By Robert Herold, author
As any good filmmaker knows, a soundtrack is a key element in creating mood. Employing this technique by listening to music while reading my horror novel will enrich the experience, providing a soundtrack to the movie in your mind. For most folks, I recommend actual soundtracks and classical music, as pop, jazz, and other genres are often too intrusive. But if you’re cut from that bolt of shroud cloth, I will list a number of pop, jazz, rock and blues tunes at the end. Are you ready? Dim the other lights in the house and cue the conductor!
1) Evard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. This is a short but famous piece that would work especially well at the start of the novel.
2) The Remastered 1979 Alien original soundtrack. This unnerving score was written by Gerry Goldsmith and is masterful. The original Alien film is incredibly intense and Goldsmith’s score helped to make it so. In fact, it may be too much for some. If you’re up for it, you could even loop it as you read the entire book! (I’ve yet to try this.
3) Dracula Soundtrack 1979. For those preferring something more lush, John Williams’s fantastic soundtrack to Frank Langella’s take on Dracula will go right to the heart of the matter (like a stake)! Largely forgotten, and undeservedly so, this is an excellent film with a wonderful soundtrack. John Williams has done many more soundtracks than for Star Wars, Jurassic Park, & Indiana Jones movies. Dracula ranks among his best.
4) Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Holst’s orchestral suite is cinematic and has been used by many films, especially the first part, Mars. It is dark, brooding, and ominous—perfect for my book!
5) Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain. This is a famous short work that Disney used in Fantasia (1939). I strongly recommend you see this segment, if you haven’t yet (it’s my favorite part of the film); however, you can’t watch it while reading, so I’m including the link to another version. The piece is less than ten minutes and is both scary and powerful. I suggest you put a bookmark in the text for page 268 and listen to it for the last ten pages.
6) Camille Saint-Saëns – “Danse Macabre.” Another short Classical piece with some spooky moments.
7) Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. This is it, the granddaddy of all horror music themes! You’ve heard it before, but admit it, the beginning can’t be beat.
Pop, Jazz, Rock & Blues Tunes
17) “Haunted Heart” by Jo Stafford. IMPORTANT: Listen to this immediately after reading the book!
The
Eidola Project
An
Eidola Project Novel
Book
One
Robert
Herold
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Wild Rose Press (Black Rose Imprint)
Date of Publication: November 18,
2019
ISBN: 978-1-5092-2406-7 Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-5092-2407-4 Digital
Number of pages: 290
Word Count: 69870
Cover Artist: Debbie Taylor
Tagline: The Eidola Project is recruiting. Dare to
join them?
Book Description:
It's 1885 and a drunk and
rage-filled Nigel Pickford breaks up a phony medium's séance. A strange twist
of fate soon finds him part of a team investigating the afterlife.
The Eidola Project is an intrepid
group of explorers dedicated to bringing the light of science to that which has
been feared, misunderstood, and often manipulated by charlatans. They are a
psychology professor, his assistant, an African-American physicist, a sideshow
medium, and now a derelict, each possessing unique strengths and weaknesses.
Called to the brooding Hutchinson
Estate to investigate rumored hauntings, they encounter deadly supernatural
forces and a young woman driven to the brink of madness.
Will any of them survive?
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/SZovJ-MZQ5Y
Excerpt:
Sarah
retrieved the lamp and twisted the peg. The outhouse door swung open on its
own, and she gasped.
“Momma?”
Sarah asked as she held out her lantern. No. A ruined version of Molly stood in
the doorway.
Before
her disappearance, people often commented on the sixteen-year-old’s beauty, but
in the last twenty-eight days birds pecked out her pretty blue eyes, and
maggots now swam in the sockets. Molly’s head hung to the left at an odd angle.
Her skin looked mottled with patches of gray, blue, and black. A beetle crawled
out of Molly’s half-opened mouth and darted back in.
Sarah’s
heart leaped to her throat, and she jumped back. She lost her footing, fell
onto the outhouse seat, and dropped the lantern to the floor. She bent to
retrieve it; thankful the glass globe did not break. Sarah looked up and saw an
empty doorway.
Impossible,
she told herself. Must’ve dozed off, had a nightmare, and woke up when I
dropped the lamp. Her heart still pounded in her chest, and Sarah took a deep
breath to calm herself.
Holding
the lamp before her once more, she crept out…
About
the Author:
The supernatural always had the
allure of forbidden fruit, ever since Robert Herold’s mother refused to allow
him, as a boy, to watch creature features on late night TV. She caved in.
(Well, not literally.)
As a child, fresh snow provided
him the opportunity to walk out onto neighbors’ lawns halfway and then make paw
prints with his fingers as far as he could stretch. He would retrace the paw
and boot prints, then fetch the neighbor kids and point out that someone turned
into a werewolf on their front lawn. (They were skeptical.)
He has pursued many interests
over the years (among them being a history teacher and a musician), but the
supernatural always called to him. You could say he was haunted. Finally,
following the siren’s call, he wrote The Eidola Project, based on a germ of an
idea he had as a teenager.
Ultimately, he hopes the book
gives you the creeps, and he means that in the best way possible.
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1 comment:
Love it. Every story I write has a soundtrack in my mind. It's so interesting to hear someone else has the same. Best of luck with your book.
D. V. 🦉
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