Mike Flynn and the Wreck of the Country of the River of the Blind Stars

The esteemed Mike Flynn (who has never written a book entitled Wreck of the Country of the River of the Blind Stars) has written an article entitled “Entitlement”, and yours truly as well as real science fiction authors such as Nancy Kress and Michael Swanwick were ask to contribute.

You can see the results here:

On LiveJournal
Part I. http://m-francis.livejournal.com/204595.html
Part II. http://m-francis.livejournal.com/205007.html

On Blogspot (the blog less traveled)
Part I. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2011/07/entitlement-part-i.html
Part II. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2011/07/entitlement-part-ii.html

Mike Flynn is also proffering the following contests:

Contests

Our favorite titles.
Okay, dear readers, if there are any. Your assignment is to share book or story titles that you found effective, memorable, or resonant, regardless of the quality of the story itself. That is, titles that lured you to buy the book or read the story, or which have stuck with you afterward. What about the title enticed you? What made it work. You don’t have to restrict yourself to SF titles, either.

Old wine in new bottles.
Pick a book or story you liked, and suggest an alternate title for it.

The best “Old Wine in New Bottles” entry mentioned in the article itself, was from a writer who complained of a certain over-meddling editor: He would have re-titled The Bible to War God of the Desert.

As a courtesy to my reader (hi, mom!) I will here reprint the questions Mike Flynn posed, and the text of my answers.

I will point out that (1) Mike Flynn co-authored the book FALLEN ANGELS with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (2) Mike Flynn co-authored the following interview with me, therefore (3) I am in the Big Time now! (This is known as the actuarial transitive property).

Henceforward, I stride the sidewalk no more with mincing step and lowered head, but instead shall venture grandly, yes, wagging my belly with a wobble of pride, taking large steps, and swinging my walking stick in circles of such an aggressive largesse of diameter that mere scribblers must cower and yield and leap aside into doorways and nooks, lest the vortex of my passage engulf them, inverting their umbrellas and tossing their tophats mudward! Henceforth I take snuff my the fistful when I wish to sneeze, and cower before no man! Has Gene Wolfe ever collaborated with Mike Flynn? Has Tim Powers?! I say thee, nay!

Of course, such a three way collaboration between Wolfe, Powers, and Flynn would be interesting. I suggest the working title: THE STRANGER TIDES OF THE JIM RIVER OF OLD SUNS OF CERBERUS AND OTHER STORIES.

I am hoping Mr. Flynn will seriously contemplate this project once he is done with his current sequel to THE JANUARY DANCER, tentatively titled THE FEBRUARY HOOFER.

In any case —

The answer was far more material than Mr. Flynn needed, but then again, when I sit down to write a short story, I end up with a three volume novel, so ending up with more material than needed is something of an endemic problem for authors in the Big Time (a title by Fritz Leiber).

Q&A below the cut.

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