Across the Pond, in the UK, British novelist Peter Romilly recently released
his second novel with a climate theme, this one titled "Cli-Fidelity" -- and the punning title is worth the price of admission alone. It's on Kindle and ready to read, he told me in a recent email.
While his first novel, titled ''500 Parts Per Million'', was about the dangers of using nuclear power to try to achieve climate stability, "Cli-Fidelity" is about a nuclear reactor with a difference -- it’s underwater, tethered to the sea bed.
"It’s a tale of climate instability, a world where four people try to survive whatever the extreme weather throws at them," Romilly said.
When I asked him how he came about choosing the winning title for his novel, Romilly said:
"I thought long and hard about the book title, and kept coming back to the
idea of having 'cli' (for clmate) in it, because a major theme of the book is about
trying to preserve climate stability through the increased use of nuclear
power. But I couldn't think of anything suitable, then one day I thought of
the following progression from the new literary genre called 'cli-fi.' So I settled
on hi-fi, or hi-fidelity (as in sound
quality), and felt that using 'cli-fidelity' (as in staying faithful to the goal of climate
stability) would work well."
In fact, the idea for the title is explained in the first chapter one by one of the main characters, a French professor, who says to some dinner guests one night:
"Project Cli-Fidelite has been an outstanding success and it's helped France produce cheap,
reliable energy and stay faithful to our policy of stabilizing the climate.
Nuclear power generation emits no carbon dioxide, so no global warming. How
many countries can say that?"
A great title for a book, and sure to catch some media attention as well. Novels with punning titles can either work well or fall flat on their covers. Among my finds online I spotted:
''First Among Sequels''by Jasper Fforde
''We'll Always Have Parrots''by Donna Andrews
''Sticks and Scones'' by Diane Mott Davidson
For more punning titles see link here:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3315.Titlemania_I_Puns_in_Titles