All-Patron Reward: The Music of Writing 1: Paradigms Lost

Last month I finished the series of "my favorite scenes". Today, I'm starting a new one, which is the music that inspired, or was a part of, my writing of each book. Some books only had a few associated tracks, others had entire soundtracks associated with them. 

We start today with Paradigms Lost, the expanded version of my first book, Digital Knight. 

The original concept of Digital Knight goes back to the 1970s, and as such I have to note two ... proto-inspirational pieces of music. The first is the original theme from "Kolchak: The Night Stalker", the short-lived TV series about the investigative reporter Kolchak and his repeated encounters with the weird and supernatural. He is an obvious spiritual ancestor to Jason Wood and I had seen the series, or at least parts of it, before I came up with Jason. 

The second is from the visual inspiration for Verne Domingo -- the opening theme from Dracula, the 1979 version starring Frank Langella as the immortal Count. 

But the piece that in my mind became Jason's theme I didn't encounter for a couple of decades after that, even when I'd already written a couple of his adventures. That music would be the opening theme from the video game Parasite Eve, released in 1998 for the Playstation. This eerie, haunting theme somehow captured the "feel", for me, of Jason discovering -- repeatedly -- that the world he inhabits is nothing at all like he had imagined. 

As my writing and knowledge of the world increased, other characters picked up their own themes. The most terrifying and formidable enemy of Jason, Virigar, has had more than one piece of music associated with him, but the one that I have generally settled on especially for Jason's meetings with him comes from the 1996 Doctor Who movie, the piece called "Open the Eye". There is a certain dark humor in the theme that is also linked to dramatics and a touch of majesty -- all part of Virigar's very nature.

Konstantin Knoros had two major inspirations: the ancient mage Kaos, from Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, and Nero Wolfe, the irascible homebound private detective from the pen of Rex Stout. For Khoros I have always used the theme "Burning" from Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, and to this day I always play it when writing scenes involving the last living mage of Atlantaea.

While James Achernar had his origin in the Top Secret roleplaying game and was always involved in super-spy doings, I never quite found the right piece of music for him while playing; I mean, sure, the James Bond theme was fun, but that belongs to Bond himself and Achernar wasn't Bond nor intended to be him. It was many years later that I found the theme that somehow spoke to me as "this should be Achernar's": that piece was "Auron's Theme" from Final Fantasy X. 

Some others are still waiting for their theme. I've had several pieces of music that sort of touched on Sylvie, but not one that quite clicked for me. Similarly, this is true of Raiakafan and his family. And a few, like Xavier, will get their music later, for their larger appearances in other works.

Hope you like this one -- more to come, and some with VERY long soundtracks!