Let’s have a giveaway!

[swan_tower]

I’ve got all these copies of Cold-Forged Flame sitting around, and I’ve got a conundrum I’ve been stuck on for, uh, more than a year.

So, in the great tradition of the game Unexploded Cow, let’s use the one problem to solve the other!

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to suggest to me a title that would be suitable for a collection of my secondary-world fantasy short stories. I know I don’t want to call it “[Reasonably Well-Known Item from the Table of Contents] and Other Stories”; I know that every quotation I’ve unearthed and phrase I’ve come up with that implies secondary-world-ness sounds trite; I know that I’m perfectly willing to use a random evocative-sounding phrase, but I haven’t thought of one I like for this purpose. Therefore I put it to you, the Great Internets, to help me figure out what to call a collection that will probably be putting out in 2017.

You have one week: from now until this time next Tuesday (or Wednesday, if you’re on that side of the planet), suggest titles to me. You can suggest more than one. You can suggest them on any version of this post, on Twitter, or by email. I will take them all into account. If I choose your title, you get a signed copy of Cold-Forged Flame! If I don’t find a title that clicks, I will choose one recipient at random! If I choose a title from someone who already has a copy of Cold-Forged Flame, I’ll choose a recipient at random anyway!

Lay ’em on me! Because I am well and truly stuck. >_<

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[sovay]

Therefore I put it to you, the Great Internets, to help me figure out what to call a collection that will probably be putting out in 2017.

What are the stories prevailingly like?

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

No particular theme except "secondary world." It's one of a set of half-sized collections I'm gearing up to do (as I slowly accumulate enough short fiction of each type) -- secondary world, historical, folksong retellings, urban fantasy, etc.

[sovay]

No particular theme except "secondary world."

Just trying to think of a thematic tie to which a title would resonate.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

There really isn't one, other than "stuff I've written that isn't set in this world (and isn't a retelling of some piece of folklore)." I've figured out a sequence for the stories that means they flow well from one to the next, but that flow goes through stuff that's more realistic to stuff that's more high fantasy, from grim to the funniest story I've ever written, etc. Which is why I've basically thrown up my hands and said "the first evocative phrase that strikes my fancy can be the title."

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Waterfall of Worlds?

(Titling not my strength, sorry.)

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Are they all their own world, rather than sharing one? If the dragon world, I was thinking "Fantastic Fewmets". Which, maybe not appropriate, but eye-catching for people who know what fewmets are...

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

All their own world. I really do mean it when I say there's no connecting theme beyond "secondary world." :-P

[brooksmoses]

Oddly enough, in the "very generic names" category, "Worlds Not Our Own" doesn't appear to be taken yet.

In the category of things that I have to suggest to get them out of my head: "Nonce-Wanderings".

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Elsewhere.

Story-Botherer.

Itches and Pains.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

WORLDS APART.

WORLDPLAY.

OTHERWORLDS.

DISTANT REALMS.

[between4walls.livejournal.com]

"Two Worlds, One Dead"

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Altogether Elsewhere

(From Auden's "The Fall of Rome" (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/fall-rome).)

[xahra99.livejournal.com]

^ Like this one. But I'm going to suggest 'From Sky To Sky' (taken from a Housman poem)

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

So You Don't Have To.
Driftwood and Elsewheres.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

IN TIMES NOT THESE

FANTASTIC! SECONDARY! WORLD! STORIES!