News The Lord of the Rings Liv Tyler Says Arwen Was Originally Part of the Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings Films “I was in Helm’s Deep, fighting” By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on January 13, 2026 Screenshot: New Line Cinema Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: New Line Cinema It’s been twenty-five years(!) since Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy hit the big screen. To celebrate the occasion, Empire brought together Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett, who played Arwen and Galadriel respectively in the films, to reminisce about their experiences during production. In the books, Arwen—the elf who ultimately marries Aragorn (played in the movies by Viggo Mortensen)—doesn’t do much. Her role in the films was expanded, but Tyler shared that Arwen initially had an even larger part to play in the story. “Originally, when I came into the project, I was included in the Fellowship,” she said. “I was in Helm’s Deep, fighting.” Tyler actually shot scenes at Helm’s Deep, though those never made it into the final film (many people think, however, that a brief shot of Arwen got through, and point to the person in red in the background at the 4:29 mark in this clip). “I was there with Viggo and everyone,” she said. “It was fucking hard, man. It was brutal. And it didn’t really work. Then it changed again. Over the course of three years, I didn’t always have something to hold on to with the text, so I had to really lean into this idea of unwavering love and groundedness that was the role of Arwen in the story.” Tyler and Blanchett also vaguely recalled a scene they had together as well, though they couldn’t remember the details. “You’d see Viggo [Mortensen] and Pete [Jackson] going to knock off another few shots from the battle sequences, which I was longing to be part of,” Blanchett said. “But it really felt like they were invested in finding a way that the female characters could anchor things, so that even though they weren’t a huge part of the narrative, they weighted the story in quite a profound way.” [end-mark] The post Liv Tyler Says Arwen Was Originally Part of the Fellowship in <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> Films appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Urban Fantasy Read an Excerpt From Twelve Months by Jim Butcher Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, has always managed to save the day—but this time, can he save himself? By Jim Butcher | Published on January 13, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Twelve Months, the 18th installment in Jim Butcher’s long-running Dresden Files—publishing with Ace on January 20. Harry Dresden has been through a lot, and so has his city. After Harry and his allies narrowly managed to save Chicago from being razed to the ground, everything is different—and it’s not just the current lack of electricity.In the battle, Harry lost people he cared about. And that’s the kind of loss that takes a toll. Harry being Harry, he’s doing his level best to help the city and his friends recover and rebuild. But it’s a heavy load, and he needs time. But time is one thing Harry doesn’t have. Ghouls are prowling Chicago and taking out innocent civilians. Harry’s brother is dying, and Harry doesn’t know how to help him. And last but certainly not least, the Winter Queen of the Fae has allied with the White Court of vampires—and Harry’s been betrothed to the seductive, deadly vampire Lara Raith to seal the deal. It’s been a tough year. More than ever, the city needs Harry Dresden the wizard—but after loss and grief, is there enough left of Harry Dresden the man to rise to the challenge? I fell back onto the bed, gasping, my heart pounding against my chest. The gorgeous woman from the party, I hadn’t caught her name, collapsed atop me. She was shaking and made soft, gentle sounds on every exhale. “Oh God,” she breathed. “Oh God. Oh God.” “Shhh,” I said, and began to run my hand up and down her back soothingly. “Shhh. Get your breath.” A low laugh came from the padded papasan chair just across from the bed, in the shadows of the room. Moonlight came in through the windows and the draping white gauzy curtains. A slim, pale form slith- ered up out of the chair and prowled lithely across the rich carpet to- ward me. “Oh,” Lara breathed. She emerged into a beam of moonlight that caressed every unclad, perfect inch of her. Her eyes glowed brilliant silver. She touched my hand gently and then caressed the woman’s back, drawing shudders of pleasure from her. Lara smiled down at me and leaned in for a slow kiss. Part of my brain melted when our lips met, and turned into slow, swirling liquid pleasure, but she didn’t let it last for long. Not yet. She drew slowly away, smiling down at me, and said, “That was beautiful.” It took me a moment to get enough breath and focus together to say, “It still feels strange.” “It’s been a year,” Lara teased, gently—but her eyes were like mir- rors as she turned to the woman and kissed her with a sudden, sinuous speed that reminded me inevitably of a serpent striking and devouring its prey. The woman kissed Lara