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TurningStones wrote:Now that some forum users have received their copy of the Mark Tremonti/John Shirley novel, I was wondering if the novel provides a better idea of what order the songs should be in to tell a story. I haven't gotten around to ordering the novel yet, but I wanted to get a clearer idea of the underlying story and I was wondering if someone would be able to help chronologically sequence the songs.

Andy92 wrote:

TurningStones wrote:Now that some forum users have received their copy of the Mark Tremonti/John Shirley novel, I was wondering if the novel provides a better idea of what order the songs should be in to tell a story. I haven't gotten around to ordering the novel yet, but I wanted to get a clearer idea of the underlying story and I was wondering if someone would be able to help chronologically sequence the songs.

I’ve only read the first 3 chapters. The first act is called As The Silence Becomes Me. I think the songs are gonna be all over the place chronologically in comparison to the novel lol. I’m sure myself and others can give you a better answer after reading more.

Andy92 wrote:I finished the book and I’m going to try to piece this together the best I can. I know it won’t be perfect because my memory of exact order is slightly off when the events of two songs happen within the same chapter or two. But I think this order is at least a good general idea of how the book’s story flows.

As The Silence Becomes Me
Trust
Throw Them To The Lions
Traipse
A Dying Machine
The First The Last
The Day When Legions Burned
Make It Hurt
A Lot Like Sin
Bringer Of War
From The Sky
Desolation
Take You With Me

The two I’m the most iffy on are Trust and A Lot Like Sin. The lyrics are too vague for me to place the exact conversations, although I had an idea of what each song was referencing. The songs don’t portray an even distribution of the book. A Dying Machine / The First The Last takes place over 200 pages in, and the book only has 300 pages. So a lot of these songs are packed into the 3rd act. It makes sense because that’s where the bulk of the action takes place. The first 100 pages is mostly introducing the characters and setting the background for the story/world as a whole.

Also, I’d be happy to share my reasoning behind my choices, I just didn’t want to start loading down tons of book spoilers in here.

Andy92 wrote:I’ll just post some thoughts here. DON’T KEEP READING IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK.

ATSBM as the opener fits as Brennan feeling down about not being with his wife anymore, and it’s his motivation to enter the Vessel lottery in the first place.

Interesting that we both have different reasons for why this song is first When I was going through the novel I pretty much figured the song was about Rhapsody saying she didn't want to be alone anymore to Stella. Especially when Mark said this about the song: "A being who is isolated and left alone for years, and in the end is driven into madness by its own imaginary ghosts." Which sounds like Rhapsody to me.

The next 2 songs I was iffy with, but I thought Trust seemed like a conversation between Stella and Brennan before she starts to go completely insane. It just seemed like a generic song about moving on from the past (which in Brennan’s case would be moving on from his wife).

I was looking through the novel for a conversation between Ares and Stella that reminded me of Trust because Mark had mentioned one point in an interview that the song was a "Conversation between Stella and Ares where Ares is trying to convince Stella to follow him. Ares happens to be obsessed with Stella." But I didnt really find one. Maybe you'd know what he meant by this or maybe Trust is actually about Stella and Brennan and Mark just forgot

Throw Them To The Lions seems like the conversation Ares has with his inner group of Vessels early on in the book. Saturn, Jupiter, etc. It’s him planting the seed of what he wants to do. The songs seems to reference the Vessel recall/walking into the fire, and Ares plans to stop the process once “I wake and will throw them to the lions.”

Traipse is obvious, Stella going through the woods to escape. A Dying Machine follows this when she confronts Brennan after escaping the island (their conversation even references mechanical cradle/synthetic embrace). This song and The First The Last happen almost simultaneously because Stella goes numb as soon as she realizes what she’s done.

The Day When Legions Burned picks up as Stella is being brought to the furnace at the recall. Make It Hurt is shortly after this when Ares takes over and liberates all the Vessels with his grand speech.

I think A Lot Like Sin happens at some point after this when Ares is talking to Stella and Venus is becoming bitter about their relationship.

