The full version of the EQUILIBRIUM mixed tape has 15 songs, but this will be the last one for the blog. I've been picking out the ones I actually listen to for myself (as opposed to listening to them for Hansen), like I say, and so it seems appropriate to end with one of my longtime obsessions.

Massive Attack: "Teardrop"



Yep, if you watch HOUSE, that's pretty familiar. The album Mezzanine was released when I was, uh, in high school, I think. And I still listen to it regularly. But I think this song was the first one I loved. "Love, love is a verb, love is a do-word. Fearless on my breath." Niiiiiice.

(I also managed to hook my awesome editor, Raven, on Massive Attack. Go me!)

The four blog tracks are here, and the whole set is in the back of...

The RIOT BOY soundtrack is pretty different. And longer. But it's also entirely populated by things I listen to regularly, so I'm really gonna have a hard time picking :D

I'm out of town this week, so apologies if I'm slow getting to responses on the EQUILIBRIUM giveaway thread. As you read this I'm somewhere on a lake in Wisconsin. (People pick the oddest places to get married, really. Oh, these romantics...) But there's still time to enter, so have at it!

Our next to last installment in the blog version of the EQUILIBRIUM mixed tape (the full version is available in the back of EQUILIBRIUM itself, if the dorkiness of the limited selection here doesn't turn you off. Ha!):

Kaiser Chiefs: "Love's Not A Competition, But I'm Winning"

Yeah, I know, I can't embed it here, but it's a short song and extremely good. This is neither a Sam nor a Hansen pick; though the Kaiser Chiefs are a very good Hansen Band, I don't think he'd like to admit that this is kind of, uh, his attitude sometimes. It's not very flattering... yet kinda cute. In an insecure way. Or so Sam seems to think.

I listened to Kaiser Chiefs a ton while writing EQUILIBRIUM. Every book has a mix, but there's always one band or artist that gets more love than others while it's going on. And this time it was these guys. So much so that Sam almost makes a direct reference in the course of an argument.

What? A bonus excerpt illustrating my point -- and Sam's? Great idea! So, "the concept" to which Sammy is about to refer is that of Nash Equilibrium. Which, as you might've guessed, is integral to the plot. In a nerdy "I have no love life so I use fancy theories to explain it away and still feel intellectually superior" kinda way. Hansen is cute like that. (Again, according to Sam.)

He’d stopped smiling. “You seriously think that?”

“It’s not a judgment, Sam. Just, you like pussy. That’s a fact.”

He sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. “There’s no law that says you can’t like it both ways. That makes me a liar?”

“Don’t be like that. It just means, um, you’re straight.”

“Oh, thank god. Because yesterday I kept imagining bending you over my desk, and I got jack shit done at work. Almost thought I wanted to fuck a guy, for a second there. But no, I’m straight, so that’s crazy talk.”

Okay, no one could survive that much porn without inventing a few fantasies. But still, it was so not fair to say that when he was in the act of getting out of bed. Blue balls: awesome way to start the morning. “Sammy—”

He stood, which left me watching an ass straight off of Michelangelo’s David as he collected his scattered clothes off the floor. “You think you’re real fucking smart with your fancy game theory, but it’s not that complicated. The whole concept hinges on successfully calculating the risk and reward for everyone involved so you know what their smartest move is. If you can’t do that, you have no idea when you’re actually in equilibrium, and you make a bad call. Then you lose everything.”

That…was perfectly accurate, yes. I pushed myself up to sitting.

He pulled on his shorts and straightened his pants and undershirt over his arm. “So maybe you should ask what I want and what I’m putting on the line before you make any calls.”

“Sometimes people don’t even know what they want—”

“It’s not a fucking game. It’s not business or politics or any of this pointless bullshit you throw up around yourself to make you feel safe. This is not a competition. We’re on the same side. We were always on the same side, Hansen.”

I closed my mouth with a click—almost bit my tongue in half too.

He looked down at me, standing there all gorgeous and angry with his hair fucked up from last night’s adventures. And then he smiled, suddenly and brilliantly. As if to tell me that I would be forgiven, but I would pay for it first. “Think about that while you’re beating off in the shower this morning, huh? Because you almost didn’t have to, but you made the wrong call, Mr. Smart-Ass Know-It-All Economist.”

And he was out the door.

I fell back into the pillow. Yawned.

I could calculate risk and reward fine, thanks—just a little bit too late.

Right, time for a Sam Pick! Sam doesn't have precisely the same voracious musical habits as Hansen, mostly because he doesn't need to, since Hansen's kind of dictatorial about music like that, but he does have a few bands that work for him. (Outside of Johnny Cash. As he will repeatedly remind anyone who asks.) One of those is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Odds are good he found them thanks to Hansen, but Sam's not too proud to admit it.

So another song from the EQUILIBRIUM Mixed Tape -- full listing in the back of EQUILIBRIUM -- BRMC's "We're All In Love":



And yeah, that's another band I really like. Admittedly, I'm going through the mixed tape listing and picking out the ones I think are the most fun -- as in bands I actually listen to regularly. I've actually seen these guys three times, and would pay for thirty more.

As a side note, thanks very much to everyone who checked out EQUILIBRIUM. It made the LI bestseller list for its first week, which kind of has me floored, seeing as it's my first -- not to mention a bit, uh, dorky and weird for this particular genre. If you're considering it but not totally sure yet, check out the EQUILIBRIUM page here to learn more about these imaginary people for whom I have actual playlists, check out excerpts, all that good stuff. Also, there's a big version of that fabulous cover. :D

Or, if you're already convinced, check it out at Loose Id:

So I'm one of those people who can't write a book without music blaring. I know that distracts the hell out of some people, but I'm at once incredibly focused and a little bit mad when I write -- perhaps why I tend to write a lot of pulp, as it makes me feel at home in that way. Anyhow, as a result of this practice, I end up with playlists in iTunes for everything. While I'm writing or editing a given project, the list goes everywhere with me. It plays at my desk, the headphones go into the iPhone for grocery shopping, it plugs into my truck for driving.

It's like athletes who have songs they have to listen to that get them into the zone on the sidelines. Only, uh, dorkier.

So with EQUILIBRIUM, my awesome editor Raven suggested we do a playlist in the back of the book, just for fun. How convenient that I had it ready, complete with picks by both Hansen and Sam! Of course, let's do it. So in the back of your book you'll see a little section labeled "Equilibrium Mixed Tape". Because yeah, when I was a kid, we made mixed tapes, dammit.

Just for fun, I thought I'd drop a couple of them here in blog posts. This one is a Hansen Band, Arctic Monkeys. Sometimes the bands/artists that work for given characters or stories aren't really my favorites (sometimes I end up liking things I didn't originally because of a character or story, even), but I genuinely adore the AMs. Just saw them live here in DC a few months back, and it was killer.

So here we go, a Hansen Pick from the Equilibrium Mixed Tape: "Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend"



... it should pretty much be his theme song, I'm thinking.