back helplessly, letting out a brief, intense scream—and then melted, her eyes rolling back. Lara guided her down to the bed, where she lay in a boneless, whim- pering heap, jerking breaths in and shivering, her eyes as unfocused and vacant as those of any narcotics addict. The woman made small animal noises. “Mmmm,” Lara purred, licking her lips. Then those silver eyes, swirling with faint whirls of violet and blue, so easy to stare at, turned to meet my gaze. She wasn’t afraid of my eyes anymore. She’d gazed upon my soul, and I upon hers, and she wasn’t afraid. For a second, I wondered if I could say the same. “Delicious little appetizer,” Lara murmured. She took my hand and drew me up from the bed. “But it’s time for the main course.” “This is a dream,” I rasped aloud, and opened my eyes. I found myself in my chambers in the basement of the castle. There were still a couple of candles burning. I had thrown the covers off me and was covered with sweat and trembling. Mister the cat looked up from the bed I’d made for him halfway up my bookshelf, and blinked his gold-green eyes at me, before arching his back, stretching a little, and settling back down again. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My head was pounding ferociously. My neck ached from collapsing with it at an odd angle on the pillow. I’d drunk too much Scotch, and my burning stomach crept around the inside of my torso as if looking for a way out. On the low table next to the little couch in my room, there was still a Monopoly game set out. The place where I’d been sitting had very few dollars left next to the empty fifth. The empty spot across from me had most of the money and most of the properties. No one was there. “It doesn’t have to be a dream,” said my voice, from the other side of the room. I twitched and squinted. I stepped out of the shadows. Well. Not me-me. It was that other guy. That other me. He was dressed in black and had a goatee and didn’t have as many scars as I knew I would have if I looked in the mirror. He didn’t look younger. Just infinitely better preserved. “The hell was in that bottle?” I muttered. “Veritas, maybe,” said my double. He went across the room and looked down at the Monopoly board, at the little dog and the thimble. “I’ve never understood why you like to be the thimble.” “It’s useful,” I said. “And it protects.” The other me snorted quietly. “We’re going insane, aren’t we?” I asked. He studied me soberly for a moment and then said, “We’re decid- ing.” He looked at me and shook his head. “There’s a future out there, you know.” Buy the Book Twelve Months Jim Butcher Buy Book Twelve Months Jim Butcher Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget My heart tried to rip its way out of my chest and crawl over to the Monopoly board. “Fuck the future. I don’t want it.” “That’s our pain talking,” the other me said. “Our pain?” I demanded. “I miss her, too,” he said. “She was a hero. It felt good to have a hero protecting us.” “Fuck you,” I said in a flat, dead tone. “Self-pity isn’t going to accomplish anything. For anyone.” “I’m doing my fucking best. Asshole.” “You know, you don’t talk like this to anyone else,” the other me pointed out. “Not to Mab. Not to Marcone. You didn’t even talk like this to the ghoul. You’ll curse at them, but you save the real venom for yourself.” I sat there and thought about that for a moment. “Just pointing out the obvious,” the other me said. He looked around my room. It was a mess. It was most nights. I would put it back together before I went out to face the day. He nodded toward the Monopoly board and said, “That really isn’t very healthy.” “Don’t care,” I told him. “Obviously.” He shook his head. “Look. I know we don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to your moral and ethical limitations.” I snorted. “You and everyone else.” He smiled briefly. “But have you even once considered that life with Lara would have its advantages?” My body was still recalling the proposed advantages. It was uncom- fortable. It made me feel ashamed. And other things. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of wanting to live,” the other me said. “Of wanting to embrace life.” “Mind your own business,” I snapped. He spread his hands and gave a helpless little roll of his eyes. “Watch Lara more closely,” he said. “You haven’t been seeing the same things I have.” “Like what?” I demanded. “Come on,” he said. “You know that’s not how I work.” “Not interested,” I said. He glanced at my hips and then shrugged. “If you say so.” “Lara is a monster,” I said. “And I have a daughter.” “Who needs you, and who will need you for a few more years,” he said. “And who then will face the world on her own, like all grown chil- dren. You have many tomorrows to think about.” I let out a half-hysterical laugh. “Figure I should cut them short to be with Lara, eh?” “Thomas and Justine seemed happy together,” he said reasonably. “What if you could strike a similar balance?” “I had the balance I wanted,” I snapped. “Did you?” he asked lightly. “Then why doesn’t Lara burn when she touches you?” The air turned to crystal. “You were with her,” said my other self. “You haven’t been with