Note: This is a living document and will be periodically updated with my commentary on the remaining titles.
I have an astonishing number of prejudices when it comes to titles.
I realized this three years into writing a book about the television series Babylon 5. I’d planned to title the book All Alone in the Night: The Making of Babylon 5. The subtitle is self-explanatory. The title came from the show’s opening narration, describing the denizens of the eponymous space station and their habitat thus:
“Humans and aliens wrapped in two million five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night.”
That phrase would remain part of season two’s saga sell and become the title of the twelfth episode.
The more I thought on it, the more it seemed lazy to name a book on Babylon 5 after an episode of the series itself, even as evocative a title as “All Alone in the Night”. I’d been trying to convey the fact that the show was produced in an industrial park far from a studio lot. It was made in isolation, the cast and crew forming a family in the converted warehouse wherein a plywood space station had been erected.
I’ve been thinking about the title problem for over a year now, and I’ve finally come up with something. I have a title for my Babylon 5 book. It will be revealed soon, but a byproduct of burning brain cells on this conundrum has been a good sense of what I do and don’t like when it comes to titles.
Thus, this article on my title prejudices.
I don’t like character’s names as titles: Michael Clayton (2007); Jane Eyre: An Autobiography (1847); The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (ca. 1600); Sherlock (2010–7); or Jessica Jones (2015–9).
The exception to this prejudice would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), which uses the collision of the protagonist’s name and calling to convey tone in exactly the way Léon Morin, prêtre (1961) doesn’t.
I don’t like placenames as titles: Abbey Road (1969); Astro City (1995–); Casino Royale (1953); Paris, Texas (1984); or Twin Peaks (1990–2, 2017). This prejudice includes Babylon 5 (1993–8), and no, I don’t know what I would have titled it, but I would have gone slowly insane trying to come up with something that wasn’t the setting.
For the record, a metaphysical setting is cool, like The Razor’s Edge (1944) or In a Lonely Place (1947).
I don’t like timeframes as titles…unless the author is George Orwell.
Years are the temporal equivalent of places as titles, and just as lazy, if not moreso. This addition is brought to your courtesy of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone (2018–) prequels, 1883 (2021–2) and 1923 (2022–), the latter of which was originally announced as 1932. (This titling conceit becomes particularly annoying with respect to my obsession with dating television shows to head-off future ambiguity, thank you network executives averse to new ideas.) (A further as-yet-unproduced spinoff is titled 6666, which is the name of a ranch, like Yellowstone, but looks like a year, albeit more than halfway to the era of Dune [1965].)
I don’t like (most) fill-in-the-blank titles.
Don’t name something “The ________” or “The ________ of ________” unless those blanks are filled with evocative words. This prejudice takes out huge swaths of the sixty-one-year history of Doctor Who (1963–89, 96, 2005–), and is admittedly completely subjective. “The Platypus of Doom”, “The Armadillo of Destruction”, “The Aardvark of Despair”, and “The Clam of Catastrophe” (all 1976) are sufficiently evocative, as is The Salmon of Doubt (2002).
“Are there any titles you do like?”
Yes, and I’ve made the list much longer so it looks like I’m being kind and reasonable instead of capricious and arbitrary:
Common Sense (1776)
Thomas Paine’s title for his pamphlet arguing for American independence from the British crown makes the reader an ally of the cause. If you believe the title, you’re in agreement with the content.
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)
Mary Shelley’s title falls foul of my prejudice, but her subtitle overcomes my objection by characterizing the eponymous scientist’s creation as a life-giving (or life-given) tool that has the potential to destroy mankind.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843)
Great Expectations (1860–1)
“The Lady, or the Tiger?” (1882)
She (1887)
A Study in Scarlet (1887)
“I shall have him, doctor—I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across; a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn’t we use a little art jargon? ‘There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”
Our Mr. Holmes has a poetic bent, it seems.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890)
Ambrose Bierce’s title walks the line. “An Occurrence” does not inspire and “Owl Creek Bridge” is a tedious placename, but tie them together and there’s a very satisfying snap!
“The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892)
This is a tricky one. I’m not sure if I find the title of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story compelling in its own right…or because reading it pasted the eponymous paper in the darkest corner of my mind. Whether or not the title works, you must read the story, recently published alongside an earlier draft in the Library of America’s Gilman volume.
“Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” (1895)
Mark Twain does not bury the lede in his witty criticism of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. You could argue that he’s already marching you down the path with a title that insists rather than suggests.
