New Title: Echoes of Betrayal

Posted: April 19th, 2011 under Echoes of Betrayal, the writing life.
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Book III is now Echoes of Betrayal unless the UK title conference bumps it.

Thanks to UK Editor for bringing up the possibility of changing the title, because I think this is better.  Thanks to US Editor for tossing out suggestions, too.

43 Comments »

  • Comment by Rolv — April 19, 2011 @ 2:30 pm

    1

    I like that one, it has a thrillingly ominous sound. I never felt really comfortable with “Crisis of Vision”, but that might just be evidence of English not being my mother tougue … Looking even more forward to the next book!
    Rolv

  • Comment by Adam Baker — April 19, 2011 @ 3:16 pm

    2

    I like it!

  • Comment by GillianA — April 19, 2011 @ 5:07 pm

    3

    I think I prefer the new title. Crisis of Vision was a good title in isolation, but I agree that it wasn’t as clearly ‘fantasy’ as Oath of Fealty or Kings of the North. Both of those two titles would instantly cause me to assume fantasy as most likely genre, whereas Crisis of Vision sounded vaguely more technothriller to me.

    I didn’t think it was a problem when you first announced it however, as it could have been fantasy, and I assumed the cover art would clarify the genre, but the new title is more fantasyish to my mind.

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 19, 2011 @ 5:57 pm

    4

    I’m glad you’re all liking the new title. I agree, it sounds more like a fantasy title than the first one did.

  • Comment by Chris in South Jersey — April 19, 2011 @ 8:55 pm

    5

    I like the new title also. A little off topic, but how are you faring with the wild fires. Up here in the North East, it sounds like the entire state of Texas is ablaze.

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 19, 2011 @ 10:16 pm

    6

    There’s a lot of smoke in the air. It was really bad Friday, Saturday, Sunday until the wind direction changed and blew the smoke back north–but the fires are continuing to burn. Over 100 homes gone now in the Possum Kingdom fire, which is edging nearer the Fort Worth area and outlying communities west of it.

    Austin area had a bad one started by a guy with an open fire in a homeless camp that quickly spread into neighboring areas. NASA’s had some satellite photos of large swathes of the state, and yeah, there are a lot of fires and they aren’t going away.

    And idiots: driving Houseguest along country roads Sunday, I found a place for sale where the realtor (I assume) had had trees and scrub on the fenceline trimmed up–and now very dry (and thus tinder-quality) dead stuff dumped between fence and road, right where a spark could start a blaze. Just asking for a big fire.

  • Comment by Mary Ann Melton — April 19, 2011 @ 10:40 pm

    7

    Ohhh!!!! I like the new title!

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 19, 2011 @ 11:20 pm

    8

    Glad to know that! I think it’s a definite improvement.

  • Comment by Keenan — April 20, 2011 @ 12:40 am

    9

    The current title change makes more sense and I have to agree that it has more of a fantasy ring to it. Crisis of Vision, though a good one, sounds more like a title for a book written by Tom Clancy in my eyes.

    On the fires: I am definitely glad that there is much less of that up here in the soggy North West. During the summer, we do get the smaller fires started in the dry grasses by stray cigarettes, but nothing to the extent those of you in the much dryer areas experience.

  • Comment by Anna Puma — April 20, 2011 @ 7:21 am

    10

    All I can say is Echoes of Betrayal better fits the story. Can’t wait for it.

  • Comment by Kathleen — April 20, 2011 @ 9:01 am

    11

    I like it too — really ties in to what has gone before.

  • Comment by Eir de Scania — April 20, 2011 @ 10:01 am

    12

    I agree with the earlier posters, it’s a better title, hinting at what’s one of the majoe themes in the series.

  • Comment by NancyNew — April 20, 2011 @ 10:27 am

    13

    I, too, like the new title, but will say that “Crisis of Vision” mentally led me to Stammel’s situation.

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 20, 2011 @ 1:47 pm

    14

    NancyNew: Not surprising you made that connection, and the connection was appropriate (though broader than just Stammel.)

  • Comment by Ulrika — April 20, 2011 @ 2:24 pm

    15

    Echoes of Betrayal feels much better for me too. Crisis of Vision never felt entirely “right”, even if I had gotten used to it. The new title feels perfect!

