As part of the blog tour for the release of Erin Bow’s newest book, The Swan Riders, today I’m sharing a playlist Erin created based on the series. Thanks for stopping by the blog, Erin!
Don’t miss the giveaway at the end of the post for a chance to win your own finished copy of The Swan Riders.
Title: The Swan Rider
Series: Prisoners of Peace #2
Author: Erin Bow
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Release Date: September 20, 2016
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopia, LGBTQIA+
Greta Stuart had always known her future: die young. She was her country’s crown princess, and also its hostage, destined to be the first casualty in an inevitable war. But when the war came it broke all the rules, and Greta forged a different path.
She is no longer princess. No longer hostage. No longer human. Greta Stuart has become an AI.
If she can survive the transition, Greta will earn a place alongside Talis, the AI who rules the world. Talis is a big believer in peace through superior firepower. But some problems are too personal to obliterate from orbit, and for those there are the Swan Riders: a small band of humans who serve the AIs as part army, part cult.
Now two of the Swan Riders are escorting Talis and Greta across post-apocalyptic Saskatchewan. But Greta’s fate has stirred her nation into open rebellion, and the dry grassland may hide insurgents who want to rescue her – or see her killed. Including Elian, the boy she saved—the boy who wants to change the world, with a knife if necessary. Even the infinitely loyal Swan Riders may not be everything they seem.
Greta’s fate—and the fate of her world—are balanced on the edge of a knife in this smart, sly, electrifying adventure.
Erin’s Playlist:
Oh, here is the bit where I look entirely out of touch with the young people of today. In fairness to myself I was not in touch with the young people of the day when I was a young person, either. When I was a 7th grader my parents bought me a copy of Michael Jackson’s THRILLER in an effort to help me fit in better. It did not work.
Anyway.
I listen to music when I write books – mostly music without lyrics, so that I don’t accidentally transcribe song lyrics instead of writing. With this book I listened to a lot of bluegrass and Americana. Apparently, in The Scorpion Rules future, we’ve lost personal transportation, the principle that collective punishment is wrong, and the electric guitar.
Goat Rodeo Sessions was my go-to album. According to iTunes I have listened to it 932 times.
This is Stoneground by the Bee Eaters. It was Elian’s theme for the early part of book one:
The Scorpion Rules is the first book I wrote that required a love theme. This is the one for Greta and Xie. A little bluegrassy, a little modern. And a lovely song about rising from denial. I listened to it a lot at the end of the book.
Talis gets weirdly protective and fatherly with Greta at the beginning of book two. (He’s not good at it, but he tries.) This is the song that got me in the mood for that.
The ambush chapter in the middle of the second book needed something a lot louder and more rock. Here’s one:
Indeed a lot of the more Talis-centric parts of the book needed some more volume. This is the three AIs waiting for their ransom in Interlude: On Taking Over The World. It’s a great apocalypse song.
There is a decline and fall in The Swan Riders, and this song, Red Mountains, is the theme for that – and has been for so very long that it’s the reason that the Red Mountains in the book are called the Red Mountains.
About the Author:
Hi! My name is Erin Bow — physicist turned poet turned author of young adult novels that will make you cry on the bus. I’m a white girl, forty-something, feminist, geeky enough to do the Vulcan salute with both hands — in public. I live in Canada. I love to cook, hate to clean, and yes, I do own a cat.
In the beginning, I was a city girl from farm country—born in Des Moines and raised in Omaha—where I was fond of tromping through wood lots and reading books by flashlight. In high school I captained the debate team, founded the math club, and didn’t date much.
In university I studied particle physics, and worked briefly at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. Physics was awesome, but graduate school kind of sucked, and at some point I remembered that I wanted to write books.
Books: I have six of them — three novels, and two volumes of poetry and a memoir (the poetry under my maiden name, Erin Noteboom). My poetry has won the CBC Canadian Literary Award, and several other awards. My two novels, Plain Kate and Sorrow’s Knot, also have a fistful of awards, including Canada’s top award for children’s literature, the TD. The third novel, The Scorpion Rules, still faces its award season. No one read the memoir.
Right now I’m looking forward to the publication of my fourth novel, a companion piece to The Scorpion Rules called The Swan Riders, which will be out September 20 from Simon & Schuster. I’m at work on an new an entirely different novel, and a book of poetry about science.
Did you notice I got to Canada in there somewhere? Yeah, that was true love. I’m married to a Canadian boy, James Bow, who also writes young adult novels. We have two small daughters, both of whom want to be scientists.
Tour Schedule:
Week 1:
9/12: Fangs and Fur Fantasy Book Review – Review
9/13: The Cover Contessa – Guest Post
9/14: Live to Read – Review
9/15: Such A Novel Idea – Q&A
9/16: Intellectual Recreation – Review
Week 2:
9/19: Novel Ink – Q&A
9/20: The Story Sanctuary – Review
9/21: Book Stacks Amber – Playlist
9/22: Lisa Loves Literature – Review
9/23: A Backwards Story – Q&A
GIVEAWAY:
3 Finished Copies of THE SWAN RIDERS (US Only)
bookstacksamber.wordpress.com 
I love this playlist–so different than what I was expecting. Thanks for the new ensembles to listen to. I love listening to all kinds of music, especially when the performer is playing as I watch.
LikeLike