The Turn of the Screw (1898)
“‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’” (1904)
Im Westen Nichts Neues (1928)
Though “Nothing New in the West” would be a more accurate rendering of Erich Maria Remarque’s title, A. W. Wheen’s 1929 English translation, All Quiet on the Western Front, became synonymous with the stagnation and boredom endured by World War I soldiers in the trenches and was retained by translator Brian Murdoch in 1993.
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
M (1931)
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (1934)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Dancers in Mourning (1938)
“Busto Is a Ghost, Too Mean to Give Us a Fright!” (1938)
Gerald Kersh was a master at titling both novels—Jews without Jehovah (1934), Prelude to a Certain Midnight (1947), and A Long Cool Day in Hell (1965)—and short story collections—Neither Man Nor Dog (1946), Clock Without Hands (1949), and Guttersnipe: Little Novels (1954). “Busto”, which you can find in Nightshade & Damnation: The Finest Stories of Gerald Kersh edited by Harlan Ellison, plucks a bit of evocative dialogue from the tale to title it.
Conjure Wife (1943)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
“Knock” (1948)
Fredric Brown tells a concise tale with the first two sentences of this story, well-served by its terse title, and goes on to elaborate the conceit as only a master of the short-short story can.
La salaire de la peur (1953)
The Crucible (1953)
Arthur Miller’s play is one of those exceptions, where titling it “The ________” works because the second word creates a mental image going into the play that metamorphoses into metaphor as you watch the drama unfold.
The Demolished Man (1953)
Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
Ray Bradbury’s novel is allegedly named for the temperature at which paper burns—apropos for a story set in a society where fireman burn houses to destroy books—but has anyone ever checked the science? (Or can we not check the science because there are no more books?)
Waiting for Godot (1953)
Samuel Beckett’s title established expectations that his play has no intention of paying off.
“Free Dirt” (1955)
A perfectly prosaic title for one of Charles Beaumont’s perverse parables.
Bigger than Life (1956)
“Flowers for Algernon” (1959)
The elegiac title of Daniel Keyes’s short story—and later novel—is perfect. Astonishingly, so is the title of the 1968 film adaptation, CHARLY, which can’t quite be rendered correctly for this annotated account.
The Sound of a Scythe (1960)
“All of Us Are Dying” (1961)
George Clayton Johnson’s short story observes a universal truth that takes on a more specific meaning for his story’s protagonist.
A Clockwork Orange (1962)
A Man for All Seasons (1962)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
Seconds (1963)
David Ely’s novel—and the 1966 film adaptation—confounded me by opting for the less-common definition of the word; it’s not an increment of time, but rather a second helping…but not of food. Brilliant.
Doctor Who (1963–89, 1996, 2005–)
The title posed a question in 1963, that still hasn’t been answered, sixty-one years later.
Rubber Soul (1965)
Dune (1965)
Originally serialized as Dune World (1963–4) and Prophet of Dune (1965) in Analog, Frank Herbert’s eco-political opus defies my prejudices by titling the novel after the apposite nickname for the blighted planet Arrakis, where much of the book takes place.
“‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965)
The title of Harlan Ellison’s short story illustrates his belief that “a cleverly constructed long title plants sufficient key words in a reader’s mind that, even if it’s delivered incorrectly, enough remains to make the point.” In this case, it also sets the tenor for this tale of civil disobedience and both identified and characterizes the protagonist and antagonist.
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1966)
Joyce Carol Oates posed the question, and you’ll have to read her story—or watch the equally unsettling and well-titled movie, Smooth Talk (1986)—to learn the answer.
“Delusion for a Dragon-Slayer” (1967)
“Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” (1967)
“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967)
“The City on the Edge of Forever” (1967)
Dangerous Visions (1967)
At Last the 1948 Show (1967–9)
The years of broadcast deliver the title’s punchline, but you’ll have to track down the surviving episodes of this U.K. series starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman, and the lovely Aimi MacDonald for the rest of the laughs.
“The Trouble with Tribbles” (1967)
“Shattered Like a Glass Goblin” (1968)
“The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World” (1968)
LOVE AIN’T NOTHING BUT SEX MISSPELLED (1968)
“The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie” (1968)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
If you can think of a better title for Philip K. Dick’s meditation on sentience in a world peopled with humans who prove their empathy by expressing feelings for artificial animals while a slave class of androids are killed in pursuit of the same aspiration, I’d love to hear it. (Blade Runner, the 1982 movie adapted from the book, takes its title from an unrelated work by another writer…because it fit better on a marquee.)
“Pennies, off a Dead Man’s Eyes” (1969)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
“Occam’s Scalpel” (1971)
The Lathe of Heaven (1971)
Ursula K. Le Guin juxtaposed a tool for shaping raw materials with the realm of deities for her novel of a man who can reshape reality. Exquisite.
