Renaming the books

Despite having a lot of time on my hands these past few weeks, alas my mental energy has not been quite so present. Therefore, today’s essay is lighter and sillier than many others (I say, having recently given a bunch of characters wedding dresses), as I haven’t been able to get through the much more in depth in progress essays.

Welcome to “Hannah renames the Craft Sequence books for no good reason.”

I was initially drawn to the series because of the title “Three Parts Dead.” The 99p discount price also helped, but it was the name that grabbed me. Similarly, I think “Ruin of Angels” is one of the all time great titles. However, many of the others strike me as either too generic (Dead Country) or desperately trying to fit the idea of chronologically numbered books (Four Roads Cross). I am also irrationally annoyed by Dead Country and Wicked Problems having two words while the rest have three.

Hence, renaming.

I have decided that the original six books will have three word titles, and Craft Wars will have four word titles for Reasons.

Every single thing in this essay is extremely subjective, other than the fact that Ruin of Angels is a perfect title. Also I may end up keeping a couple of the original names in my conclusion. As I type this, I am yet to decide. Have fun! I did.

Three Parts Dead

Okay, this is one of the titles I am very tempted to keep, which is not a great way to start this essay. It’s extremely evocative, it relates strongly both to the story (Kos, Seril, and arguably Abelard, are all mostly but not entirely dead) without being extremely specific or spoilery. The number three feels natural rather than forced.

That being said, I do want to find options for all the books.

Keeping with the idea of death, perhaps something like Death of Gods. I do enjoy when a title comes from the prose itself, and one of my favourite lines is when Cardinal Gustave turns to Tara and dramatically says “What do you know, Ms Abernathy, about the death of gods?”

However, it also feels a bit less specific than Three Parts Dead. Loads of books out there could be called Death of Gods. Loads probably are.

Death by Contract? Very relevant to Kos. Revivification of Gods? An almost quote, but I think Revivification would put people off who can’t say or spell it. Gods Die Hard(er)? Another nice quote about how gods are like, and unlike, humans (Gods, like men, can die. They just die harder, and smite the earth with their passing), but maybe too Die Hard.

Thinking of some random relevant words - we have a fire god and moon goddess. Moonfire [Something]. Eh. Sounds romantasy. Let’s move away form that.

“Thrice Damned” comes to mind, perhaps Thrice Damned Gods? But that feels too damning of gods, and therefore Denovo’s POV, rather than being relevant to more of our characters and the plot as a whole.

Okay, I am going back to Gods Die Harder, or keeping Three Parts Dead.

Two Serpents Rise

This is one of the first ones I played around with, because I think the title gives away the ending in a way none of the other books do. And I didn’t have to go far for a replacement, very quickly pinpointing “Water in the desert, a glorious gift” as the ideal quote. We are going with three words, so A Glorious Gift is the clear answer.

This works with a bunch of ideas in the story. Water access is a huge part of the plot and background to the story, giving us many of our set pieces (Seven Leaf Lake, anything with the tzimet, Qet Sea-Lord’s fate). It’s also an old religious term now used by non-religious modern people, showing that connection and disconnect between two ways of living. Yay themes.

So, we have A Glorious Gift.

Full Fathom Five

This is a cool sounding name, especially if you know the Shakespeare reference in The Tempest, BUT I feel it is a bit too “oh dear we need a numbered title.” This is the only book, to my knowledge, which publicly had an alternate title at some point - Five Eyes Break. Eh. Fine. Far too number-focused.

Happily, much like in Two Serpents Rise, we have a very good title in the text already. A key phrase that shows up time and time again, connecting our characters across the book and the series, and which directly refers to the Main Secret of the Plot, the Blue Lady’s existence.

Howl, Bound World. And it’s already three words long. DONE.

Last First Snow

A trickier one for me now. Like Three Parts Dead, this is a title I am very drawn to. Going ordinal rather than cardinal, I think the number thing is more subtle. It also comes from a line in the text, with snow falling on Dresediel Lex for the first and last time.

What else could we do? At first I tried with something visual related to gripfire - Fire Rain Down, When Fire Fell. But this, like Two Serpents Rise itself, is a bit of a spoiler and ‘fire’ is so generic in fantasy titles that it becomes almost filler.

So, some quotes. A few I came across that really worked for me:

Ten Thousand Sunrises - when Elayne is building a Craft image of the Skittersill from memories, Temoc gives her his and she estimates it amounts to ten thousand sunrises. Specific yet not spoilery, has an idea of weight and history and time that are very present in the story.

Sleep Into Nightmare - in said building of a city from memories, Elayne and her memory-givers “fell from sleep into nightmare,” a brilliant visual that both shows a kind of magic that is used at an essential point, AND demonstrates the fall of many of our major characters. The war has been sleeping, and falls into nightmare, as have some of its combatants (specifically Temoc and Kopil). Caleb is asleep when he is scarred by Temoc, a nightmare for Mina. And so on and so forth.

No Single God - still at the memory city scene, Elayne says there “was no single Skittersill, as there was no single sun, no single moon, no single god.” Something satisfying about the turn of phrase, no?

War Never End - Elayne mentions that Kopil’s war has never ended, but hers has - again, this is the particular tragedy of LFS, that the peace accords at the end of the God Wars didn’t really end them, just pause.

I remain torn. Perhaps I will keep Last First Snow as I don’t have an obvious favourite of the rest. I think it’s between Sleep Into Nightmare and Ten Thousand Sunrises. I will decide at the end.

Four Roads Cross

I really wanted to rename Four Roads Cross when I started, but then found it much harder than the others to find something fitting. There definitely wasn’t anything as clear as A Glorious Gift or Howl, Bound World.