any- one else. If she loved you and you loved her, it should scorch Lara when she touches you. But it doesn’t. Don’t you think there’s some reason why?” I snarled, surged to my feet, seized the water glass next to the bed, and threw it at the other me. It shattered against the door to my room. Two seconds later, Bear slammed my door open, sending the bolt fly- ing across the room as if it hadn’t actually been attached to the door and the frame. She was wearing a long white nightshirt that struggled to con- tain her arms, and her brown hair was down and fell to her waist. She had a knife with a blade as wide as my forearm in her hand that looked as if it could readily chop telephone poles, and her eyes were wide. She stared at me and then around the room for a moment, her nos- trils flared. We were alone. I peered at her blearily. “You all right?” she asked me. I started to tell her I was fine. Instead, I said, “What time is it?” “Witching hour,” she said. “Three a.m.” I nodded slowly. Then my stomach rolled and I took a staggering step toward the bathroom. I fell. Bear stepped over the broken glass and caught me as if I were a child. “Hey, easy,” she said. “Come on. Come on, you should have drunk that water.” She helped me to the bathroom and got me there in time for me to hurl my guts out. I collapsed to the tile floor shaking when I was done, my throat burning. I felt weak. I felt sad. I felt lost. I felt hollow. I felt like tomorrow had stopped existing. There was only a constant now, a single ongoing, endless hour of pain. Of loss. “Dresden,” Bear said gently. “Hey.” I opened my eyes. She towered over me like some kind of vast sailing ship. Her hand was held out. Her broad face was gentle. “Come on, seidrmadr,” she said gently. “You can take my hand.” My arm felt unbearably heavy. But I did it. Bear hauled me up. I wasn’t able to give her any more help. There just wasn’t the will inside me. But she took me to the bed. She was careful with me. She took a cold rag to my face and neck. She made me sip some water that had the fizzy sensation of some kind of effervescent antacid. My head pounded abominably. She got me settled into bed about the same time I started shivering. She covered me and started singing. Her voice was astoundingly melodic, gentle, and precise. I didn’t know the language, and the rhythms were strange. It sounded old, old. A song from a world that had been all but forgotten. It sounded steady. Reassuring. Patient. As if she could continue it all night if she needed to. I thought I was going to cry but I was just too damned tired. And that was the first time since Murphy died that I slept until dawn. Excerpted from Twelve Months, copyright © 2025 by Jim Butcher. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Twelve Months</i> by Jim Butcher appeared first on Reactor.

News Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 Teaser Trailer Brings a New Titan Into the Mix Oh, and Kong will be around, too By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on January 13, 2026 Credit: Apple TV Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Apple TV The second season of Apple TV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is almost upon us, and the first teaser for the upcoming episodes reveals a new seafaring monster that makes a blue whale look like a cute, wee creature. We also see Kong being Kong, which makes sense given the season one finale and the official synopsis for season two of Monarch: Season two will pick up with the fate of Monarch—and the world—hanging in the balance. The dramatic saga reveals buried secrets that reunite our heroes (and villains) on Kong’s Skull Island, and a new, mysterious village where a mythical Titan rises from the sea. The ripple effects of the past make waves in the present day, blurring the bonds between family, friend, and foe—all with the threat of a Titan event on the horizon. Get ready for drama, both personal and global in scope! The glimpse of the new Titan, which the show is cleverly calling “Titan X,” is arguably the highlight of the trailer. This creature is BIG! And the show’s marketing material describes the monster as not just, well, another monster: “It’s a living cataclysm. When its massive bioluminescent form breaks the surface of the ocean, the world seems to hold its breath.” I appreciate the puns here, given Titan X appears to live in the depths of the ocean. The series once again stars Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell, with the real-life father/son duo playing the same character, Lee Shaw, at different points in time. It also stars Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Mari Yamamoto, Joe Tippett, and Anders Holm, with guest stars Takehiro Hira, Amber Midthunder, Curtiss Cook, Cliff Curtis, Dominique Tipper, and Camilo Jiménez Varón. Apple TV’s ten-episode second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will premiere on Friday, February 27, 2026, followed by one episode every Friday until May 1, 2026. Check out the first teaser trailer below. [end-mark] The post <i>Monarch: Legacy of Monsters</i> Season 2 Teaser Trailer Brings a New Titan Into the Mix appeared first on Reactor.