Are You Being Served? (1972–85)
Named for the salutation offered by the employees of the Grace Bros. department store in London, this television series created by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd is a satire on customer service that rarely cares about the answer to the question and only when it comes to making commission.
“When It Changed” (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
David Bowie’s album title is a pun; get it?
“The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” (1973)
The Tomorrow People (1973–9)
Stan Lee missed a trick when titled his 1963 Jack Kirby collaboration The X-Men. Roger Price’s televised take on Homo Superior—with a nod to David Bowie’s “Oh! You Pretty Things” (1971)—is the perfect title for a tale of the next rung of the evolutionary ladder.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
“Shatterday” (1975)
Phoenix without Ashes (1975)
“At Seventeen” (1975)
“Jeffty Is Five” (1977)
“Count the Clock that Tells the Time” (1978)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1978–80)
Can you encapsulate an entire universe in six words? Douglas Adams’s radio series—adapted as a novel (with four sequels), a stage play, a television series, a towel, a computer game, a comicbook, an illustrated novel, and a movie—suggests the answer is “yes”.
All the Lies That Are My Life (1980)
Harlan Ellison’s novella bears the perfect title for what appears to be a roman à clef masquerading as whole-cloth fiction in the guise of a fictionalized autobiography…or something like that.
“Games without Frontiers” (1980)
Knightriders (1981)
“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (1982)
God Loves, Man Kills (1982)
St. Elsewhere (1982–8)
Created by Joshua Brand & John Falsey, and developed by Mark Tinker & John Masius, the title of this MTM Enterprises television series comments upon the setting’s status as an underfunded and overlooked teaching hospital.
Life, the Universe, and Everything (1983)
“Speech Sounds” (1984)
Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí (1984)
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984)
Brazil (1985)
This might appear to violate Prejudice #2, but—as the tagline tells us—“It’s just a state of mind.” Had Terry Gilliam not been able to licence Arry Barroso’s 1939 song “Aquarela do Brasil”, I suspect the original title 1984½ would have remained, and I think it would have bypassed Prejudice #3 on the grounds of satire.
“Paladin of the Lost Hour” (1985)
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
For her dystopian novel, Margaret Atwood looked to the fourteenth century for her title and the twenty-first century for her scenario.
Watchmen (1986–7)
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987)
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988)
Douglas Adams devised the title for his second Dirk Gently novel in the first chapter of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1983), but it so perfectly encapsulates a sort of banal ennui that belies the content of this book.
The Silence of the Lambs (1988)
In•Vision (1988–2003)
“In-vision” is a term in television that refers to the image being transmitted. It was the perfect title for the Doctor Who fanzine formerly known as An Adventure in Space and Time (1980–8), though a pedant might argue its coverage of scripts and scenes that didn’t see broadcast might belie the letter of the title, if not its spirit. See also The Frame (1987–93).
Alien Nation (1988)
Rockne S. O’Bannon’s title for a movie about an extraterrestrial slave race being abandoned on Earth and having to integrate with human society is a stroke of genius. Who says puns are the lowest form of humor?
“Cat-Flap” (1989)
This was the working title for Rona Munro’s first contribution to Doctor Who, which was also the last program broadcast during the 1963–89 run of the series. It alludes to the idea that your pet pussy cat might not be the only thing to avail itself of the unguarded entrance to your home. The show was broadcast as “Survival”, intentionally playing on the Darwinian themes in the story but inadvertently commenting on the status of the series. “Cat-Flap” was wittier.
Press Gang (1989–93)
Steven Moffat’s television series about a group of volunteer students and delinquents on the verge of expulsion being forced together on a school newspaper may have the single best title in the history of television.
Last Chance to See (1990)
“The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore” (1991)
“Why Should I Cry for You?” (1991)
Breakfast at Czar’s (1992–5)
Joking Apart (1993–95)
Steven Moffat calls his autobiographical sitcom about a bitter comedy writer whose wife is leaving him the “first ever feel-bad comedy” and the title refers to the protagonists propensity to use jokes as a weapon when the situation calls for an absence of punchlines.
Chef! (1993–6)
Wrapped in Plastic (1993–2005)
“The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get” (1994)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
The title of Richard Curtis’s screenplay is an accurate description of the movie based upon it. It creates expectations the story screws around with.
“José Chung’s From Outer Space” (1995)
Neverwhere (1996)
Alien Bodies (1997)
Nothing at the End of the Lane (1999–)
“The Magazine of Doctor Who Research and Restoration” is edited by Richard Bignell and takes its name from the earliest (unused) title for the debut episode of the television series in question.
