right? but you'ral dealing with massive -- you're understanding thicks differently, i think, and i think i tried to get inside this kid's head more and more. >> i see. i can't do any better than that. oh, thank you very much. i appreciate it. >> the book, obviously, is "sex on the moon." [applause] we'll do questions for about 15 minutes, and then there will be a book signing immediately afterwards. so, please f you have questions, just come down, and we have standing mics at the front, and we'll call on you and fire away. >> yes, ma'am. >> you were asked what books you read now, i'm curious to know what books you liked and read as you were growing up. >> my participants had a rule that -- parents had a rule that we had to read two books a week before watching any tv. so i was obsessed with television, so for me, i became a speed reader. but anything counted, so i really got into science fiction. robert hine line, isaac as move and then i graduated to hemingway, and i read "the sun also rises," and i represent reading it and rereading it. and from there i go through periods of different types of books. i've literally read every genre there is to read. i was reading candace bushnell nonstop for a year. of. [laughter] it was great. so i shift from thing to thing. i don't limit myself. yeah, i think growing up it was most hi science fiction. >> -- mostly science fiction. >> since "accidental billionaires" you didn't interview mark zuckerberg, you just interviewed the people who were really mad at him, do you take their biases into account? >> yes. i think the movie is a little bit more mark, but, you know, i diddal have sean parker who was on the other side, and -- and i also had a lot of people who knew mark extremely well from high school friends to college friends to people who actually work at facebook even though they sent an e-mail not to speak to me or aaron sorkin, that just made people want to talk to me. [laughter] so there were a lot of sources. it would have been great if mark had talked to me, but i don't think there's any way you could look at that book or movie and say it's not truement i think the people who were there other than mark say that's what happened. so, you know, yes, eduardo definitely had an axe to grind. as you can see them on the time, have an axe to grind. sean parker was a pretty good source and a wonderful person. crazy, i mean, i think timberlake caught him perfectly, and i think sean's looking more and more like justin timberlake now, so that's a positive thing. [laughter] yeah, you do have to take that into account, and i feel like you can tell which scenes are from eduardo's point of view and which aren't, buts it is one of the issues, yeah. >> yes, sir. >> other than "sex on the moon" it may be, but which of the books that you've written are your -- which one was your favorite to write? >> "ugly americans" is a book that not as many people read. >> and a real quick follow-up, are you still shopping "ugly americans"? >> it's a true story about a kid from new jersey, played football, gets a phone call, a princeton university college football player. gets a call inviting him to japan. packs a duffel bag, flies to japan, ends up working for a guy named nick who some of you might remember was the 26-year-old trader who bankrupt the biggest bank in england by betting all of the assets on the japanese stock market. so he goes to jail, and this main character of my book becomes this hot shot hedge fund cowboy in asia, falls in love with the daughter of a japanese gangster and makes a single deal that makes $500 million in five minutes and has to leave japan quickly. and it all takes place in this sort of sex underground in japan. it's kind of a story about ex-pats living large in asia. it sold extremely well on wall street. every wall street guy had a copy of it. [laughter] but outside of wall street it didn't really catch. but we've worked on the movie for a while. spacey and dana are involved, and i sold it to numerous studios so, eventually, hopefully, it will get made. "bringing down the house," i think, for me -- if you want to know what i write, it's what i write. so, yeah, between those three real. really. >> go ahead, please. >> i've got two questions, one is -- thanks for coming, by the way. >> oh, this is fun. thank you. >> good. i'm curious, in your latest book what was the summit's incentive for want -- subject's incentive for wanting to talk to you and have his story written? and then i'm also curious about this label of nonfiction. have you thought about putting your stuff out under fiction and avoiding the controversy? >> well, first of all, it's the publisher's decision. the publishers look at it, their lawyers look at it, their editors look at it, and they say, this is true. but on the other hand, no, i feel very strongly it's nonfiction. i think it's clearly nonfiction. i would say you go through chapter by chapter in any one of my books, and every scene, you know, can be documented both in if court documents and in interviews. so, yes, it's written stylistically in a way that read like a thriller, but there's no way to call it fiction because everything in that scene happened. so, you know, obviously, it's always going to be a controversy because there will always be journalists who are searching out james frey, right? but in the opening of the book i say exactly what i'm going to do, so there's no scandal, and that upsets journalists because they want scandal so badly. so they always come and say you recreated dialogue. well, yeah, it says on page 1 i'm going to recreate the dialogue. [laughter] but it's not made up, it's recreated from the people who were there. so, no, i don't have a problem with it, i love talking about it. they expect me to shy away or run away from oprah, but i'm happy to talk about it. i think it's a very valid form of nonfiction that goes back to tom wolf, beyond that. there's plenty of writers. and the designation is really up to the publishers. but i think it's very clearly nonfiction. um, but -- and then the second question was, um, about thad, why did he come