Books Backlist Bonanza Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Speculative Anthologies Start 2026 off with some new-to-you writers! By Alex Brown | Published on January 13, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share It’s a fresh year and in the spirit of trying new things, instead of giving you five books I’m giving you five anthologies with lots of entry points to choose from. This list collects a couple dozen authors writing in a variety of genres and narrative styles, exploring a diverse collection of stories and identities. Think of this as a literary sample platter. Start 2026 off by taste testing some new-to-you writers. Maybe you’ll find your next favorite author in these five underrated science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies. His Hideous Heart: Thirteen of Edgar Allan Poe’s Most Unsettling Tales Reimagined edited by Dahlia Adler (Flatiron Books; 2019) I love a good young adult take on classic literature, I love YA speculative anthologies, and I love Edgar Allan Poe’s oeuvre, so this book might as well have come with a giant neon sign flashing “THIS IS FOR YOU, ALEX.” These stories are less a retelling and more of a remix. What I mean is they don’t just adapt Poe for a contemporary teen audience but bring in diverse voices that honor the spirit of the original tales while also seeing how the perspectives shift as the characters do. One of my favorites of the bunch is Lamar Giles’ spin on “The Oval Filter.” The authors included were all fairly well-established when this was published, but for those not already widely read in YA horror, fantasy, or thrillers, this offers a great introduction to some of the best in the age category.   Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 edited by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi (Common Notions; 2022) The premise of this anthology is so clever and interesting. The stories are twelve fictional interviews with members of the also fictional New York Commune. We hear from people who grew up in a time before the commune and watched it fledge and people who were raised in it, people still sorting out their pre-commune ideologies and those who are more focused on building new identities. It’s a future that is dystopic, utopic, and everything in between. This is about people trying to make a world worth living. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but at least they’re trying. It tells the history of a possible future. Xenocultivars: Stories of Queer Growth edited by Isabela Oliveira and Jed Sabin (Speculatively Queer; 2022) If you’re still riding that Heated Rivalry high like I am, this is a great next step. It’s not a romance anthology, but it is all about queer joy and growth. It celebrates community and connection. “Queer” is more than a label or identity. It’s a political statement, a movement, a revolution. It is a way of being that rejects the “norm.” There are as many ways to be queer as there are people who identify as queer. This speculative collection has eighteen pieces that cover a wide range of identities and experiences, as well as genres and themes. When I first read this anthology, I picked Julian Stuart’s “The Aloe’s Bargain” as my favorite. I re-read it before writing this and yep, I stand by that choice. Years later and it still brings me to bittersweet tears. Many Worlds, or The Simulacra edited by Cadwell Turnbull and Josh Eure (RADIX Media; 2023) The fourteen stories in this anthology are set in the same multiverse and often feature interconnected stories. Written by authors who are well known if you read a lot of short speculative fiction (like I do), Many Worlds is a refreshing collection. With non-traditional narrative styles, exciting voices, and wholly unique stories, it’s one of those must-read books. Also worth noting that the book itself is collaborative. Not only did they share ideas with each other and get inspired by each other’s work, but they also shared profits and resources. RADIX is also a worker-owned, union print shop and publisher. It’s layers of community all the way down. Night of the Living Queers: 13 Tales of Terror Delight edited by Shelly Page and Alex Brown (Wednesday Books; 2023) I should preface this by saying I am not the Alex Brown who edited and wrote for this collection. That Alex is the author of two of my favorite YA horror comedies of the 2020s so far, Damned If You Do and Rest in Peaches. “Terror” is probably too strong a word for the thirteen stories collected herein, but overall they’re deliciously creepy and unnerving in a fun way. The stories feature queer characters of color dealing with one hell of a Halloween night. Definitely check out Maya Gittelman’s story “Leyla Mendoza and the Last House on the Lane.” We’ve been in a golden age of YA horror the last couple years, with a lot of the best of the genre coming from queer and/or BIPOC authors. Readers looking for an entry point could hardly go wrong with this one.[end-mark] The post Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Speculative Anthologies appeared first on Reactor.