“Hush” (1999)
“Slayday” (1999)
By all rights, I should probably cede this slot to Donald E. Westlake, who wrote Slayground under his Richard Stark pseudonym in 1969. Still, I can’t help highlighting the one clever title I came up with, when—in happier times—I conceived a federal holiday devoted to population control and venting homicidal rages.
Midnight Nation (2000–2)
La sombra del viento (2001)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003)
Frustration Plantation (2004)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Låt den rätte komma in (2004)
John Ajvide Lindqvist’s first published novel takes it’s title from Morrissey’s “Let the Right One Slip In”, the B-side to his 1992 single “Tomorrow”. Indeed, the lyrics are quoted and properly attributed on the title page to Part Five of the novel, which makes the English title—Let Me In—all the more frustrating. I have no idea if the English title was the publisher’s doing or that of translator Ebba Segerberg. The latter’s work is not to my taste, repeatedly expelling me from the story’s spell; do yourself a favor and watch the 2008 movie instead.
Män som hatar kvinnor (2005)
The first of Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson’s posthumously published novels was titled Men Who Hate Women. English translations have been published as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie adaptations, you know the original title is the accurate one, marketing concerns be damned.
No Country for Old Men (2005)
Weeds (2005–12)
Does the title refer to the resilient widow-cum-marijuana dealer Nancy Botwin and her clan of survivors or their product? Yes.
“Blink” (2007)
Breaking Bad (2008–13)
Creator Vince Gilligan has claimed in various interviews that the title of his series—which chronicles a high school chemistry teacher’s evolution into a crime lord—is a southern colloquialism for when a law-abiding citizen wanders off the straight and narrow. I searched Harlan Ellison’s Dictionary of American English on multiple occasions and never found any evidence of the saying. It’s either very obscure, or a superb forgery.
Changeling (2008)
J. Michael Straczynski dramatized the 1928 disappearance of Walter Collins from Los Angeles and his mother Christine’s never-ending search for him. The title refers both to an incident in the movie and the structure of Straczynski’s screenplay, wherein a single woman’s obsession alters the society around her. I will say no more; see the movie.
Vworp Vworp! (2010–)
Another Doctor Who fanzine of extraordinary quality, Vworp Vworp! takes its title from the onomatopoeiac rendering of the TARDIS materialization sound in tie-in comicstrips, which are the subject of the publication.
“You know that sound the TARDIS makes?” said the Moment. “That wheezing groaning. That sound brings hope wherever it goes.”
“A Good Man Goes to War” (2011)
“Make Good Art” (2012)
Neil Gaiman’s 17 May 2012 commencement speech from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia can be found in his 2016 non-fiction collection, A View from the Cheap Seats. It is one of the best essays on the art life ever written, and its title is both refrain and command.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
Halt and Catch Fire (2014–7)
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
You’re the Worst (2014–7)
“Mummy on the Orient Express” (2014)
“Sassenach” (2014)
This is the title of the first episode of the television series based on Diana Gabaldon’s debut novel, Outlander (1991). “Sassenach” is an often pejorative word used by the Gaelic inhabitants of the British Isles to refer to the English inhabitants—outlanders—and I maintain it would have been a better title for the book, televison series, and franchise that concerns an English woman being cast back in time to 1740s Scotland.
Trigger Warning (2015)
Neil Gaiman titled his 2015 short story collection Trigger Warnings—in reference to content warnings intended to protect an audience from potentially disturbing material—and used his introduction to debate whether fiction should be a safe space for the reader. The essay is worth the price of admission.
The Run-Out Groove (2017)
This is the title of the second of Andrew Cartmel’s Vinyl Detective novels, and a personal favorite. Each novel in the series has taken its title from a music-related concept—Written in Dead Wax (2016), Victory Disc (2018), Flip Back (2019), Low Action (2020), Attack and Decay (2022), Noise Floor (2024), and Underscore (2025)—that Cartmel has deftly woven into the narrative. As of 2022, each volume has bettered the previous one and I recommend the books without reservation.
Together We Will Go (2021)
To be fair, I love all the movies, books, stories, comics, albums, etc. enumerated above, but I crave a complexity to a title, or—given Seconds—an ambiguity that makes the reader wrestle with it.
Whatever the case, naming a book on the making of Babylon 5 after an episode now seems lazy to me.
With prejudice,
Jason Davis
©2022–2023 by Jason Davis. All rights reserved. Duplication without written permission is prohibited.
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