Opera Rocks

This is around the 20th time this week I’ve seen people talking in such detail about this incredible audiobook and make such glowing comments on the sound design. If you would like to discuss how I could help you produce your audio contact me via DM.

Orbital Space: Box of Trouble is coming! And It deserves a brand new mixing and mastering studio in which to work! Couldn’t help but go all American in lighting today to celebrate one of the very best sci fi writers today: @Devon_Eriksen_ on the home stretch. Box of Trouble is gonna SING! Go Team 🔥 Theft of Fire 🔥 Free sample of first audiobook at DevonEriksen.com

@ericernerstedt @coookwithchris Lord I hope so cuz while I love my chihuahua I ain’t workin that hard to feed it and dine with it under candlelight.

@Opera_Rocks @coookwithchris I’d guess she has a spouse, probably also kids.

“15 minute meal prep!”

@Executnr He would disagree. “Fun and fulfilling” is most def NOT what fitness is about. It’s about being able to kill effectively. Any watering down of that is just…rainbow oriented. But then again, I guess that’s why you mentioned “butter.”

Many people use him for inspiration, but I think he been going through a crisis for the last 10 years. His fitness philosophy doesn't broadcast fulfilment or happiness, sounds angry an butter. Fitness is supposed to be fun an fulfilling.

@CDoombeard @stillgoji Funny. But I worry about how he’d be at a party. He’s…that guy.

@stillgoji Hey @Opera_Rocks what do you think?

when I realized 🫨

@Devon_Eriksen_ @mattwriteguy @ikmultimedia Indeeeeeeeed, Maestro! It is going to kick ass! But more importantly, the turnaround is going to be a waaaaaaaay quicker. I predict you'll only call me 2 times to tell me I made a huge editing blunder, not 3,228. And won't THAT be somethin'....

@Opera_Rocks @mattwriteguy @ikmultimedia The BoT audiobook is going to have really good sound quality, isn't it?

Getting easier to get my thousand a day again.

Thx much Matt. Ceiling cloud are 2 3x6 panels airgapped at 6” & 6” deep. Side walls 6” deep with 2” air gap. Pulling that off on a vaulted ceiling nearly broke my noodle. Unseen back wall also treated. Currently using @ikmultimedia iLoud pair. 2nd to none for soundstage in their budget class, plus very portable for location work (sorry/notsorry, sound like I’m an advert!) I was absolutely gobsmacked after having spent a ton of time getting room and ceiling under control with panels what their ArcX room correction software was able to do. It just blew my mind, considering I’m fighting 75hz in this space. Also a cheap pair of presonus 800, soon to be upgraded to the Neumann KH series. Also using @realsteveslate vsx room modeling headphones, which thankfully now are not doing ALL the heavy lifting for mixing. They are capable, regardless. Best purchase of 2025.

@Opera_Rocks @Devon_Eriksen_ Nice setup. What monitors (audio) are you running?

@Devon_Eriksen_ @ID_AA_Carmack You, my friend, have my undying respect for writing this. This is what integrity looks like and I’m very proud to know you. Face the demons while u can. That, and play like a mofo! I think it was @CDoombeard who famously said: “HOLD FAST!”

Anger, like every human emotion, has an evolutionary purpose. It allows you to spot injustice and fight back. I think we have allowed our civilization, and the future of humanity itself, to be threatened by our own unwillingness to accept a little collateral meanness to the occasional person who doesn't deserve it, alongside those who do. But I agree with your major point. It's not good to be all angry all the time. It doesn't help us. We can't all be Alex Jones pounding the table, screaming that toxic waste is turning the freakin' frogs gay, even if that's exactly what was happening and we all owe Alex Jones a massive apology. Because happy, creative, joyful people are all unique, and angry people are all the same. If I'm angry all the time, depressed all the time, in pain all the time, I can't create... and that's where I was, and in some ways, still am. But I cannot allow my fear for the future of my people and my planet to get in the way of creating visions of hope. I'm trying. Thank you for your patience.