  • Comment by Jonathan Schor — April 20, 2011 @ 5:42 pm

    16

    Actually I liked the Oaths for titles. It’s too late to change Kings of the North, but for the new book?

    Or Paks can turn Quaker and Affirm for the next book title

  • Comment by Moira — April 20, 2011 @ 8:09 pm

    17

    I like both titles, but I agree the new one is a better fit in the context of the series. Two thumbs up!

    Re wildfires: I can relate, being here in southern California. I can remember having to wear face masks to go outside, there was so much smoke & ash in the air. One year was particularly bad: it was a tiny glimpse of what nuclear winter would look like, with blazing hot cloudless days turned into relatively cool, smoky, sunless gloom. Very strange and disturbing. (And lucky for me, the fires were nowhere close!)

    May the fires stay well away from you and yours, Elizabeth. And be extra diligent about backups!

  • Comment by chris — April 21, 2011 @ 12:32 am

    18

    Both titles are good, but the new one does sound more ominous and epic. I have to find the second book! I haven’t started it yet.

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 21, 2011 @ 11:44 am

    19

    Kings of the North shouldn’t be hard to find (she says hopefully.) Even with Borders dumping so many stores.

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 21, 2011 @ 11:45 am

    20

    A current backup now lives in my purse, which I’d grab on the way out the door, just in case.

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 21, 2011 @ 11:51 am

    21

    I already had other “oath” books elsewhere in Paks…having all of them oaths in this group would be too much (for me, anyway.)

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 21, 2011 @ 11:51 am

    22

    Thanks! We (Editors and I, not the royal “we”) are delighted with the positive response to the title change. (Yes of course I emailed them!)

  • Comment by Jim DeWitt — April 21, 2011 @ 12:15 pm

    23

    The new title? Er. Um. Sorry. I prefer the former one. But I’m sure the new one will be fine.

    Fires: in 2002-2006, Alaska suffered a series of epic forest fires, burning tens of millions of acres, creating choking clouds of smoke that covered most of the state and reduced the sun to a dim, orange ball. Ghastly, and it lasted for months. Interior Alaska was surrounded by fires, so no matter what the wind did, it blew more smoke in. I am deeply sympathetic.

  • Comment by Fyre — April 21, 2011 @ 6:50 pm

    24

    Hmmmm….Echoes of Betrayal….I like it. Fits the underlying story and leads the imagination down a promising tract. Thanks for sharing it with us. As an artist and avid Paks fan, I can’t wait to see the cover art.

  • Comment by John Mc — April 23, 2011 @ 9:41 am

    25

    I agree with the general thrust of this thread and thank the editors for the new title Crisis of Visionwhene I first saw it looked to me as if you were suffering from (whisper it) writers block arghhhh,and may I finnish by saying have we seen the last of Familias Regnant stories or Vatta as well?

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 23, 2011 @ 9:01 pm

    26

    I do sometimes suffer from “title block” but that’s not “writer’s block.” Titles are different (even though they’re words.) Some books title themselves easily (Kings of the North did) and others are stubborn. Middle books tend to be the stinkers in that respect.

  • Comment by Jenn — April 24, 2011 @ 1:53 pm

    27

    Two thumbs up for the new title

    Blessed Easter.

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 24, 2011 @ 7:40 pm

    28

    Thanks.

  • Comment by Mollie Marshall — April 26, 2011 @ 4:30 am

    29

    I like Echoes of Betrayal better – and at least it won’t turn into an “earworm” like Kings of the North. Whenever I see that, or even think of the book, up starts ‘The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together’, etc. from Handel’s Messiah. It’s driving me bananas!
    Love the series so far; bring on the next book.