The next two songs go together fairly closely. Bringer Of War is pretty obvious since the book references the song lyrics spoken by Ares. From The Sky comes not long after this when the Vessels get their hands on three fighter jets and start reigning down terror “from the sky.”

I kept trying to find any reference to From The Sky and when I read your take on the song with the armed gunships (I dont think they had fighter jets, just gunships) I went to the book and only really found one page that the armed gunships are referenced to to be in their possession, but I thought they never really got to use them before they were blown up?)

Desolation seems to fit in a couple different ways. One is with the nuke going off, the other part is when Rhapsody references one of the lyrics when Stella is talking to her towards the end of the book. I’m pretty sure she mentioned laying her body down/open the sky, take me in. I’d have to get the book for the exact line there.

Take You With Me happens last because it’s referencing Stella taking Rhapsody with her, might even include Daisy in there as well since Stella takes her hand a lot. But I’m pretty sure the song in general is from Stella’s point of view in taking her sisters with her.

Another case of Mark mentioning different characters as the viewpoints of this song (The way I fit it into the story is a scene where the main aggressive character in the book who starts his rebellion. He falls in love with Stella, this main character, and he’s kind of telling her, “Don’t be ashamed of what you aren’t proud of and what you are, follow me, and I’ll show you the way here.” So, he’s kind of obsessed with her and doing his best to win her over.) had me looking for a conversation between them similar to the song but I couldnt find one again So again; maybe you're right and its Stella/Rhapsody and not Ares/Stella

That’s what I pieced together. Exact page numbers are tough without a kindle version, and I didn’t write anything down as I was reading the book. I just kinda winged this all from memory after I finished reading tonight lol. I don’t think it’s 100% correct. I’m mostly iffy on the beginning and what conversation Trust is from. But I’m pretty confident in everything from Traipse forward.

Andy92 wrote:I hadn’t listened to Mark’s interviews about the book so that does help some. I had forgotten about that first conversation between Stella and Rhapsody, and that does fit with the theme of As The Silence Becomes Me. Trust being between Ares and Stella was also an idea I played around with, I just couldn’t remember an exact scene. So it might go in the second half of songs after the events of Make It Hurt.

And with From The Sky, you’ve got the whole plotline with the nuke going on that it also seems to fit with. I still think it’s a later song because of the lyrically content, maybe just a reference to dropping the nuke from the sky.

I agree with you on ASTBM and Trust, so the placement of Trust needs moved in my list. If Mark said Take You With Me was Ares’ viewpoint with Stella, then I guess that’s what it’s referencing. I just think it fits really well with Stella/Rhapsody at the end of the book.

SHEAKENBAKEN wrote:

Andy92 wrote:I hadn’t listened to Mark’s interviews about the book so that does help some. I had forgotten about that first conversation between Stella and Rhapsody, and that does fit with the theme of As The Silence Becomes Me. Trust being between Ares and Stella was also an idea I played around with, I just couldn’t remember an exact scene. So it might go in the second half of songs after the events of Make It Hurt.

And with From The Sky, you’ve got the whole plotline with the nuke going on that it also seems to fit with. I still think it’s a later song because of the lyrically content, maybe just a reference to dropping the nuke from the sky.

I agree with you on ASTBM and Trust, so the placement of Trust needs moved in my list. If Mark said Take You With Me was Ares’ viewpoint with Stella, then I guess that’s what it’s referencing. I just think it fits really well with Stella/Rhapsody at the end of the book.

If only we had more people who finished the novel that could share some input There was a private FB group created recently to discuss the novel but that group has been dead for a couple days so I dont know what's going on there Maybe you should join it and share what you posted here

Andy92 wrote:....

Andy92 wrote:I don’t really feel like I have much time to devote to a debate on this...but I honestly have no idea how they placed some of those tracks that have no page number references lol.

Are they assuming Take You With Me is from the first time Ares sees Stella earlier in the book? I just don’t see it. I feel like it’s in the second half after Ares liberates them all. Make It Hurt seems like it’s gotta be about Ares’ big speech when all of the Vessels say the phrase to free each other.