Books Seeds of Story Egalitarian Operas, Stolen Melodies, and Whalesong: Tom Service’s A History of the World in 50 Pieces Exploring the ways in which music both reflects and changes history and culture. By Ruthanna Emrys | Published on January 13, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome to Seeds of Story, where I explore the non-fiction that inspires—or should inspire—speculative fiction. Every couple weeks, we’ll dive into a book, article, or other source of ideas that are sparking current stories, or that have untapped potential to do so. Each article will include an overview of the source(s), a review of its readability and plausibility, and highlights of the best two or three “seeds” found there. This week, I cover Tom Service’s A History of the World in 50 Pieces: The Classical Music That Shapes Us, which dives into the intersections between music and the rest of history, from Australian songlines to opera to that ‘70s whalesong album. What It’s About 50 Pieces is sponsored by the BBC, and for both better and worse you can tell. Each piece gets a short explanation of its creation, its initial performance and reception, what makes it unique, and how its influence and play have developed since. The book is very specifically about pieces—that is, guidance (e.g., notation) for performing music that has both continuity and variation across performances. Pieces can be passed down through generations, across communities, and occasionally across species. What is held constant and what changes varies. Songlines are collaboration with and documentation of travel through a changing landscape; Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece” is a set of directions; Julius Eastman’s “Stay on It” defines causal relationships between what each musician hears from the rest of the ensemble, and what they personally play next. Pieces are shaped by conformity with norms, as in the debates over whether polyphony is okay in Catholic sacred vocals, and by their violation, as in the post-World War II search for alternatives to fascism-tainted tradition. Service is particularly interested in the history of opera, but also makes a serious effort to expand both the definition of “classical” and membership in the canon. We start with Enheduanna, history’s first named author, and her hymns address both political goals (merging cults from recently-connected polities) and personal ones (legacy and recognition). Later we get Jewish cantillation, Hildegard von Bingen, a rare preserved song from a female troubadour, the patterns of change-ringing in church bells, a Haitian-French revolutionary and egalitarian opera, “Happy Birthday,” West Side Story, and of course Yoko Ono and those whales. Buy the Book A History of the World in 50 Pieces: The Classical Music That Shapes Us Tom Service Buy Book A History of the World in 50 Pieces: The Classical Music That Shapes Us Tom Service Buy this book from: AmazoniBooks A few of the pieces are notably connected to science and science fiction. Prince Mangkunegara’s “Kinds of Flowers” is recorded on Voyager’s Golden Record. It’s a cyclical piece typical of gamelan orchestras, and Service uses it to illustrate how different approaches to music represent different approaches to time. Breq in Ancillary Justice sings “L’homme armé,” an anonymous tune of military warning later incorporated into a mass by Josquin Desprez. Did Leckie’s protagonist know that it’s a song about war that later became used in an argument for spiritual peace? (I assume Leckie knew full well.) The recording and publicization of whalesong led to major whaling bans and helped push the growth of the environmental movement—nor was the timing of Star Trek IV a coincidence. 50 Pieces came up on one of my online communities, and I was excited enough about the contents to want to read it immediately. It benefits tremendously from reading it with your favorite music streaming service at hand, so you can sample the pieces and avoid the whole “dancing about architecture” problem. I’m very glad I read it, and feel inspired to include more influential musical pieces in my stories—and frustrated with its flaws. Service is a white Christian British guy, and admits from the start that his choices will be biased toward the Western and European, a bias that he actively and sometimes awkwardly works against. It’s also very opera-heavy, in a way that genre superfans will get a lot out of, but which I found frustrating relative to the larger range of classical forms that might have been included. More Jewish and Islamic music, paralleling and interacting with the development of Christian music! More musicals! Inevitably, if someone asks you to pick 50 pieces, many things will be left out, and you’re going to focus on what you know and love most. For some of Service’s deliberately atypical choices, I felt like he left off just when I was getting really interested, and I would’ve liked a few more pages unpacked from places where