to me. you know, that's a great question. obviously, he saw himself as a movie character. when he did the crime, the james bond theme song was going through his head. [laughter] and so he wants to be famous or infamous. which is tricky, obviously. but at the same time, he also feels like he spent an enormous amount of his life this prison. i mean, seven and a half years is like murderers get seven and a half years. and he had the moon rocks for a week. and he used them, no question about that. [laughter] but he felt like he had served so much time that telling his story, um, was the right thing to do. it's not that he's proud he did it, but at the same time he feels like he did this crazy thing, and there's no reason why he shouldn't tell people. so, you know, does he feel bad about it? yes. is he ashamed of himself? i don't know, i don't think so. people come to me because they want to get famous, i think that's definitely part of it. but also they look at it like the mit kids who were like it's like we had this sports career that nobody knows about, and they want people to know about it. so, yeah, there is that. yeah. >> yes, sir. >> hi. i felt one of your best books was "rigged" -- >> oh, yeah. >> and i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. >> it's a true story about a kid who had one foot in the world of harvard and one foot from the tough streets of brooklyn. he worked at the america ex-- merc exchange in new york where you're fighting for inches on the trading floor, and then he went to dubai and set up the dubai merc, basically, so he set up the oil trading world in dubai at the time. and it's a crazy story, it takes place all over the world in tiew buy -- very short trip for me there, in and out. you know, you guys like the hot weather, i don't know. i'm a little weak. but it's, it's a wild story. the whole world of oil which i knew nothing about, and i heard about that story, this kid i knew, and he invited me when "bringing down the house" came out to ring the bell at the merc exchange. i looked out on this incredible sea of tough guys from brooklyn pushing and shoving and throwing tickets at even other. and there was one clerk who was a small guy, and so he hired a bunch of people behind him whose entire job was to hold him to the trading floor. and i was, like, this is so cool. so that's what led me to write "rigged." so we'll see if that gets going. >> yes, ma'am. >> just wanted to actually read something funny to you based on the conversation about recreating dialogue. >> sure. >> this is tonight's program. >> oh, yeah? >> mezrich pored over thousands of pages of fbi transcripts and nasa documents and has interviewed most of the participants in the crime to reconstruct this oceans 11-style heist, a madcap story of genius, love and duplicity. already the novel has been snatched up by hollywood for a film. [laughter] >> yeah. that happens. no, you know what? i think, yeah, people use the word novel interchangeably these days. i hope that's not my fault. but i think, you know, it will always be a controversy, i think, in my career. but i think most people are coming around to this form of new nonfiction. and you know what's funny and when i tour in england and europe, they have to problem with it. there's not even a discussion of it. they're, like, why are american journalists so upset with your writing? and i don't know what to tell them. it seems to be more controversial at "the new york times" than it is anywhere else. [laughter] >> yes, ma'am. >> i wanted to ask you, um, for your next big project when you're looking for that story, do you prefer to write about, you know, do a project, write about a story that's unfolding like in -- >> yeah, i mean, that would be more ideal. >> or for it to be more retrospective? >> yeah. i love the idea of getting inside a story right when it's happening, but it's hard because at that point you don't know where it's going to end, and you don't want to spend years of your life chasing something and it doesn't happen. both this and accidental billionaires happened ap number of years ago, so that was a little bit different. and you can try and recreate it yourself, but, yeah. yeah, i would love it if it were actually happening; but you have to know the ending. that's where it gets hard. >> any other questions? yes, ma'am, please. >> can you share with us what -- i hope i pronounce this right -- thad is doing now? >> yeah. thad got out of prison and went back to the university of to get his ph.d.. i think he's just recently left utah, and he still really wallets to go to space -- wants to go to space. obviously, not at nasa, but he says maybe in the private sector one day. a smart guy. it's a question of if he can overcome his own demons, i think. he's got issues. he's very spontaneous, and he doesn't -- maybe he needs to control himself. but, you know, i hope the best for him. i hope he, you know, he served his time, he paid his dues, and if he's smart, you know, he'll study, and he's brilliant, and he'll get his ph.d. and move on that way. but, you know, a good kid who did a bad thing. >> how has he responded to the book? >> you know, he liked most of it. he didn't like all of it. he department like the idea that this -- he didn't like the idea that this guy was rewarded for taking him down. he department like some of the ways he's described as being a little delusional, but he also said it was hard to see yourself from someone else's eyes. so he liked a lot of it. i think he felt i captured being at nasa and all of that stuff in the beginning very well. so overall, of course, he liked it, but, you know, there were things he didn't like. >> right, right. any other questions? well -- yes, sir, please. >> curious, you said you had a fascination with nasa at the top, and if you were from this country, you'd think that the nasa program was over because we just shut down the space shuttle. >> right. >> but what did you find out -- >> well, you know, i think it's all about mars, you know? i think that's the next step. even though, you know, obviously, when you think about