Monday, January 21, 2013

Dystopian Lit Guest Post at BookGoodies

Howdy, sports fans!

I open with this line because if you're a sports fan, you're well aware of the Har-Bowl coming up?  Sweet.  I dislike that the Patriots made it that far, but at least they ain't gettin' another Super Bowl!

Moving on.  I recently submitted a guest post to BookGoodies.com, and low-and-behold they posted it, today!  This marks the second one they've posted by me, the first being about NaNoWriMo.  It's about Dystopian literature (and art in general), and it serves as a fairly basic introduction to the genre.  All in all its a fun, quick little read to get you into the spirit of nightmare worlds!  I might write another one for them, one about Hyper-Local Journalism.



Moving on.  Again!  Today is a special day for me because it's the year-and-a-day of Physics Incarnate.  My precious little baby novel is getting so old!  And as much as I'm working on its sequel and other projects, I'm celebrating by having it as a free book on Kindle, today.  So, check it out!

Enjoy yourself, and stay safe!

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Why I Love Video Game Music

So.  I've been writing.  A lot.  Whether its celebrating the one year anniversary of Physics Incarnate, or working on a second season (and new site!) for my Lego comic Chronicles of Alleron, or even editing Protostar and working on Physics Reincarnate, well, I've been busy.

And busy writers need music!

Now, I love bands like Silversun Pickups, but as a young kid I played a lot of video games.  Be it the 8-bit Nintendo, the 16-bit Super Nintendo, or the 16-bit Sega Genesis, music is just an awesome force.  Video game music has, well, some really bad examples - and some awesome ones.  Instead of focusing on lyrics, game soundtracks of that era had to create atmosphere.  Entered into a dark cave?  You need some seriously dark music.  About to fight a boss?  How about something fucking energetic?!

This is a re-iteration of a song from Secret of Mana called "Danger."  It's mildly edited, but true to the original:


Between the loud, shocking notes of the opening, the grim rumbles of the middle, or the triumphant tones of the end of each cycle, well, hey - it's downright energetic, alright.  It gives listeners a rush.  It lets you know that damn right you are fighting for your life.  But how about something else?  How about something sad?  How about Final Fantasy Six's Opera Scene?


Not only is the music important, it's a section of a game dedicated to a song!  And that's awesome in and of itself.  I'm a huge fan of this scene, and the song?  Not bad, either.  Another good tune I like is this diddy from Xenogears, a game I've talked a hell of a lot about, already:




One thing you might note is that, so far, all three of these games and their soundtracks belong to Squaresoft games.  Two of them are 16-bit, and one is a Playstation One game.  They're all roleplaying games.  Is that a surprise?  It shouldn't be - atmosphere is huge in these kind of games, and Square made a lot of RPGs at that time.

How about a Capcom game?





I know, that's another RPG on the SNES; but it's not Squaresoft, at least!  Anyhow, if you were curious, here's Screwattack's top-10 music themes.  Here's 10 more songs, and they're the top-10 ever.  They took nominations.  15,000+ were offered.  Wow.




Anyhow, I just wanted to give you a little taste of one of the influences of my writing.  It's chaotic, it's random, it's weird - but it's there.  This is just what I enjoy!  And there's a clear reason for it, and I think I've proven my point.