A postmortem of Hymns of the Apostate lead me to believe that I forced myself to streamline some aspects of the plot that I would have rather developed a little more during the story. In retrospect, I wish I had built up the importance of the Runeam Library and it’s impact on international politics, and I wanted to comment on how a large portion of the Alvaran population was living abroad as mercenaries and cheap labor. When I think about some of my motivations when I was actually making the pages of HotA, a lot of these points were streamlined because I was unable to update regularly due to my deployment schedule and then afterwards when I was working for the DoD in Japan. I felt pressured to “move the story along.” A lot of these plot points are eventually tied up in the Cast page (which I encourage you to read), but they also come to a head in Canto XXXVII which is arguably my favorite story beat in the entire series. I fret because a lot of readers overlooked some points when this canto was released, and I attribute a lot of that to the streamlining instincts that I had when making Hymns of the Apostate. For Lost Noise, I will resist the temptation to push the story along because moments like this are important. So, I apologize for the delay. I don’t want to compromise on Lost Noise, and I’m really happy how this episode came out.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback in the comments sections on this site or by tweeting at me.

I’ve recently fallen in love with the album Rebel Woman by Chiwoniso Maraire- a Zimbabwean songwriter who tragically passed away in 2013 at age 37.

This album really hits all of the high points that I tend to gravitate towards as a listener. I was introduced to West African music by a college roommate from Cameroon, and a few of my “desert island album” contenders come out of Mali and Senegal. This is my first real foray into East African music, and, while I lack a lot of the formal and informal tools to truly appreciate this album, it is already a contender for a desert island album. I have been absolutely charmed by this album the past few weeks.

The album is a healthy synthesis of modern, Western instruments like trumpets with traditional African instruments such as talking drums, balafons, and shekere that creates a warm, vitalizing sound throughout the playlist. The kalimba (I believe) is used in lieu of a bass throughout every song, and metal tinniness of this instrument is actually quite evocative and propels my foot to tap along to the beat. Chiwoniso has an powerful voice, and she switches between English and Shona throughout the album with ease. The titular song is performed completely in English, and the lyrics are so well written that I am frustrated that I have been unable to find a decent translation of the other songs.

The whole album is uplifting, inspiring, and would be generally fun to put on at a medium volume as background music at a party or while exercising. I recommend listening to the 3rd track- Gomo– which is the best representative song of the styles used throughout the album. It has a strong female lead vocalist with super deep male backup that creates a compelling contrast. The use of horns throughout the song illustrate the generally jazzy feel of the album and inspires the experimentation and variation of the hooks and refrains. The song is long enough that I feel satisfied after listening to it, but it doesn’t wear out its welcome or become a repetitive earworm.

My favorite song on the album is the 9th song- Pamuromo. However, I do not recommend that you listen to this song first as it is not as good of a representation of the album as a whole. I simply love male/female duets, and Pamuromo scratches that itch in a way that forces me to listen to it a few times before moving on.

Spoiler warnings for: Fortuna Saga and Hymns of the Apostate, 22 Jump Street, Mass Effect, Star Wars

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Sequels and prequels are odd beasts to tackle as a writer.

Normally, a sequel will fall into one of these categories:

– It escalates the stakes of the original story (“Bigger, better, bolder, and louder.” The Fast and the Furious model)

– It is a different story told in the same world (e.g. the Godfather II or the Mandalorian)

– It is the next part of an ongoing story (Lord of the Rings into the Two Towers)

The Fortuna Saga and its sequel, Hymns of the Apostate, are complete stories and can be enjoyed in isolation. On the other hand, both stories reflect on common themes, questions, and motifs that can provide a deeper understanding of each story. This is most obvious where the stories clearly parallel each other (e.g. Valens and the Hunter vs. The Last Dragon and Ezra) where the same question is viewed through a different schema. Sequels are the most interesting when they iterate, explore, and stress-test their own thematic structures. Doing so risks breaking apart a carefully-worded statement in the original story, but I believe that examining the weak-points or exceptions to these statements, while painful, is not destructive if done thoughtfully.