"Where's the sequel?" Any time this question gets asked nowdays, we are conversing by the flickering light of George Martin's spectacular self-immolation.   George Martin is an asshole. We can't just brush off the question like he does. Authors might not owe you another book, as Neil Gaiman pointed out while he wasn't busy being a sex pest, but... so what? I don't conduct relationships with my fans via double entry bookkeeping, in the same way that if I have a headache, Sara doesn't check the balance sheet before giving me a scalp massage. Readers pay my bills, they want a sequel, I want to deliver one, or least a transparent explanation of why it's taking a while. It's the obfuscations, false promises, and outright lies that make fans so angry. So here's what happened. I never expected Theft of Fire to hit as hard as it did. Debut novels don't do this, and if you think they do, that's not the first novel, just the first one that you heard of. I also never expected to take off on Twitter like I did. So, there were a lot of demands for attention. Appearing on podcasts, at conventions, that sort of thing. And that was, indeed, slowing down the writing. Handling a public presence was new to me. But had it been that alone, you'd have Box Of Trouble in your hands right now. It would have been later than a year, but not this late. But then I had to drive Sara to the ER at 5am in the morning, with the worst headache of her life, probably a fair description of what it feels like when you have a 5cm  stage 4 cancer bleeding into your brain. The next day, I read her the comments from people hoping and praying for her, as they wheeled her for brain surgery. That was the beginning of a very long year, full of more surgeries, radiation therapy, immunological infusions that made her sicker than the cancer itself, two hour drives to the treatment center, sometimes every other day. I tried to write. I tried. Not just because I was later than I wanted to be. Not because you asked me where the sequel was. Because I needed something I could do. Something I had control over. Something that felt like progress, instead of sitting around waiting to see if I was going to lose... Well, you know what it's like to love someone. We give hostages to fate when we love. Trying to work was a mistake. Brains work by association. For the meager payoff of what little progress I could make, I cross-linked my writing process with hospital waiting rooms, infusion centers, and that soft, empty feeling of waiting for death in blank rooms with old magazines and inoffensive white walls. When we were luckier than most, when our battle with cancer ended in triumph, I didn't feel triumphant. I didn't even feel relieved. I didn't feel anything. Something quiet and vital and nameless had switched off inside me, and because of that, I could keep marching forward. But the color had drained out of the world. I could rest now. Sleep. Sort of. A little bit. But I couldn't write. Whatever part of me had juggled ideas, tossing them up in the air with a laugh to see what came down, or whether they turned into birds and flew off and didn't down at all, well... that part wasn't laughing. It was curled up in the corner, tucked in a little ball with its arms around its knees, tunelessly humming a song I didn't like the lyrics of. I tried. So many authors, successful authors, far more experienced than I, talk about discipline and forming good habits and not waiting for inspiration. So I tried. I was late already, and it was eating at me. People were understanding, but I understand all too well that even a good excuse is not a result. I was... different. Angry. Snapping at people. Using my writing gifts to snarl at people over politics instead of play with fun ideas, saying things that were just expressions of frustration rather than insight. I lost some friends. I don't think I'll get all of them back. There are treatments for cancer. There aren't any treatments for the people in the splash zone. At the end of last November, the two-year mark since I published Theft of Fire, I realized I wasn't going to finish. Not like this. I had 85% of a complete manuscript, but you can't crawl across the finish line if you can't crawl. I had to stop and fix... everything. I sat down, stared at a wall, and thought about what I needed to do. Since I wasn't stupid enough to involve anyone who calls herself a "therapist", there were no lectures about intersectional feminism and toxic masculinity. Then I played video games for a month. And not much else. That doesn't sound like a great vacation. It sounds like laziness. But that's what it needed to be. I needed to not be responsible. If it were my job to build walls or dig ditches or fight wars or design aircraft parts or write software, I could have knuckled up and just done it. But telling stories isn't something that you can just work at. You have to play at it, too. And to do that, you have to remember what it feels like to play. So I had to ignore the advice that I'm sure was great for other people who aren't me, and I had to be lazy and play video games for a month, and then go scuba diving in the Florida keys, and then get sick and attend a convention as guest of honor while so drugged up that I barely remember anything I said. I had to realize that I was injured. And I had to put myself on the injured list. What do you do with a lifting injury? How do you rehab a damaged muscle? Well, you rest it until you can move it through the full range of motion, weakly. And then you lift weights again, but light ones. Only as much as you can handle without pain. So I sat down each day and wrote, just a little. A sentence or two, sometimes, if I couldn't get more. Never pushing myself, quitting when there wasn't any more in the tank, not nagging myself over deadlines long vanished in my rearview mirror. It started out as just 100 or 200 words, here and there. Then it started to feel okay again. Well, okayish. It wasn't enough. It wasn't the pace of a man trying to finish a race, or deliver on a delayed promise. But it was all I had to give. But yesterday, I wrote 1000 words. Today, 1100. And I didn't hate them. I'm still not 100%. I'm... diminished. Mentally and emotionally. Angry a lot of the time. Sometimes ashamed of myself over all this. A lot of things that used to bring me joy now bring... nothing. But I know what I have to do for myself so I can do this at all. And it's working enough to let me move forward. I have 132,000 words now. They're good. I don't hate them. They're better than Theft of Fire. I don't know where the finish line is, but I know it's somewhere out there. It feels closer now. I can't promise a date. I'm sorry. Things are still bad, even if they're better now, and I have to just do what I can, and not hate myself for it. There's a printed page taped to my wall. Above the monitors. Something I said to someone else once. Sometimes you have to be the person you wish you had. Cast your eyes down. You cannot see Samarkand from here, but the road is before you. Look to the road, see the footprints in the dust. Others have walked  this way. Take one step, and then another, and then a third. Rest in the  cool of the evening, and walk when the sun rises, when the muezzin  calls the faithful at dawn. Take one step, and then another, and then a  third. Others have walked this way. Look to the road, see the footprints  in the dust. The road is before you, though you cannot see Samarkand from here. Cast your eyes down. And walk.

