Special Edition: Finished WAR FOR THE WHALE-ROAD, Here's Writing Soundtrack

On July 11th, I completed the first draft of my upcoming Substack/Patreon serial novel War for the Whale-Road, which takes place in the world of my steampunk military fantasy Battle for the Wastelands series roughly two hundred and fifty years before the first book. Mad props to Emily Burns — back in February she suggested we renew our monthly word-count bet where the loser takes the winner out to lunch, which gave me additional incentive to write-write-write.

(A similar bet over a decade ago proved helpful in finishing The Thing in the Woods, something I acknowledged when I signed a copy of the first edition from Digital Fiction Publishing for her and her husband.)

I’m going through notes from my fellow writing group members for the earlier chapters, annotating printed copies of each chapter (at the sixteenth chapter out of 21 at the moment), and awaiting formal critique of the final three at the group meeting Sunday. The goal is to begin serializing it sometime in August here, on my Patreon, and possibly on other sites like Royal Road or Ream. The first third or so of the book will be free for all to read; the remainder will be for paying subscribers. When it’s done sometime in 2027, I will use a Kickstarter to fund production of the completed book.

Here’re many of the songs I’d listened to while I wrote. This isn’t an exhaustive list or it’d be too long.

Treebeard: When The Forest Wakes-A metal song inspired by Lord of the Rings describes the Ents, the ancient “shepherds of the forest,” marching on Isengard and destroying it to punish the wizard Saruman for burning the trees to fuel his war machine. A wizard should know better indeed. :)

Where There’s a Whip There’s A Way (Rankin/Bass Style) Irish Folk Remix-Someone took “Where There’s a Whip There’s a Way” from the 1980 animated Return of the King and made it — slightly — Irish with a livelier beat. It just kind of showed up in my playlist.

Mjolnir: Thor’s Mighty Hammer-This song from Signal from Asgard is basically a hymn to Thor’s hammer as well as to Thor himself. It seems to treat Mjolnir as some kind of relic that can grant people blessings. I’m not deeply familiar with Norse lore and religion, but that actually sounds more like the Biblical account of cloths touched by the Apostle Paul that could heal the sick and possessed.

The Ents Go To War-Another Lord of the Rings song about the Ents’ destruction of Isengard. This one is livelier than “When The Forest Wakes.”

The Runes: Odin’s Sacrifice for Sacred Wisdom-This discusses how Odin sacrificed himself to himself, hanging on the World-Tree, to learn the magic of the runes.

Bringers of Death: The Space Wolves’ War-Chant-In the science fiction war-game Warhammer 40,000 and tie-in fiction, the Space Wolves are an army of trans-human Space Marines who are basically Viking werewolves. It Makes Sense In Context.

Bones of the World-Serpent-This is a Viking horror song that tells of some travelers who find a vast serpentine skeleton beneath the ice — and it’s not dead. For those unfamiliar with Norse lore, the “world serpent” is Jormungandr, a sea monster who will Mutual Kill Thor during Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods. This song is actually pretty spooky.

The Blind Seer of Ragnarok-This is a Viking-themed song about a blind Norse prophet who predicts the imminent Ragnarök, only to be ignored by the nobility.

Gungnir: The Spear That Always Strikes True-This is about the spear of Odin. In a skald’s account of the not-quite-true-to-the-original-mythology Ragnarök in War for the Whale-Road, Gungnir plays a prominent role. It also drops some hints about the nature of the Fall, which I’ve never fully revealed.

Fenrir and Odin: Wisdom’s Price at Ragnarok-The battle between Odin, king of the gods, and the great wolf Fenrir at Ragnarök and the vengeance of Odin’s son Vidar.

Tonight We Dine In Hell-This is about the Spartan rear-guards who died to a man fighting the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae, with some 300-esque laconophilia in the lyrics and artwork.

So You Want To Be A Villain: Original Disney-Style Villain Song-The singer of this song has clearly read the Evil Overlord List and goes about it with a flair. Seriously, check out that link — TVTropes has cross-referenced specific media villains’ bad decisions with the canonical list.

She Keeps The Ship Alive-This song, which seems to be set in a broader shared science-fiction world, focuses on the lengths the ship’s engineer goes to keep an increasingly dysfunctional space freighter going. She reminds me a bit of Kaylee from the show Firefly, except she seems a lot more willing to talk back to the captain and also older.

(Not only does the protagonist look older in the artwork, but we see a younger female crew member who seems to greatly admire her. Perhaps she’s kind of like a surrogate mom or big sister.)

No Worship Required: Emperor of Mankind Disney-Style Song-This song depicts how, in Warhammer 40,000, the future Emperor of Mankind recruited his second-in-command Malcador the Sigilite. In a very Maui and Gaston-style fashion, which is hilarious. The facial expressions in the artwork accompanying the video are even funnier.

Father of Shadows: Nakhash-This is inspired by a little-known piece of pre-Disney Star Wars lore — there was some kind of Dark Side Force god named Nakhash who appeared in one published item and in a more detailed novella or novel that was never published. Disney’s Clone Wars show introduced the Force-beings known as the Mortis Gods (who might simply be extraordinarily old and powerful Force-wielders rather than gods per se), but so far Nakhash hasn’t been canonized.

(Incidentally the Mortis Gods remind me of how old-school Theravada Buddhists view gods — if they’re even real, they’re subject to the laws of karma like mortals. The Mortis gods, no matter how powerful they may be, exist within the bigger picture of the Force.)

Fingolfin: Epic Ballad of the High King of the Noldor-This song is about the duel between the Elvish High King Fingolfin and Morgoth. If you’re not familiar with The Silmarillion, Morgoth is basically the Tolkien version of Satan incarnated in a physical body and was the Dark Lord prior to Sauron. The song is sung in Elvish.

Epic Power Metal: The Last Duel-Another interpretation of the duel between Fingolfin and Morgoth, complete with obvious AI animation.

Bard of the Rings: Fingolfin, First High King of the Noldor-This is the whole biography of Fingolfin, high king of the Noldor, culminating in his duel with Morgoth.

Still We Sow: War Comes Down on Midgard-A lot of Viking-themed music glorifies war, but this emphasizes its costs to the ordinary people, especially in low-productivity medieval agricultural economies. If raiders and armies steal food supplies and burn grain in the fields, the farmers will starve over the winter — so even minimally-armed and trained peasants are better off fighting to protect their homesteads when the longships come rather than running away.

I Chose To Live-This is a horror-themed song from the perspective of a woman who, abandoned in the woods, resorts to cannibalism and becomes the Native American monster known as the wendigo. Most wendigo stories (and songs I found on YouTube) focus on the wendigo as a monster, but this is a very “good for her” take in which a wronged woman is empowered by becoming a literal monster. To cite the “man vs. bear” discourse, this is a case where the woman actually becomes the bear. It’s also the only depiction of the wendigo as explicitly female I’m aware of, and the ghoul/zombie artwork accompanying the video is probably more lore-accurate than depicting the wendigo as an antlered Bigfoot.

Heimdall and Loki: Eternal Enemies-This is also from Signal from Asgard and emphasizes Heimdall as a god of order and Loki as a god of chaos. It also describes their final battle at Ragnarök.

If you’re interested in learning more about Norse mythology, Signal from Asgard seems to be a good place to go — as far as I can tell it’s faithful to the original sources and it’s fun to listen to.