A Question of Titles

[coalescent]

When Ken Macleod was interviewed at a BSFA meeting earlier this year, he read an extract from his novel-in-progress, which was carrying the title Learning the World. The latest Interzone has an interview with Macleod in which he says:

Learning the World began with: 'wouldn't it be interesting if the Victorian positivist historians were right, and people became more rational and more liberal as they acquired more knowledge? And wouldn't it be cool to write something as if coming straight from the positivist-influenced British sf or scientific romance tradition of Wells, Stapledon and Clarke, as if the New Wave and cyberpunk had never happened?' That was the abstract idea. The concrete image was of a big vulnerable peaceful colony ship of rational liberal far-future humans slamming into a solar system of aliens who have just entered their version of the twentieth century, and are therefore tooling up for a rumble with somebody.

Sounds pretty cool, if you ask me. But! At the end of the interview, there's a note that says:

Newton's Wake is available in hardback from Orbit (369pp, £17.99), who will also be publishing The New Intelligence in August 2005.

The New Intelligence? Yes, that's right; it's on Amazon and everything. In their infinite wisdom the people at Orbit are changing the title. Apparently, however, it may still see publication as Learning the World in the US.

Now, to me, as titles go, Learning the World is clearly superior to The New Intelligence. But what do you think?

[Poll #393005]

Footnote: if it is published under different titles, I'd be strongly tempted to buy the US edition. Particularly since they seem to be getting better covers these days, as well.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Uneducated people really ought to be banned.

Strongly agreed. To this end, may i suggest an amendment (or two) to Niall's proposal:

Everyone should have to take exams in subjects like philosophy, politics, theology, economics, logic, genetics and classics before they're allowed to have opinions about things.

And to pass them, of course.

Hey! We could, quite honestly, call it 'citizenship' - it'd fit right into the national curriculum! And who could object to your being a citizen being dependent on being qualified to do it? Indeed, the fact that there are millions of people running around this country exercising the franchise with no idea what they are doing is positively shocking! After all, we wouldn't let people be gas fitters, or doctors, or airline pilots without the relevant qualifications, would we? Madness! I will write to the education secretary forthwith.

You know, i can really see a time coming, a decade or two down the line, when the audit culture has gone far enough that this actually comes to pass. I would look forward to it, but the exams will, of course, be a complete mockery.

Ideally, we'd have several levels of citizenship qualification - GCSE lets you vote in local elections, A-level lets you vote in general elections, and a degree lets you actually hold office. Naturally, a PhD would be a requirement to write a newspaper column or such.

You will of course ask "qui probabit ipsos probatores?" (or something similar but correctly conjugated), but i don't see that the situation is any different to that in other subject - academia miraculously polices itself. Honest.

-- tom