Jeff Carlson's "Plague Year"

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Jeff Carlson's short fiction has appeared in venues such as Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Fantastic Stories, and Writers of the Future XXIII. His first novel, Plague Year, was published last year. His new novel, Plague War, was published this summer.

Here he lays out some casting ideas for a film adaptation of Plague Year:

Will Smith. Doesn’t everyone say Will Smith? Give me Will Smith and my head will explode with excitement. Sure, the lead character in Plague Year is a 25-year-old Hispanic, but that’s easily changed. For example, in Catherine Ryan Hyde’s novel Pay It Forward, the male lead was an African-American who’d lost one arm and a lot of his face in a grenade explosion. What you got on the big screen was Kevin Spacey with minor, elegant scars. Movie magic!

This sort of daydreaming is extra fun for me because film rights for Plague Year have been optioned by Seven Seas Jim, an independent production company that’s been involved with films such as Academy Award Nominee Zus and Zo, Spirit Award Nominee Oasis, and Venice film festival award winner Khadak. The project is in play. With skill, luck, and the strength of the book, maybe we’ll actually have to answer the question of who to put in which role.

If it was up to me (it’s not), my preference would actually be a no-name cast like the original Star Wars. That was before anyone had really heard of Harrison Ford or Carrie Fisher. The story was the real focus of the movie, not the faces and the associated celebrity gossip, which has become quite an industry since 1977.

Still, give me Will Smith any day. That guy’s not only sexy and smart and packed with box office power, he’s become a fine actor.

Or they could cast me! Ha ha.

Check out our “book trailer” at http://www.jverse.com/trailer.html. Maybe I can give Will a run for his money…

Visit Jeff Carlson's website and his blog.

The Page 69 Test: Plague Year.

The Page 99 Test: Plague War.

--Marshal Zeringue