So, I just got a list of books that are on sale, via BookBub, which I suppose happens every day, but I seldom pay that much attention.
Today I happened to have time, so I opened the mailing and glanced over the titles that are being offered for sale today.
This is one of them:
So, if you would like a copy of this collection of all Simak’s short fiction, today you are in luck! It’s 1.99 for the Kindle version on Amazon.
But what I mostly noticed was a visceral reaction to the title “I am Crying All Inside,” which can best be summed up as NO NO NO.
Wow, does that not sound a bit like anything I want to read. Only after that reaction did I realize that this is a collection.
Other stories included here:
— I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air
— Small Deer
— Gleaners
— Ogre
— Madness from Mars
— Gunsmoke Interlude
— The Call from Beyond
— All the Traps of Earth
Now, given those titles, which would YOU choose as the title for the whole collection? I think it’s a no-brainer. The most interesting title is the first in the list — I mean, your eyes are what? — but that isn’t the one that ought to be the title of the collection.
The one story title that is both evocative and non-horrific is The Call from Beyond. That’s the one I would have used.
Agree? Disagree?
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I note it’s also volume 1 of 12: he wrote a lot of short stories.
“The Call from Beyond” is even better as the title for an introductory volume than it is for just any collection: it’s soliciting the reader.
Yes, “The Call from Beyond” would work, but there is something about the juxtaposition of “Crying All Inside” with the stars/spacesuit image that I find intriguing, and possibly suggests more about what the stories might be like. “The Call from Beyond” would work for almost any kind of sci-fi story, but clearly these are stories more about people’s inner lives and the emotional impact of scientific discovery/exploration. At least, I hope they are, because that sounds like something that would really interest me. (If they’re just all sad or tragic I’m not interested, but the rest of the titles I think promise more than unhappiness.)
If Simak’s stories are like his novels, yes, there is more than unhappiness.
With a list of titles like that, “The Call from Beyond” is surely coming from Cthulhu’s dreams.
oh yeah, and “I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air” describes Gary Larson’s aliens pretty well.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/103512491409361910/
I Had No Head.. etc., seems rather long for a title. I rather liked All the Traps of Earth.
Kim, a lot of Simak’s novels were rather quiet stories about decent people. I liked them a lot. Not depressing, thoughtful. Presumably his shorts are similar.
Sounds very similar to Harlan Ellison’s “I have no mouth and I must scream.”
Speaking of anti-appealing, I read the first page of a novel and now I’m not sure whether I want to read any more. I go back and forth. It’s definitely an eye-catching first sentence, but it’s also kind of off-putting:
“Like the Marquis de Sade, Winnie the Pooh, and many others, I had my own secret place to go to.”
Would /you/ keep reading?
Evelyn, depending one what made me pick it up in the first place I may skip to a random page in the middle to see what that’s like. Or just put it down, as I said, it depends on why I picked it up to look at. I suspect I would find I don’t trust the author, and not go farther, whichever decision tree I followed, though.
BTW, the main page of the blog isn’t showing new posts and comments even when I refresh. But I see them in the sidebar if I select one post to read.
Evelyn–
I would definitely keep reading, at least for a while. That is a good hook: funny, but a little unsettling.
Evelyn … hmm. That’s quite a line. I think I’m kind of with you: it’s pretty off-putting. I think I would be impressed by the line, but not go on.
For some reason I’m compelled to mention here the most anti-appealing SF title I’ve come across: Brian Aldiss’s The Saliva Tree. Though I’m sure there must be worse out there…
Well, Kristi … thank you for sharing? Although I think my life was complete before I heard of that book.
It must have taken dedicated effort to come up with a title so completely awful. Not sure why an author would want readers to recoil in visceral revulsion from his book, but I guess for some reason that seemed like a good thing to someone.