One of my favorite sequels of the previous decade, 22 Jump Street, uses this entire thought-process as the premise for the entire movie. If you haven’t seen this movie (and the “original” remake), I really encourage you to do so. Sequels often falter because they try to recapture the magic or the “formula” of the original. The script of 22 Jump Street delights in this fact. The characters are literally told to “do the exact same thing as last time.” Whenever the characters in try to deviate from the formula set by the original film, they are berated by their superiors and forced to comply with that formula. This causes the protagonists to focus on the wrong clues and make poor interpretations on what they are seeing because they are using an old lens to focus on a new environment. While the movie ultimately still relies on the established formula, it was refreshing to see the awareness of it.

For comparison, let’s turn to Mass Effect 3 (a sequel to one of my favorite games). Let’s ignore the much maligned ending for now because it’s not relevant for the conversation. Mass Effect 3 makes the same storytelling mistakes that 22 Jump Street lampoons. More importantly, it mirrors the mistakes that the George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels (Episodes I-III) make. Mass Effect 3 goes out of its way to reintroduce basically every single character that we have met so far throughout the tale. You see characters for brief scenes where they usually end up getting killed. These scenes do very little to move the plot forward and, honestly, don’t have much to say. These interactions feel more like a To-Do checklist item rather than a genuine story moment. As a player, it feels like the game leans forward through the 4^th Wall for a moment to whisper, “Hey, do you remember Kasumi? Well, here’s a 10 second interaction with here…. OK! Next up is Jack.” The Star Wars prequels make this same mistake where the audience sees explanations for simple thing that do not need explaining. The audience didn’t need to know where C3P0 came from nor did they need to know the troubling origins of Anakin Skywalker’s birth… especially when these facts have almost no bearing on the stories that were ultimately told. If these facts were left unsaid, it would not change the story of the prequels or enhance our understanding of the original versions. Usually, this new information rips open gaping plot holes and weaken the original story.

The existence of a character doesn’t need explanation. The potential origin story is not what endeared the audience to them in the first place. These little bits of fan-service nods and expansions are fun to do as a writer, but they actually make these literal galaxy-sized stages feel smaller. In a universe of near infinite possibilities in Star Wars and Mass Effect, we get smaller, weaker, less-wise versions of characters that we already know. Anakin Skywalker is less interesting than Darth Vader. Anakin is less capable, less competent, less confident, and has less storytelling potential because we know that, no matter what, he has to end up as Darth Vader. All of this is true because of how Anakin was framed in the story.

This is a huge risk when writing a prequel. Balen Frey in Lost Noise, for example, has “plot armor.” He is essential to the plot of Fortuna Saga. I can’t kill Balen during the run of Lost Noise if I want the plot of Fortuna Saga to remain logically consistent… and the audience knows this (Although, if I can figure out how to have an internally consistent Scanners-like scene where I spray Balen’s brains over the page, rest assured that I will do it) We know how Balen’s story ends already, so how do we make the journey interesting for him?

This is something that I want to explore with Lost Noise for the characters with plot armor. It may work or it might be a spectacular failure, but I think there is another option to keep characters interesting in sequels and prequels. A monologue from As You Like It articulates this point better than I ever could:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,

This is an interesting way to view a character. To personalize this thought, I simply am not the same person that I was ten years ago. I might have similar traits, experiences, and preferences, but I would handle the exact same scenarios from my past much differently if I were somehow thrust into them today. Instead of viewing Fortuna Saga’s Balen Frey as the necessary endpoint for the Lost Noise Balen Frey character arc, I intend on viewing this story’s Balen Frey as a unique individual worthy of exploration in his own right. He is one of the many parts that we play. Even if the flesh cannot die, much can happen to this role that Balen is currently playing.

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