he devotes a scant paragraph to a piece’s social and political impacts. If this song fed into a social movement or the shape of a war, or was part of a big push to be as different from Wagner as possible, I want to learn more! I also could have used a bit less self-consciousness about his inclusion of female composers in particular (lots of “first woman to X”—sometimes where I’m pretty sure she was in fact the first X, period). At the same time, I enjoyed learning more about corners new to me: the role of troubadairitz, how Handel’s Messiah got people out of debtor’s prisons, the complicated political history of Shostakovich’s “Leningrad.” I also appreciated the use of Solomon Linda’s “Mbube” and Patty and Mildred Hill’s “Happy Birthday” to illustrate the deeply fraught relationship between composition, performance, and modern intellectual property regimes. Questioning list choices is the easy, beginner-level response to any “X best/most influential/whatever” list, but I do think that he should have included (1) Porgy and Bess, which marks a seminal connection between opera and musicals, and (2) Tallis’ Spem in Alium (the 40-Part Motet), which is an acme of both polyphonic music and the potential of live performance. If nothing else, the book introduced me to several excellent creators and pieces. John Luther Adams’ “Become Ocean” may become a highlight of my writing mixes whenever I’m working on something water-related. The Best Seeds for Speculative Stories The Whales. If there’s one illustration of how dramatically art can change the world, it’s Songs of the Humpback Whale, listed in the table of contents as “Released by Roger Payne, 1970; cetacean creators from c. one million years ago—present day.” I had it on cassette, purchased from the racks at Earth House and listened to incessantly. What I didn’t know in the ’80s, because I was just coming into real political awareness, was that prior to Frank Wadlington’s initial recordings off Bermuda, most of the world thought of whales as silent, and anti-whaling movements as a weird fringe. (It doesn’t come up here, but I know from elsewhere that several Arctic marine mammal-hunting cultures knew full well, and were generally ignored.) The ’80s and ’90s were full of stories mourning the likely extinction of whales—see above, re: Star Trek IV. Yet today there are around 135,000 humpbacks in the ocean, and other species have experienced similarly dramatic recoveries. Much of that change in attitude is due to the shock of unexpected whalesong. Sometimes we don’t listen, even to humans—but catch us at the right angle, and sometimes we do. What kinds of songs, and what kinds of listening, will cause this kind of dramatic transformation in the future? What assumptions about unavoidable loss may we yet prove wrong? What Can Music Be? Every culture has assumptions about what music is for, what sounds belong in it, what patterns make sense, what instruments you can expect players to have available. One of the fascinating things about modern avant-garde classical is the questioning of these assumptions. Some composers change what’s specified in a score, focusing more on cross-musician relationships or environmental constraints than specific timed notes. Others play with “extended musical techniques” and the full range of what the human voice can do. Some pieces are unexpectedly long or short, or continue from the foundation of previous performances like a Pandemic Legacy game. Knowing what humans are doing now, and have done over the last several thousand years, can help writers give aliens, non-human animals, and far-future cultures music that would stand out at your local symphony orchestra. New Growth: What Else to Read Sarah Pinsker’s A Song for a New Day celebrates the value and meaning of live music, and the things you can’t get through a recording. You should also listen to Pinsker’s actual music, and read “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather.” Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars is about competitive violin playing, selling your soul for musical legacy, and donuts. Neal Stephenson’s Anathem will not be everyone’s jam, but it includes math-based music from a scientific monastery and you can get the album. Tom Breihan’s The Number Ones column has been working though a song-by-song history of Billboard Number Ones, getting into the rock/pop industry and changes in how people encounter songs and changes in fashion, and really it is not entirely unlike 50 Pieces. Ted Gioia’s Music: A Subversive History is on my TBR list, and focuses on the marginalized origins of popular music. I’ve also heard good things about Charles King’s Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah. What music has shaped you? What would be on your list of influential pieces? Share in the comments![end-mark] The post Egalitarian Operas, Stolen Melodies, and Whalesong: Tom Service’s <i>A History of the World in 50 Pieces</i> appeared first on Reactor.