“Chrysalis Party” is about what it would be like to befriend ultra-intelligent, hyper-dimensional aliens during their larval stage when they’re still on our level, knowing they’ll metamorphose and outgrow you.
“One Alien’s Wings” is about a roboticist who has designed replacement mechanical wings for a butterfly alien being asked to cut off the original organic wings and marveling about how different the alien’s life must be to not value those beautiful wings.
There’s a cult in my Entangled Universe led by myrmecoidal matrons who believe that peace will come from blending families of different kinds of aliens together. The main character in “The Pink Agate” is a koala alien in this cult.
“The Oldest One” is about how tough it is for a kid to be the oldest in a really big family. But the kid is a fox alien, and every one of her siblings is a different kind of alien and so is their mother. And they live in a space station. Normal stuff.
“Elephantine Daydream” is about an elephant alien in a class with canine aliens and robots, feeling lost and alone, until she has a mind-swap experience with one of the canines. Yes, this is an unconventional topic for a song. Just roll with it.
“Hypercrystal Wish” is one of the catchy ones. It’s also easy to identify with — wanting and wishing for something — even though the specifics of the story involve an elephant alien befriending a fox and caterpillar alien.
“Veins of Black, Dust of Gold” was always a story that leaned into lyricism anyway — focusing entirely on what if feels like for a caterpillar alien to undergo metamorphosis into her adult form. So, it was a natural for converting into a song.
An alternate version of the lyrics for “Wing Day” was recorded as “Vestigial” and nominated for the Ursa Major Awards (before they removed the whole category due to drama by the other nominees).
But this version captures my original vision better anyway.
“What the Eyes Covet and the Stomach Craves” is about a caterpillar alien discovering and struggling with the fact that she can no longer eat solid food, only drink sweet liquids, after metamorphosing into her adult form.
So, perfectly normal song topic.
“Jetpack and Cyborg Wings” is about two generations of butterfly alien, who’ve dealt with their vestigial wings differently, going on a spacewalk together. So, of course, I gave it a kind of sweet folk song quality.
“A Jetpack of a Different Color” is a joyous song about continuing to love your friend even if they change in surprising, unexpected ways—in this case, by molting from a small fuzzy blue insect alien into a larger, darker blue insect alien with wings.
“The Seamstress Robot and the Insect Bride” is a pretty self-explanatory title.
I don’t believe in trick titles that promise exciting things and don’t follow through. Though, I guess the robot is featured more in the story than the song.
“The Elephant Bride’s Bouquet” is probably the only song to ever exist about an elephant and a butterfly collecting flowers together for their wedding in a space station arboretum.
“Sky River” is about a planet of otter-like aliens melting the ice rings around their world into an orbiting river. And I think the vocal for it turned out particularly lovely.
“True Feast” is song about a migrating alien, flying through space in a mechanical shell, falling behind the herd and stopping at a planet for a bit of respite.
“The Night Janitor and Alien Oceans” was really hard to convert to a song. Nothing was working, until I added the refrain:
“Twinkle, twinkle sensor lights
What lifeforms are here tonight?”
Then it all pulled together.
“Somewhere Over the Ocean” is a song about a whale-like alien experiencing a brush with civilizations from the stars and having to continue living in her ocean.
“Treasure in the Sky” is a song from the point of view of a badger-like alien who’s just been introduced to the vast civilizations stretched between the stars in my Entangled Universe… who decides her people aren’t ready yet.
“Too Many Jangleberries” is basically the flash fiction version of Everything Everywhere All At Once, except obviously featuring a giraffe alien in deep space.
“Moon Dust” is a song about a WEREWOLF in SPACE. So if that’s a thing you want, then this is your lucky day.
“Treasure Moon” is about a squirrel alien trying to break through the security systems her cousin left behind to protect the treasure he’s been hoarding on a far away moon, as part of an ongoing game they’ve been playing since childhood.
“Thirty Honey Feasts to Go” is about a ship full of bear-like aliens, hibernating while they migrate to a new star. Their ship’s computer is a hive of bees. It’s one of the more dreamy and lyrical flash fictions I’ve written.
“The Unification of Worlds” is a sci-fi story about a bunch of chimeras on an epic quest to reconstruct a being from pieces of DNA scattered across the universe. Yes, it was kind of inspired by that one Star Trek episode, but it’s a whole lot more furry.