Like Last First Snow, I delved into some quotes and ended up with a shortlist of four.

Whole World’s Chains - chains are extremely relevant to magic in the series and all sorts of themes; in this context, it refers to how Gerhardt theorised the world and the Craft. I was very tempted here but I decided to use chains later on so it has to be scrapped.

Strange Small Structures - Tara ponders reading minds and thinks of consciousness as “a strange small structure, fragile as a rabbit’s spine, and it broke if gripped too tightly.” Mind control, literal or otherwise, comes back again and again through the series, and there are many structures in the Domain that are surprisingly fragile. One could argue that Ramp views the city and its gods as a small structure she can break; the people build their own strange small structure as they develop a new liturgy of Seril. I could go on.

Weakness of Gods - I don’t think this is a direct quote, but it might be. This essay comes from scattered handwritten notes. This appeals to me because many Craftsfolk view gods as inherently weak; Kos and Seril are arguably weakened by their love for each other; Seril’s creatures are used to weaken her in the final court battle. There’s something poetic about this.

Long Shot Solution - one of my all time favourite descriptions of Tara comes from this book, where Ramp says “this is not a woman who knows her limits” and says she will go for the long shot solution - and this is a world of long shot solutions. Very true on both counts.

Ultimately, I feel like Strange Small Structures is the least cliche sounding one, and can represent so many concepts in this book and the series, so that is my final decision.

Ruin of Angels

Ruin of Angels is an all-timer title for me, so I have no real desire to replace it. And it comes from the text, which I have been trying to do throughout! But I have tasked myself with finding options for all of them so let’s try.

The setting of Alikand / Agdel Lex is so important, so I am drawn to something related to cities. Frozen Dead City? City Never Die? City Beneath City? Delving is also critical, so I tried to bring that in - Delving Beneath [Something]?

I am so uninspired. Ruin of Angels is so perfect.

I think City Beneath City is the best of a bad lot, but Ruin of Angels clearly wins here.

Dead Country

At first I looked for three word titles like the earlier ones, and there were plenty of options in the text. Memories and Dust. Last Stars Fail. Storm Building West. Tiny Things Together. Storm Across Desert. Edge Storm Dreams. Patterns Wake Up. Through the Lightning. Not Quite Human. One Against Hunger.

I think some of these could have potential, but none of them really hit for me. And then, I came to the scene at the Tellurian Annex where the Craft-god speaks to Tara. And wow did she have some lines.

“Yes, the Body said. Yes, it had said, its words arriving in her memory, as if she had known them since before she knew her own skin. Yes We Are The Same And You Feel The Truth And We Must Be One Against The Hunger And The Others That Come From Far Away And We Know Them And We Know The Knife And We Know There Must Be Pain And We Know One Holds The Leash And We Know That Always There Are Chains And We Know What Must Be Done— […] We Know This Must Be And We Know The Others That Come From Far Away And We Know You And You Are Needful And We Must Know You With Our Teeth—”

And all the other options simply fell away for me.

Breaking this down, I found lots of four word titles that I LOVE. Top options are:

One Against The Hunger

We Know The Knife

Always There Are Chains

What Must Be Done

It is clear to me that Craft Wars books must have four word titles. All four of those titles are good options, but I have a clear favourite: Always There Are Chains.

‘Chains’ come up a lot in the series. Here they refer to the Craft-god’s experience of the Domain thus far, but “the whole world’s chains” was on my shortlist for Four Roads Cross, and it is a key point in the books that everyone and everything is chained together by gods or Craft.

There’s also a creeping sense of horror that builds with this title for me, which is particularly fitting for Craft Wars. So, we have our first four word title.

Wicked Problems

I only had one thought here once I decided on four word titles for the Craft Wars books.

The Stars Are Wrong.

I will accept no critique.

Dead Hand Rule

And then I struggled again. There’s nothing quite so obvious as The Stars Are Wrong, or as eerie as the Dead Country options.

I was quite taken by Donnie’s line of Plans Evil or Otherwise, which frankly sums up the entire book. But it seems a little…light? Silly? compared to the others in the Craft Wars series, and I like an element of vibe-consistency.

So I went deeper into quotes, and ended up with a top four:

Under Ordinary Apocalyptic Circumstances

Entirely Too Many Deaths

All the Usual Horrors

Bodies Inhabited By History

The first is so perfect to me, but again sounds a little too light. Entirely Too Many Deaths is accurate, but the quote it’s from is Belladonna saying she has COLLECTED entirely too many deaths, and that has a very different vibe. Bodies Inhabited By History is poignant but perhaps too serious.

So, All the Usual Horrors is our answer. There’s an element of the Adams- or Pratchett-esque vibe that Gladstone often has, but it also has a kick to it when you think of how normal apocalypse and cosmic horror has become to our characters.

Conclusion

In publication order, with entirely renamed books, we have:

1. Gods Die Harder

2. A Glorious Gift

3. Howl, Bound World

4. Sleep Into Nightmare

5. Strange Small Structures

6. City Beneath City

7. Always There Are Chains

8. The Stars Are Wrong

9. All The Usual Horrors

You know, I’m liking them all more by the minute. Yet, Ruin of Angels must be brought back in. And, since it is the reason I started reading the series all those years ago… Three Parts Dead must also return. This gives us (this time in chronological order because why be consistent):

Sleep Into Nightmare
A Glorious Gift
Three Parts Dead
Strange Small Structures
Howl, Bound World
Ruin of Angels
Always There Are Chains
The Stars Are Wrong
All The Usual Horrors

The End

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