  • Comment by elizabeth — April 26, 2011 @ 8:16 am

    30

    Oh, MY. I suppose there are worse earworms, but any earworm can be a nuisance. (And because you said it wouldn’t for you, the new title has now turned into one for me–and no, I won’t tell you how. Don’t ask it if it can or can’t…)

  • Comment by Roger — April 27, 2011 @ 4:18 am

    31

    Hi
    About backups, one would think that the company that you write for (with the editor and so on) would provide its authors with backup spaces on their servers, so that there always was a current backup in case of disaster (lets face it, not all authors may be as technically advanced and “backup-aware” as you 🙂 ).
    Br//Roger

  • Comment by genko — May 2, 2011 @ 12:33 pm

    32

    You can’t have too many backups. I learned the value of that years ago with a burglary at the typesetting shop I worked at. We came in one morning to find several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment had gone out the door. That’s when you find out how good your backups are. We were pretty good, didn’t lose all that much in current work. But other things less pressing (translation tables I had spent hours on, other sorts of lists, etc.), not to mention system files that needed to be recreated, caused us a lot of problems.

  • Comment by elizabeth — May 3, 2011 @ 9:56 am

    33

    Yikes! My (belated) sympathy for that mess!

  • Comment by Nick — May 6, 2011 @ 7:22 am

    34

    I really, really like the UK covers on your books :). The material itself is very good too!

  • Comment by elizabeth — May 6, 2011 @ 9:27 am

    35

    Thanks! UK Editor will be glad to know you like the covers, and I’m very glad to know you like the insides as well.

  • Comment by Gareth — May 6, 2011 @ 10:03 am

    36

    Like the new title but it’s been used several times before. Just searched Amazon to see if pre-order was available yet and found two other books with that title.

  • Comment by elizabeth — May 6, 2011 @ 10:10 am

    37

    Reminder that titles are not copyright-able and that reuse of titles is common.

    Editors (or their staff) would have done the checking and determined that the overlap was within the guidelines of their own publisher.

    Pre-order won’t be available until the book is scheduled and in the publisher’s spring catalog, and that will be later this summer.

  • Comment by Antoine — May 20, 2011 @ 12:56 am

    38

    Sounds ominous, I like it.

    And I liked the way the plot slowly unfolded in KotN, makes me hunger for more. 🙂

  • Comment by Charles Wheeler — May 21, 2011 @ 11:30 am

    39

    You could call it Moon’s next or Rising Moon and I’d be happy:-) Just finished Kings of the North and now half to wait, what, nine months? Is it published earlier in the UK? I remember finding one of Robin Hobb’s Magic Ship novels there months before it came out in the US. I will go to great lengths to get your next book!

  • Comment by Antoine — June 13, 2011 @ 10:32 am

    40

    21. Februar is release date for Germany (12, alas…)

    Same on amazon.co.uk.

    Elizabeth, did you anywhere mention how many books you were planning to write in the current series?

    You opened so many possibilities, I expect more than a trilogy!

    By the way, after reading Kings I felt the need to reread the Paks-Trilogy and then Oath and Kings again, must admit, having Paks fresh in mind helped me loads to understand Oath and Kings better, albeit you can indeed begin with Oath only and not feel completely lost.

    Can’t wait for the next installment.

    Thanks for making such good books.

  • Comment by elizabeth — June 13, 2011 @ 6:31 pm

    41

    Yes, I have said….there will be five in the current group. Editors have agreed to buy the next two (on top of the three in the first contract.)

    I’m working on Book IV, while III–Echoes of Betrayal–is in the production phase now.

  • Comment by Chris Trevethan — August 2, 2011 @ 6:38 am

    42

    Elizabeth all i can say is WOW

    i first discovered paks back in 1990 and must have reread the deeds and the prequels (sorry that’s how i see them) about 200+ times if not more

    Recently was in Minataur in Melbourne and found the first 2 books in this series and am blown away by the story line. Am now going to go back and read them all in order again

    Big thumbs up and cant wait for the 3rd.

    Ps any idea of an Australian release date

  • Comment by elizabeth — August 2, 2011 @ 7:02 am

    43

    Thanks, Chris, for your kind words and support. Sorry, I don’t know an Australian release date–you might look at the Orbit UK site and see if they’re any more informative than they were the last time I looked. Or if there’s an Australian SF newsletter that keeps up with those things…the folks at Minotaur should know as soon as anyone. (The authors aren’t always told when these decisions are made by publishers, and then we get busy writing the next book…)

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