I would send the very rough drafts to Neil for his input, and he was like a conductor taking it to a higher level, suggesting changes and additions that tied strands together and pumped up the story. Then the story was real, and I was able to get to work, writing chapter after chapter as I listened to song after song. But the album is more than just words set to music it wasn't until I finally heard the rough cuts of the tracks, with Neil's drums, Geddy Lee's vocals and bass, Alex Lifeson's guitars, that it all changed from black-and-white Kansas to Technicolor Oz. Later, as Rush continued on tour and I worked on other deadlines, and Neil kept writing the lyrics for other pieces of the story, we let the story lie fallow for a while, but when he had all the songs written, then I could start working.

We brainstormed the structure of the story, the characters, the sequence of events, while we spent a day together climbing a 14,000-foot peak in Colorado (because what could be a better place for brainstorming?) the ideas kept flowing even as the oxygen level decreased.

When Neil began to conceive the steampunk fantasy story that eventually became Clockwork Angels, he used me as a sounding board for some of his ideas, since he had read some of my earlier fantasy novels that had steampunk elements, Eventually, as the story of the album - as told in snapshots of the music tracks - grew, Neil asked me to work on the novel. We've known each other for more than twenty years, interacted in our separate creative fields - his music, my fiction - and we even wrote a short story together. Because of that novel (and a nod to the inspiration of Rush in the acknowledgments), I got to know Neil Peart, who writes the lyrics for Rush. As I was developing the framework of the novel, listening to that album, it seemed as if the songs drove my plotting.

(1988, and just reissued) was almost entirely inspired by the Rush album Grace Under Pressure. Listening to the music, along with innovative or thought-provoking lyrics, was like a catalyst for my imagination, triggering scenes or whole plots. I've always been inspired by music as I envision and write my stories, and the music of Rush has been a particularly strong influence.

Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson