For an album opener, you need something warm and welcoming, and “The Little Red Avian Alien” as a space opera twist on The Little Red Hen works perfectly.
So, please, join Prilla and her various alien and robot friends for a meal of grassberry crepelettes on Crossroads Station.
“Winged Folk Only” was inspired by an old Disney cartoon about a mouse who asks a fairy for wings and then gets scorned by all the other mice & laughed at by bats until he gives up his wings… and it really needed a better end.
So, I gave it one.
“Go High” is another song about our mouse with mechanical wings. The psychedelic aspects of the story were inspired by Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” so it felt especially appropriate for the song to have a groovy 70s vibe.
It’s challenging to write a story from the perspective of a sentient swarm of insects; turning it into a song? Well, that’s just a wild thing to attempt, but my goodness, I think “I Am Mazillion” turned out kind of hilarious, especially the last line.
“Hidden Feelings” is the first of a series of stories about a perennially angry reptile alien named S’lisha. I started writing stories about her because people kept making me angry in various ways, and I deal with that by writing space opera.
I brought the story “Hidden Intentions” to my writing group, and everyone thought it was darkly hilarious… except my best friend at the time. She took it way too seriously, and in retrospect, that was kind of a sign our friendship was doomed.
“Green Skin Deep” is another song about my angry reptile alien, contrasting her with a plant alien who befriends her under false pretenses. It’s also one of the rare cases where I think the song is kind of just better than the story. The sound just works.
“Many Tiny Feet” is about our angry reptile alien befriending a collection of tiny spiders who spin rainbow-filled webs throughout her quarters as she sings to them. And I kind of can’t believe how well the music managed to capture that pretty premise.
“Where the Heart Is” was one of the first stories I wrote after discovering the furry genre, so I was experimenting with and discovering new ways of writing about characters, reveling in not needing to include a human among all the animal-like aliens.
“Welcome to Ob’glaung” is a story about four aliens visiting a water-filled space station, so I had to think about what kind of sounds and instruments might help conjure that idea in a song. I’m not saying I succeeded… but I did think about it.
“One Alien’s Wreckage” is the origin story for a whole intergenerational family of butterfly-like aliens across the rest of this collection and also several novels, so I’m really fond of it. And the song totally does it justice. I love it so much.
“The Crowds on Crossroads Station” introduces an uplifted rabbit character whose family becomes a big part of the rest of this book and also my Entangled Universe trilogy.
I had a lot of fun getting the wonderful 70s guitar vibe for the song.
“Principles Over Profit” is a sci-fi flash fiction about an uplifted rabbit and an avian alien discussing how taxes are good actually. And the song version is in a 70s pop rock style.
So, yeah, this is what I’ve been doing with my life.
“Inalienable Rights” continues the saga of the uplifted rabbit as he finally goes back to his home world to free his family.
I really love listening through this album, hearing all the groovy 70s guitar and having all these alien characters come to life.
“Crescent Horns and Tall Ears” is about a lonely buffalo-like alien befriending a big family of uplifted of bunnies.
I bet you’ve never heard a 70s pop rock style song about something like that before!
“Black Out in Space” is a story about a buffalo-like alien babysitting a bunch of uplifted bunnies through a black out on their space station. So, an obvious fit for becoming a song.
I mean, deep down, isn’t that what all songs are about? No? Well then.
“Of Cakes and Robots” is a song that asks the question: why would a robot want a cake?
“Galaxy-Shaker and the Celestial Rainbow Dragon” is one of the stories about my fictional reptilian alien pop-star, Star-Shaker.
In this story, a young porcupine-like alien comes up on stage with her. The story is cute, and the song turned out amazing.
“An Aldebaran Sugar Cookie for Star-Shaker” is about the heartbreak of meeting your hero… and it’s everything to you but an insignificant, annoying, inconvenience to them.
The song turned out so pretty; it almost makes that day worth it.
Heartbreak is a classic topic for songs. But I bet you’ve never seen it done like in “Queen Doripauli and the Sproutlings” before — an amphibious alien struggling with the policy decisions of her beloved, a plant alien queen who keeps burning her people’s sproutings.
“A Sense of Clarity” is the first story I started writing about the main characters in my Entangled Universe trilogy, but way back then, I thought it was just a space opera version of the frog prince. Never would’ve guessed it’d eventually be a song.
“Waking Up in the Genie Shop” has my favorite moment on this whole album when the singer asks, “Hey aren’t you gonna ask me who I am?” I love it because this character was based on my favorite dog, and it makes me think of the moment I gave him his name.
“Between the Black Holes” is a show-stopping number kind of a song.
The short story it came from is such a little slip of a thing. It’s so unpredictable which stories will convert well into songs and which will be more of a struggle.
“Of Starwhals and Spaceships” was nominated for the Ursa Major Award as a short story. As a song, I love the little tremulous echo of theremin that punctuates the line about how starwhals and spaceships don’t move the same way at all.
If you want a song that makes you feel like you’re hanging out deep in the clouds of a gas giant where there are weird fish things, then you’ve come to the right place and should listen to “Heart of the Gas Giant.”