Books and films have skewered Hollywood's excesses, but none has ever portrayed one man's crazy vision of the future of big action/adventure films as Michael Shea's The Extra does. As over-the-top as Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, as savagely dark as Robert Altman's The Player, and more violent than Rollerball, this is the story of the ultimate, so-insane-it-could-only-happen-in-Hollywood formula for success, a brave new way to bring the ultimate in excitement to the silver screen. Producer Val Margolian has found the motherlode of box-office gold with his new "live-death" films whose villains are extremely sophisticated, electronically controlled mechanical monsters. To give these live-action disaster films greater realism, he employs huge casts of extras, in addition to the stars. The large number of extras is important, because very few of them will survive the shoot.
It's all perfectly legal, with training for the extras and long, detailed contracts indemnifying the film company against liability for the extras' injury or death. But why would anyone be crazy enough to risk his or her life to be an extra in such a potentially deadly situation?
The extras do it because if they survive they'll be paid handsomely, and they can make even more if they destroy any of the animatronic monsters trying to stomp, chew, fry, or otherwise kill them. If they earn enough, they can move out of the Zoo-the vast slum that most of L.A. has become. They're fighting for a chance at a reasonable life. But first, they have to survive ...
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"The Extra starts out at a dead run and accelerates from there, effortlessly wrapping the reader into its tale of a gone-to-hell L.A. and a little band of gutsy starvelings with blood on their hands."
Peter Straub, bestselling author of Mr. X
"The Extra packs more violence, hilarity and speed-freak action in its throw-away asides than most science fiction books build an entire story around. This is a hot ticket."
Patton Oswalt, the voice of Remy in Disney's Ratatouille
"Michael Shea puts his people in the damndest nightmares. He puts you in there with them, and drives the whole lot of you through a delirium of breakneck action and mad invention--hilarity and Hellfire itself. Wanna be in the movies? Step inside..."
