I’m in the process of sorting through my home library, to prepare a crate (or four) of books for donation. There are a mix of feelings that come along with this, and the list of books I kept out of the pile is an interesting one.
That’s not the topic for today.
Today’s topic is how fantasy novels are named.
I grew up reading an inordinate* amount of science fiction and fantasy. Knights, wizards, dragons, space operettas. You know the drill. I had a list of favorite authors, prone to change over time**, and if I could sink my teeth into a particularly epic storyline***, so much the better.
It’s mumble-something years later, and I can see the forest for the trees. Some of the novels (even the ones I’m sending back out into the world) I hold near and dear to my heart.**** Others, I can’t recall reading. Regardless of their position on the spectrum, though, they all have universally poor titles.
Speaking as an avocational writer who devises particularly poor titles for his work, I’m in a position to know these things.
Still, as I stare at the crates in my office, I’m a bit taken aback by the fearful symmetry.
Somewhere in New York, I’m convinced that there are five interns with a stack of Boris Vallejo cover art and a bottle of tequila, playing Mad Libs:
… and I’m glad that I’m not one of these people, because I know I’d start upping the ante by suggesting more and more ridiculous names:
Now, I know that room on the cover of a novel is finite, and one has to make allowances for certain other things (e.g., author, byline, publisher, cover art) (and obligatory “The Seventh Book In the Wizard Crown Demon Fractal Smorgassaga”). My fervent hope, though, is that there will arise a fantasy author so myghtie that he/she/it can convince a publisher that the title should start at the top left corner of the cover and wrap its way around the entire book, a coiled serpent of authorial intent and marketing Magick.
Given the heft of some of the more constipated fantasy epics, the end result might be longer than Spenser’s The Faerie Queen.***** Or, at the very least, they may give Fiona Apple a run for her money …
*Actually, it was “an inordinate amount of reading,” full stop. I was omnivorous.
**Confession: I was a huge Piers Anthony fan when I was six. Things have changed a bit since then. Although I hold a place in my heart for A Spell For Chameleon.
***Confession: I only made it eight books into The Wheel of Time. In fairness, though, I did take twenty years to finish Tolkien’s The Two Towers.
****I’m curious to see how many times I change my mind. Of the books on the block for donation, I’m only planning to keep ten. Of course, I’m pretty sure I could still recite Eddings’s The Malloreon from memory.
*****You’ll note that this pattern for the titles of mythical tales isn’t anything new. See also: Shakespeare. See also: Thomas Mallory. See even: Alfred, Lord Tennyson — from “The Lady of Shalott” to The Idylls of the King
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