One for the diehard Fabled Lands players this week, as I came across the original titles that Jamie and I were considering for the later books in the series. We must have drawn up this list right after writing FL books 1 and 2. The books up for discussion, clockwise from top left, later became known as Over the Blood-Dark Sea (book 3), The Serpent King's Domain (book 7), The Plains of Howling Darkness (book 4) and The Legions of the Labyrinth (book 10, still unpublished).
I've already recounted our struggles to get the publisher to accept Devils & Howling Darkness as the title of book 4, but WH Smith's were worried that any mention of devils might scandalize fundamentalist religious groups. Jamie and I didn't think they'd buy the FL books anyway, but we argued the point in vain.
The notes refer to our editor, Ian Marsh, who also helmed the Virtual Reality gamebook series. I believe he also digitally typeset the books, though I don't suppose the publishers paid him anything extra for doing that.
My biggest regret here (other than the book 4 title) was not being able to use The Blood-Dimmed Tide for book 3. Jamie and I are both fans of Yeats, as you will have noticed if you read The Chronicles of the Magi novellas -- but there I had to pay out of my own pocket to use the poem, because Yeats's work didn't enter public domain till 2009, and we'd have hit the same problem with FL book 3. So we borrowed a line from Homer instead (oînops póntos) and took liberties with it: haîmops póntos, I suppose it would be, "the blood-eyed sea". Given that the book takes place on the Violet Ocean, maybe wine-coloured would have been a better fit.
Fantastic stuff. I've always been a fan of the title of the as-yet-unwritten "The Lone and Level Sands", a nice bit of Shelley there.
ReplyDeleteHomer is so appropriate for ocean adventures, unless you're going to go full pirate like in "Down Among The Dead Men".
There's a Julian Duguid book called "Green Hell" which is a great title. The Bolivian forests seem to be rather like English woodlands, except they go on forever and you can easily get lost, there's no water and the insects won't let you sleep. Also some of the locals are unfriendly.
"Ozymandias" has been a favourite of mine since I was introduced to it in The Avengers, courtesy of writer Roy Thomas. I was lucky to encounter the poem first there and not in an English lesson at school.
DeleteI see that a 2019 videogame has "borrowed" Duguid's title. Even before that, Mark "Min" Smith came up with Green Blood for his Virtual Reality eco-fantasy gamebook -- the best title in that series, I think.
I feel like I was right there in the brainstorm session. Good titles begin their own stories... The six Steam Highwayman ones sort of fell out of my head, there and then. The 's' on Princes of the West has been the single hardest thing to write in the entire series...
ReplyDeleteThe SH series has some absolutely cracking titles, Martin. If I had to pick a favourite it would be Highways and Holloways -- but then, I don't yet know what 5 and 6 will be called.
DeleteVery kind, Dave. V looks like Dark Vales and Dark Hearts (Wales) and VI will be The Great North Road. And a conclusion! I'm beginning to feel that hankering for the next project before I have finished this one...
DeleteAnd would that be Saga? (Please say yes.)
DeleteMaybe something shorter than another multi-volume open-world gamebook series? Or maybe I won't be able to stop myself.
DeleteThe Saga previews you've shared on your blog were a real treat. I do understand if you'd like to tackle something smaller as a palate cleanser after SH, though.
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