@CDoombeard That’s a nice phrase. Mental hygiene. Stealing it. I hope this doesn’t make you feel unsafe. [/snark]

Ok, bullshit. Except for people who are just pathologically unable, everyone introspects to some degree. Everyone checks themselves, thinks about their own reactions, manages their emotions. That's not aDvAnCeD iNtElLiGeNcE, that's just basic mental hygeine.

To feel useful and important at scale. To silence the voices that whisper nihilism in the dark recesses of an unquiet mind. To feel something, anything, will finally convince oneself they have a voice, they matter. Because to NOT be here means one has to invest in the real problems in one’s life and finally admit they are ultimately powerless… without God’s help.

Cherokee proud. We are blessed to have him serving.

@AnEriksenWife @Slatzism That was NICE! Ask me what I REALLY think!!

@Opera_Rocks @Slatzism HARSH

there’s a classically trained opera baritone currently working at a Chrysler dealership in Cocoa, Florida and he makes advertisements for the cars in the style of different arias and I just had to share that with everybody because he’s my favorite person in the world rn

How may I say this with kindness: Bruh over darkens. No squillo (a pronounced “ping” evidenced by enhanced harmonics from 2-4k). Over-manufactured singing means obstruction which leads to not being able to be heard in a large acoustical space and…. Selling cars and no performances. Fun car tho.

@Slatzism @Opera_Rocks new best friend??

@wesley_jenks @Devon_Eriksen_ I keep sayin’ it!! :-) Tho I’m partial to the audiobook fwiw. You can get a free sample at devoneriksen.com

@Devon_Eriksen_ I really need to buy your book. Making a note.

Every other race thinks I am evil for having ethnic solidarity. Every other race thinks I am evil for noticing their ethnic solidarity.