it, are we going to spend billions and billions of dollars to try and do this, and you think, oh, that's crazy. but at the same time we spend billions of dollars doing all sorts of things, right? why not do something that's incredible. when you think back to the moon landing, there was no point to that, right? [laughter] but it was incredible. it changed our lives, it changed our world. it was wonderful. and i feel like we should do that again. um, i would love to see all this money put into getting to mars. that would be my dream. you know, it's sad the space shuttle's ending. it's sad to see these things that they advanced the human species just by existing, i feel. so i feel like the race to mars would advance us in ways that we can't tell yet. so that's my very pro-nasa speech. but i hope that we fund a mission to mars. >> what has nasa's response been? >> well, they weren't happy i was writing this book. they were embarrassed that a guy from the inside stole a 600-pound safe right off their campus. they weren't thrilled, they didn't want me to make him into a hero, but i feel like they haven't responded yet since the book's come out, so i feel like when people there actually read the book, they're going to love it. i think it makes that is saw look very cool. i think they'll like it, but i thought facebook would like "the social network." and eventually they did, they did come around toward the end. you know, it's not a hit job on that is saw, that's for sure. >> let's do one last question, and be we'll call it an evening. yes, ma'am, right in the middle. >> what happened with the girlfriend? >> see, thad did the crime with the girlfriend and another girl, and he took the fall for them. he's the only one, him and this other guy went to jail, and the girls did not go to jail. they got probation, and then she never spoke to him again. it was sad. you know, they had known each other three weeks, it was this quick love. [laughter] and when she was in the courtroom, and i think it's the judge or the prosecutor asks her you knew this kid for three weeks, why would you do this? she's like, i'm still trying to figure it out. they were not happy that i wrote this book. i talked to them in character. i changed her name, she asked me to change her name, she wanted nothing to do with it. i think she's in texas, but she at no time want to be involved so -- didn't want to be involved, so, yeah. >> listen, thank you so much. this was wonderful. >> thank you for being here. [applause] >> for more on author ben mezrich and his work, visit benmezrich.com. >> i'd like to wade in a little bit on this. you're talking about fundamental be confusions. if you think about what a warrior is, a warrior is a person who, first of all, chooses a side. the warrior clearly knows that these are my people, and those are my enemy. and he will risk his life and limb to use violence to try and stop the people who are trying to do violence against his people. that's a warrior. a policeman will also risk life and limb, by -- but they cannot choose sides. they have to be on the side of the law. if a policeman chooses sides, it's called corruption. we have fundamentally confused the role of warriors with the role of police, and we've put warriors who are trained to oppose another side into a situation to act as policemen where there's no agreed-upon law. they have to be on the side of the law. if you go to the state pen in any state this this union, the people who are inside will all tell you, well, is it bad to kill or against the law to steal, yeah, they all agree. there's an agreement on the law. we've put people who are trained as warriors into a situation where there's no agreement. well, you know, it's perfectly justifiable to cut a woman's aeroears off if she's -- ears off if she's humiliated her husband in some way. oh. which law are we dealing with? and the second thing is, if you have policemen who are trained, they are generally more mature. infantrymen are young. would you take a 19-year-old and send him to a troubled neighborhood and, you know, bedford five instant with an automatic weapon? it's not likely he's going to do a very good job. you send him, you know, to go up against the enemy and he clearly knows who they are, he'll do a magnificent job. that's what 19-year-olds do. so if we don't get over this fundamental confusion, we're going to be finding ourselves in situations time and time again where we're putting people who are training one way into a role that has none of the requirements that make that role success. successful. >> and clarity of purpose in battle is a real force multiplier. in the middle of matterhorn, you have this devastating moment when a u.s. officer suddenly realizes and begins worrying over the fact that the north vietnamese army units that he's opposing are infused with a sense of purpose and mission. and you offer this devastating observation, you write: for the americans that kind of clarity was a thing of the past. the marines seemed to be kill killing people with no objective beyond the killing itself that left a hollow feeling that mulvaney tried to ignore by doing his job, which was killing people. and the cycle of this dynamic can quickly detach itself from larger strategic missions, especially missions with ambiguities, counterinsurgency. >> right. no, i think it's an absolutely interesting parallel between vietnam and the current war in afghanistan because, you know, you think about world war ii. my father, my uncles they all fought, and it's like, look, are we making progress? yeah, we took guadal canal, we hit the marianas, it was clear what we were doing. and you go to vietnam, and it's becoming, like, unclear. so how do we measure success? it devolved into body count. and i am clear in my own mind that body count is a very bad measure of success. first of all, it's immoral. the warrior's job is to stop the other side from using violence. and when that other side stops doing it, then you're done. and the job is not to kill the other side, it's that you sometimes have to kill people on fre other side to dissuade them