Which Author Should Novelize “The Trees” by Rush?
By JohnAnealio |
Friday, February 17th, 2012 at
12:25 am
John Anealio writes songs about Science Fiction, Fantasy & Other Nerdy Things. His music sounds like John Mayer, Weezer & James Taylor playing Dungeons & Dragons together on their iPhones. Download his music for free at johnanealio.com
Artists of all kinds are often inspired by other mediums. Songwriters are routinely influenced by novelists, and novelists commonly listen to music when they write. While there have been numerous novelizations of feature films, there haven’t been many book length interpretations of individual songs. So here’s a question for you:
Which Author Should Novelize “The Trees” by Rush?
Shoot your answers to us in the comments below. Meanwhile, watch the video f the song and enjoy a bonus question!
Bonus Question: Which Director Should Helm “The Trees” Feature Film?
Tagged with: Rush
Filed under: Music
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John, The Trees seems more like a short story than a novel, and it would require quite a bit of fantasy world building. I just finished Tad Williams’ collection of short stories, and think he would be a good candidate.
Did you read that Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart are going to jointly novelize the next album, Clockwork Angels?
I’m a big Tad Williams fan, so that would be awesome.
Indeed I did hear about Kevin J. Anderson novelizing “Clockwork Angels”, and I’m curious to see how that turns out.
That’s where my mind went–to Anderson, based on his connection to Peart.
What Larry said: Kevin J. Anderson will be writing a novelisation of Rush’s upcoming album “Clockwork Angels” in collaboration with drummer Neil Peart.
As to “The Trees”, well Rush had already written a song called “Anthem” (on the “Fly by Night” album) inspired by the same-titled novel by Ayn Rand. Basically, the whole “2112″ concept album is heavily influenced by Ayn Rand, and this influence is still quite profound in “The Trees”.
So, in a way, Ayn Rand already wrote ‘novelisations’ of “The Trees” (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged). In that manner, one would look for a modern-day Objectivist SF writer. Closest I can think of is a Libertarian SF writer: Jerry Pournelle? Vernor Vinge? Neal Stephenson?
Bonus question: Alex Proyas.
Hey Jetse,
I was aware that 2112 was heavily influence by Ayn Rand, but I didn’t realize that she had an equally big influence on “Anthem” and “The Trees”. Thanks for the info!
I’d love to see a Neal Stephenson take on Rush.
Just did a quick google search on Alex Proyas and discovered that he directed DARK CITY, which is a really underrated film in my opinion.
Dark City is in my top ten favorite films of all time.
Actually, the novel “Evergreen” by Bruce Golden, published just a couple of years ago, is a pretty good fit for “Trees.”
Other potentials:
* John Scalzi
* Joe Hill
* Richard Dansky
Scalzi would kill it and add a welcome sense of humor to the project as well.
Scalzi? nah…unless you want something like Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, IE a satire of the entire thing.
Surely it should be Larry Niven: integrally, of course!
Tom T Hall
But, of course, we could just let the man Neil Peart write it….his penned several books already.
Indeed he has. I really enjoyed his TRAVELING MUSIC biography.