I was clever this time. When I published Like a Continental Soldier, the final book in the Waking Late trilogy, I was already writing my next book. Having a new project in motion helps prevent that giant feeling of let-down that comes with the end of any large project. In fact, my next novel is almost drafted, but I keep messing up the grand finale. I’m working on that.
I’ve decided that the reason I can’t get the end straight is because I don’t have a good title. I have therefore, naturally enough, spent the last two hours reading poems in search of a good title.
Like the Waking Late trilogy, my next book is also set on Nwwwlf, but long before the events of Gilead’s time. I’ve had readers say they want to know more about the Pan. One of you even suggested that Nwwwlf had room for a lot of different stories, and, hey, what about those Pan? I blame you, and you know who you are. Sir.
So I started a short story–now a 60,000 word novel–about a pan whose father sends him to First Landing to retrieve his family’s blaster, which has been stolen by the governor’s men. The story is set in the first century after the poor, lost starship Valerie Hall discovers Nwwwlf. It shows some of the early conflicts between the Marss settlers and those from the WesHem. They don’t get along. However, the working title is awful. It’s just Pan. And the hero’s name is Peter. You can see the problem.
I can’t fix it by changing Peter’s name. My sons talked me into changing someone’s name in one of my other books, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I’m not doing that again. His name is Peter, and that’s that.
Therefore, I must change the title. It’s not a good title anyway. Have I called any of my other books Non-Genetically Modified Human? No, I have not. Being a pan is not what the story is about.
I went looking for poems about thieves, the good, the bad, and the horned. (The pan have horns on their heads. They don’t have hooves. Allow me to be clear about the lack of hooves. Don’t go importing your preconceptions about pan to my genetically modified pan. They’re different.) I had no luck.
Instead, I found Walt Whitman’s Pioneers! O Pioneers. It kind of fits with the whole scene of the WesHem settlers pioneering the territory to the west of First Landing’s river. (That river needs a name, too, but I’m more worried about the title right now.)
So here’s the start of the Whitman poem:
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, 10
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the
seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines
within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high
plateaus, 30
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood
intervein’d;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the
Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
This is not the whole poem. A lot of little phrases could apply to the new series as a whole for reasons I won’t divulge now–although guessable if you’ve read the Waking Late books. “Youthful sinewy races” is tempting but weird. I also like “elder races halted,” but that could apply to the series, not this first book in it. I’m leaning toward “on us depend” since it reflects Peter taking up a certain task. The other one that appeals is “continental blood,” but I worry that’s too close to Like a Continental Soldier. Or, is that a good thing?
I guess I’m still thinking. The update, however, is that since I started writing this post I’ve fixed the difficult scene.
by 
Alas, I have only just purchased volume 3, and do not have the benefit of devouring it yet. I missed the launch (life distractions, and a 13 volume Zombie Apocalypse series whose final 6 books were finished by determination alone {the best way out of a U shaped ambush (and not being dead) is straight ahead, with speed and violence}) and therefore come late to the excitement. As a result, I write this without being any more familiar (yet) with the Pan than I was at the end of book 2.
However, the desire to help, to render aid, to exhibit my title-wielding acumen is strong and, admittedly, misplaced. For I am a rather Silly Person. Flash in the Pan? Pan fried {insert something}? You mess with the Pan, you get the horns? Now you see why I don’t get invited to parties. To quote the doctor in Master and Commander: “He who would pun would pick a pocket”. I doubt I would go that far; Colonel Baslim’s admonition to Thorby on the price Ziggie paid to learn his trade was not wasted on me.
I cannot claim to have spent much time with Whitman, and it’s obvious you are infinitely better educated and more erudite than I. But I confess to being reminded of Kipling’s The Sons Of Martha. It seems apparent the citizens of First Landing are the Sons Of Mary – occasionally waking a Son Of Martha when need arises. Will their Gods rouse them a little before the nuts work loose? Who, I wonder, are the Pan? Perhaps I will find out soon.
I am delighted you have chosen to add more to Nwwwlf, and look forward to buying it when it becomes available, regardless of title.
(I’m sure I don’t have to say it, but don’t pick any of mine. Seriously. Or I shall pun again.)
I will confess I don’t remember Maturin saying that, but perhaps he was curtailed. Nor do I remember what Baslim told Thorby, so I think you’ve got me on the erudition.
However, I am wildly grateful for The Sons of Martha. That’s a great poem and I only discovered it a few years ago, so it’s not part of the mental pantheon, but it should be perfect. There’s a fraternal-hostility thing going on in the work in progress, so you could not have made a better recommendation.
I heft my pick axe and head off to the mines.
Heh. I don’t recall if Maturin said it in the book. In the film, it was during the “lesser of two weevils” dinner scene. Baslim’s observations were from Robert Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy. Some of his books are like dear old friends that I am compelled to revisit every year or so. Comfort books, I suppose.
Busy summer; somehow I missed both the Continental Soldier and Rapunzel releases. That has been rectified. I still owe you reviews on some others, to include the Calvin Tondini books (both excellent, BTW – I’ve become quite fond of him). I’ll try to get those up soon.
Good luck on the new project, and thanks for the awesome stories.
(If I failed to mention it before, thanks also for the tip on J.M. Ney-Grimm’s The Tally Master. Not my usual genre but really enjoyed it.)
I’m so glad you’ve discovered Calvin. I’m fond of him as well. And the Tally Master! I’m a fan of Citizen of the Galaxy and have it on my list of comfort reads, too.
You don’t owe me reviews, but, I would really appreciate them if you get a chance.
🙂