Best Titles

[Lith]

There are good books. And there are good titles. And there are good books, with good titles. And there are bad books with good titles...

(Being that I'm trying very hard to avoid anything resembling real work today, I thought I'd start this thread.)

And I'll start off the nominations with God Emperor of Dune. Haven't read it, but the title is just... COOL. Pompous, interesting, slightly dizzying...

Your turn! Name any book whose title resonates with you, regardless of any quality of the book itself. And a bit about why it resonates.

 

[Pyan]

I always liked Harry Harrison's book titles...wonderfully tacky but intriguing at the same time:

A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers
The Technicolor Time Machine

and my favourite,

Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Zombie Vampires

 

[DeepThought]

And I'll start off the nominations with God Emperor of Dune. Haven't read it, but the title is just... COOL. Pompous, interesting, slightly dizzying...

You should try it, its great, IMO the last book of Herbert's Dune cycle after which it stopped being...cool.

I'm finding it hard to come up with any, at the moment. Lets see...Chasm City, yes, I know its quite short, sounds poetic though...

Not really books but tales from the collected works of Robert E. Howard:

The Hour of the Dragon
The Scarlet Citadel
The Tower of the Elephant
Jewels of Gwahlur
The God in the Bowl

The titles drew me into his tales and gave me goose pimples before I even read a word! especially The Scarlet Citadel and Jewels of Gwahlur, they quite sum up theme/atmosphere of his fiction; dark, brooding, bloody, primeval, terrible destiny. With Howard, the titles stand up to whats actually written inside...

Cheer's, DeepThought

 

[K. Riehl]

The Long Loud Silence by Wilson Tucker
The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth by Roger Zelazny
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath byH.P. Lovecraft
The Man Who Never Missed by Steve Perry

and the immortal Slan by A. E. Van Vogt

 

[Pyan]

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, by Harlan Ellison

Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman, by the same author

The Platypus Of Doom And Other Nihilists - Arthur B Cover

And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side - James Tiptree Jr.

and, of course:

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.,

 

[clovis-man]

Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb by Philip K. Dick

 

[Switchback]

I really love the titles of all the Covenant books...

Lord Foul's Bane
The Illearth War
The Power That Preserves
The Wonded Land
The One Tree (admittedly the weakest title)
White Gold Wielder
The Runes of the Earth
Fatal Revenant

 

[Hari Seldon]

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
Pilgrimage to Earth - Robert Sheckley
Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham

 

[Reading_fanatic]

The Paladin of the night- Margaret Weis/ Tracy Hickman
Knights of the Dark Renown-David Gemmell
Dead Sky, Black Sun-Graham Mc'Neill

My fav:
Barry Trotter and the shameless parody
as well as
Barry Trotter and the unnecessary sequel

 

[Lenny]

Both by Walter Moers:

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear
The City of Dreaming Books

The first one particularly conjures up strange images with title alone, let alone whilst reading the book.

 

[nj1]

Raymond E. Fiest's
RAGE OF A DEMON KING
SHARDS OF A BROKEN CROWN

both create interesting images

 

[iansales]

Hot Wireless Sets, Aspirin Tablets, the Sandpaper Slides of Used Matchboxes, and Something that Might have been Castor Oil, DG Compton (also published as Chronicules)

 

[Nesacat]

Both by Walter Moers:

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear
The City of Dreaming Books

The first one particularly conjures up strange images with title alone, let alone whilst reading the book.

Nothing to do with titles but I'm reading The City of Dreaming Books now. It's amazingly quirky. Way fun.

 

[D_Davis]

I always liked Harry Harrison's book titles...wonderfully tacky but intriguing at the same time:

His titles just scream "pulpy adventure!"


A few of my favorites:

To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm
The Cosmic Rape (To Marry Medusa) - Theodore Sturgeon

 

[Fake Vencar]

Raymond E. Fiest's
RAGE OF A DEMON KING
SHARDS OF A BROKEN CROWN

both create interesting images

I second this and will also add SHADOW OF A DARK QUEEN

 

[Thadlerian]

There's always the Heinlein classic, depicting a SF age of adventure: Have Space Suit, Will Travel.

For something of the complete opposite vein, Ursula Le Guin has The Disposessed; melancholic.

Philip K Dick delivers titles of strange symbolic meaning, like Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.

And in that vein, Cordwainer Smith produced én masse: Scanners Live in Vain, Golden the Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh!, The Crime and Glory of Captain Suzdal, The Dead Lady of Clown Town and Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (ignore the fact that Smith seemed to write some stories exclusively to be able to use wicked titles).

 

[Montero]

John Barnes

A Million Open Doors
Earth Made of Glass (which is especially clever when you read the book, several meanings in there)
Orbital Resonance

and one I must read, haven't got yet.

In the Hall of the Martian King

which made me laugh when I saw it on Amazon.

 

[j d worthington]

Oh, lord, there are so many....

Pyan mentioned Ellison. I'd also add quite a few of his other titles to the list:

From A to Z in the Chocolate Alphabet (just because it's a thoroughly what-the-hell? title)
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs
Jeffty is Five
The Deathbird
The Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine
One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
The Time of the Eye
Deeper Than the Darkness
The Night of Delicate Terrors
Memos from Purgatory
Spider Kiss
Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes
Delusion for a Dragon Slayer
Lonelyache
Pennies, Off a Dead Man's Eyes... the list goes on and on... and the stories are on a par with the titles....

H. P. Lovecraft's Kadath has already been mentioned, but I'd also mention At the Mountains of Madness, which is an intriguing title to begin with, but the implications of the title only grow with each reading of the book. There are also:
The Outsider
Beyond the Wall of Sleep
The Strange High House in the Mist
The Colour Out of Space
The Shadow Out of Time
The Dreams in the Witch House....

Silverberg's Dying Inside is a haunting title (to me, at any rate)
"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad", by M. R. James -- wonderful use of an old line for completely different(?) purposes...
The Last Feast of Harlequin (Thomas Ligotti)
The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell (Michael Moorcock and Howard Chaykin)
Earth Abides (George R. Stewart)

As I said, the list goes on and on.....

 

[Tillane]

A few of my faves...

Samuel R. Delany - Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones
William Gibson - Mona Lisa Overdrive and Burning Chrome
Iain Banks - Look To Windward
Greg Egan - Permutation City
Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

and from the great absurdist Robert Rankin:
Armageddon: The Musical
The Sprouts of Wrath
Raiders of the Lost Car Park
The Toyminator
Nostradamus Ate My Hamster
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

 

[D_Davis]

Raymond E. Fiest's
RAGE OF A DEMON KING
SHARDS OF A BROKEN CROWN

both create interesting images

I like fantasy titles like this, because I never know if they are books or Bolt Thrower songs.