When St. Ephrem the Syrian was nearing death in 373 AD, he wrote what is known as his Testament. He did not ask for honor. He did not ask for monuments. He did not ask to be remembered as a theologian. He asked for humility. The man who shaped Syriac hymnography, defended the faith against heresies, and became one of the greatest Christian poets in history saw himself not as a master but as a sinner in need of mercy. He warned the faithful not to turn his grave into a shrine of pride. He reminded them that repentance is greater than reputation. He emphasized charity to the poor over ceremonial display. This is the spirit of the Syriac Fathers. Not power. Not empire. Not fame. But humility, tears, and truth. St. Ephrem died in Edessa serving plague victims. He wrote theology with fire and left this world in humility. That is holiness. #StEphrem #SyriacOrthodox #OrientalOrthodox #Suryoye #Aramaic #ChristianHeritage

Your wish is my command, Marcus! @Devon_Eriksen_ reading is fricking epic. Nearly as good as your own. SPOILERS FOR THEFT OF FIRE: ORBITAL SPACE #1 GET IT AT DEVONERIKSEN.COM x.com/Devon_Eriksen_…

Proudly, he and I recorded those sections together. Hope I’m not being untoward, but many of us are self conscious about our own voices. What I heard in previous versions was this quality of authority and gravitas that was unmistakable and ALMOST worked. I just wanted HIM to enjoy the result as well. We redid ‘em. I trust i got him there. He convinced himself there is a unique quality in delivery and lilt to his interpretation of his own words that REALLY resonates. His part of Chapter 33 is absolutely some of the most evocative VO I’ve ever heard. I’m dyin’ on that hill.

@Devon_Eriksen_ @RobHendersonPH @MrWasnt @CDoombeard @tiny0nion @toss_across @Opera_Rocks But you DID voice the intro, and the first part of Chapter 33, which were excellent.

Those of us who lived next to them always knew. I once heard a left-leaning comedian say that nations have a character like individuals, and that America was like a testosterone-driven thirteen year old boy, and Canada like a smart, educated forty year old woman. I think this comparison was more apt than he knew. Because it precisely describes both the surface appearance AND the way that appearance falls apart when you look more closely, and discover that the thirteen year old boy rebuilds classic hot rod engines in his dad's garage, and just took the GED because high school is boring, and that the forty year old woman is, in fact, educated in some form of grievance studies, and is an insufferable self-righteous Karen, complete with that haircut. Naturally, these generalizations only stretch so far, but they kinda work, and one of the reasons for that is that Canada has a serious problem with its political philosophy and basic sense of identity. Canada has been defining itself as "We Are Not America". And gradually, any other aspects of Canadian-ness have been trimmed away, in the service of being Not American. Because Americans are exclusive, and insist on our own culture, therefore Canadians must be culture-neutral, and welcoming, and insist on nothing save being Not American. A fact which they remind Americans of without cease, whenever they can get our attention. It seems to be their favorite topic, or at least their favorite topic to talk to us about. But you can't base your group identity on a negation. Negations give you nothing to bind you together. It's why atheists don't have church communities. "Canadian" is ceasing to be a thing, or at least a thing that matters, even to Canadians, because Not American simply isn't enough. Nations need something to stand for. What does it mean to be Canadian, now? I'm sure that I will hear some answers, and not all of them will be trivial things like Tim Horton's, poutine, or ice hockey. And I'm sure these answers will be very good at distinguishing them from America (because they are Not America), but... will those answers distinguish them from Belgium? From Australia? From Iceland? What defines a Canadian? This question is especially relevant now, when Canada's political class seems determined to welcome infinite numbers of people who share no values whatsoever with the natives. Is there something? Can someone help me out here? Because if your only mission in life is not to be your obnoxious neighbor Steve, with his giant pickup truck and his noisy house parties, then how could you possibly avoid becoming just a bit more sanctimonious every day?