I finally finished converting Brunch at the All Alien Cafe into a soundtrack album! It’s 48 stories long, so this is no small feat.
This is exciting, because it means I now get to test the album out by just listening through it…
And also, now I get to start trying to convert Tri-Galactic Trek into song… which is kind of intimidating but in a good way.
Converting all of my short story collections into musical soundtracks has really allowed me to see my own fiction from new angles, bringing out themes I hadn’t noticed before. It’s been a really fascinating process.
After converting my other Entangled Universe short story collections into musical soundtracks, I thought I knew what to expect from Brunch at the All Alien Cafe… but when it comes down to it, the two Wespirtech collections and Maradia’s Robot Emporium are all about ideas…
Brunch at the All Alien Cafe has ideas in it too… but overall, it’s more about vibes, about getting to spend time in a universe filled with aliens and spaceships. Whereas in the others, the aliens, robots, and spaceships almost always exist in service of a higher concept.
So, the songs for the Wespirtech and Maradia collections ended up being tighter and punchier, while the songs for Brunch are more sprawling and experiential. One isn’t necessarily better than the other… but it wasn’t something I expected. And it’s kinda neat to discover.
The funny thing is, at some level I hadn’t fully thought through, I did sort of know to expect this, because I was looking forward to converting Brunch at the All Alien Cafe into songs because, it’s a place I just really wanted to “hang out.”
But actually making the songs really crystallized that vague thought into a much more specific and analytical understanding of how this book differs from the others.
I had a similar experience with Welcome to Wespirtech & Beyond Wespirtech after listening to their soundtracks for a while. I discovered a much deeper understanding of how those two books relate to each other and why I divided up the stories in that particular way.