Welcome to the second installment of my “soundtrack” for Rage of the Old Gods, covering the events up to and including chapter sixteen, “The Ziggurat.” This batch of songs will take us to the ends of known world and beyond: north through Tor Som and into the frigid homeland of the Northern Clans, east beyond the wall of the Gormorra Range, and south into the heart of occupied Uranna.

Once again, I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but it’s impossible to do this without giving some away.

5: The Tor Defender:

For Yarnig’s theme, I have again dipped into the fantastic soundtrack for Battlestar Galactica, choosing Adama Falls. It’s a song as dignified as it is tragic, perfectly encapsulating the man that is Yarnig Tor Lannis.

Yarnig will always put on a brave face for his people. He will never show anything but the strength expected of a Tor royal. But in his heart, he knows he has nothing to offer his people. He’s a figurehead and nothing more, no matter how much he longs to be the hero Tor Som needs. His is a tale full of sorrow, and Adama Falls reflects this well

6: The Northern Clans:

Using a Rohirrim theme for the Northern Clans is so obvious it almost feels like a cheat. But damn it, it fits.

The King of the Golden Hall embodies a sense of pride and fierce independence such as defines the Northern Clans, a people who rejected all the comfort of the south to prove themselves in the wild north. It also has a certain haunting and lonely quality to it, reflecting the desolate homeland of the Clanspeople.

I’m going to be honest: I still have a few regrets about the books, and not developing the Clanspeople more is one of them. They’re such a fascinating culture — in my mind, anyway.

7: Beyond the Gormorra Range:

The first spring after the return of the Old Gods is a dark time for humanity. They have been beaten time and again, and while the fight goes on, the unspoken belief is that the war cannot be won. Though they have found a modicum of respite beyond the mountains of the Gormorra Range, many feel the end is nigh.

For this piece of the story, I went to the soundtrack to the sadly forgotten real time strategy masterpiece Myth II: Soulblighter. The mission intro music for Through the Ermine has a sad and haunting quality to it, but it’s also very peaceful. It reflects that, though times are grim, the battles are distant.

There’s a subtle hint of hopefulness to this song, too. The seasons are changing, and maybe things aren’t as bleak as they seem.

8: The Battle of Tallatzan Ziggurat:

All right, enough sad and haunting tunes. It’s time to inject some life into this soundtrack.

There comes a time when you have to stop running. When you have to turn around and smack the bully chasing you as hard as you possibly can, and hope that maybe you can make him think twice about messing with you.

The Battle of Tallatzan Ziggurat is one such time. After months of crushing defeats, Leha has decided to take a chance and strike back at the heart of the Gods’ power with everything she has.

Once again, Bear McCreary provides the perfect accompaniment. This time, it’s the theme from the new sci-fi series Defiance. It’s a song as epic and emotional as Bear McCreary can make it, perfectly matching one of the most intense and pivotal battles in the World Spectrum series. Little hints of dubstep and techno music fit the surreal, sci-fi inspired landscape of an Old God city.

Bonus track:

I’ve decided to focus only on orchestral soundtrack pieces for this because I don’t think popular music makes a lot of sense of the story, but there are still a few songs I feel fit the story of the books very well, so I’m going to be including a few here or there.

The first is Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. I find the apocalyptic imagery and general badassery of the song fit the events of Rage of the Old Gods very well.

Welcome to the new age.

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Next time, we wrap up the soundtrack for book one with four songs from three video games.

It’s a fairly common practice for authors to come up with “soundtracks” or playlists for their novels, lists of songs that fit the story. I’ve decided to hop right on this bandwagon, and I’ve dug into my favourite soundtracks from movies, TV, and video games to create complete soundtracks for both Rage of the Old Gods and Children of the Gods.

I’ll be releasing the songs in installments over the coming weeks, roughly paralleling my readers’ journey through the stories.

These first four songs cover the events up to and including chapter six, “No Sleep in the City.” I’m going to try to avoid posting any big spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read that far yet, but a few vague hints about the story are bound to slip through.

1: The Fall of Eastenhold

If you’re putting together an epic soundtrack and you don’t include Bear McCreary’s iconic Prelude to War from Battlestar Galactica, you are doing it very, very wrong.

Honestly, this song could have easily fit just about any part of this book, or anything else I’ve written. Rather than agonize over which part of the book to tie it to, I decided to simply throw it out at the beginning.

I think it’s a good fit for the fall of Eastenhold, though. It’s epic, and it’s intense, and it fits that terrible conflict very well, but it also hints of greater struggles to come. The fall of Eastenhold is just a shadow of the true cataclysm that will befall Barria — just a prelude to the true war.

2: The Other Worlds

Sy’om and Tyzu are surreal, alien places. Even the fundamental laws of reality don’t function normally on these long forgotten worlds. For the theme of these places, I chose the music of Tanaris from World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm expansion.

The haunting vocals and eerie ambiance capture a spirit of mystery and adventure. This song fits especially well with the lonely glacier fields of Sy’om. I’ll admit it doesn’t capture Tyzu quite as well, but the soundtrack would have been too cluttered if I’d given it its own song, I feel. And this does capture the exoticism and alien feel of Tyzu very well, if it not its frenetic intensity.

3: Wrath of the Old Gods

When I came up with the Old Gods, I designed them to be as bombastic and over the top as possible. They’re like a force of nature — terrible, vast, uncaring, and unconquerable. Few pieces of music could capture the raw terror of facing the Old Gods in combat, but Druids of the Flame, from World of Warcraft’s Firelands content, manages it.

Listen to this song while reading the Battle of Heart, and understand why “wrath of the Old Gods” is a curse spoken in only the most dire situations.

4: Night in Marlhem

When you’re writing an epic story with lots of intense violence and emotion, I believe it’s also important to include moments of peace every now and then. It allows characters and readers alike to sit back, catch their breath, and remember what’s at stake.

The night in Marlhem depicted in chapter six is one such moment. Terrible things have happened by that point, and the Old Gods are closing in, but at that moment, all is relatively calm.

To capture the fragile peace of that cold Tor night, I’ve picked a song from the MMORPG The Secret World. It’s most commonly heard in London, but it appears in other parts of the game, as well. It’s a gentle, slightly sad song that captures the shaky calm of that night where Leha stood upon the battlements and looked up at the stars.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed the first installment of the book soundtrack, and stay tuned for more updates in the future!