Name that baby!
You thought that once the Fifteen Weeks of Bees were over, we’d be finished with contests, right? Ah no, we’re just beginning.
How creative are you feeling? Well, sharpen those pencils and wits, kids, because Laurie needs a title. That’s right, The Green Man just doesn’t do it. As a working title, sure, because it’s about a man who lives in the woods and is a little bit of a Trickster—but this is New York publishing we’re talking about, not some New Age, Burning Man, hippie crap.
What’s wrong with “The Green Man”? I’m glad you asked (because you can bet I did.) To quote: It doesn’t have the layered nuance of The Language of Bees. It doesn’t seem either upmarket or suspenseful. It’s not tantalizing.
In other words, a mix between * yawn * and Huh?
So here’s your chance to name LRK’s next baby: The Adventure Formerly Known as The Green Man. You can hit the tab over on the right to follow what I’ve had to say about it, you can check out the Wikipedia article on the Green Man, and I’ll tell you that it’s about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft (lots about Mycroft) and spies (spies are important) and the Green Man—aka Robert Goodman—and Damian and Estelle from The Language of Bees and boats and planes and trains and cars and…
And since any contest needs a prize, let’s say we’ll put the author of the winning suggestion in the book’s Thanks page, and send him or her a signed ARC as soon as we get them.
Any thoughts? These are titles that have already been yawned and Huh?ed over:
The Green Man
The Man who Spoke in Leaves
Eyes in the Green
John Barleycorn Must Die (yeah, sure)
Jack of the Wood
Eyes in the Green
Voice of the Green
Speaking in Leaves
A Man of the Green
Are we having a good time yet?
THE WHISPERING GREEN?
Treatise on the Man in Green:
An Anthropoplogical Study
(feel free to vary/substitute words)
or
A Quantitative Analysis of the Habits of Spies
Laurie, I have some questions for you that would help me and perhaps others as long as they don’t turn out to be spoilers:
How long do we have to submit ideas?
Since many of your Russell titles refer to location, place, setting, is there a main setting for this one?
And how much will this piece feel like a direct continuation from LANG (those three little words at the end)? Should/could the title be a direct reflection of “The Language of Bees” a la “All Creatures Great and Small” then “All Things Bright and Beautiful”? Do these do have more of a matched set feeling then the other books in the series?
Is Goodman the same person as Brothers aka all those other names?
You should sell “John Barleycorn Must Die” to Val McDermid or Lee Child. Perfect for them.
XO,
Marjorie
Did you know that there is a Laurie R King crossword puzzle on the last page of the August edition of Bookpage? also at http://www.bookpage.com
I’ll need this in a couple of weeks, three at the most.
This one is set in the Lake district and London, mostly.
The book follows immediately on the heels of The Language of Bees, chronologically and thematically. If the titles link, all the better, but it’s not a deal breaker if they don’t.
And Goodman is a new character, unrelated to Brothers.
Random ideas:
The Voice of the Wood
The Voice of the Forest
The voice of the leaves
The words of the leaves
The illusion of leaves
The deception of leaves
(sorry; the cadence of “The Language of Bees” gets one into an intellectual rut, though that title is one of my favorites in the series.)
Forest of illusions
The forest voice
The darker wood
The darker earth
The words of the green
The star and the green
And I’m afraid there stands the limit of my creativity for the moment.
Green Shadows
A Shadow of Green
Hidden Green
Green Silence
Hidden Green
Masked In Green
Speaking in Leaves
The Riddle of the Green Man (or The Secret of the Green Man; an homage to classic Holmes adventure titles)
The Forest Talks
Conversations with the Green Man
Brother of the Forest
Hidden in the Leaves (Or Hidden in Leaves; a play on pages in books, perhaps)
The Old Gods
Sorry–I carried that first one with me down the page for some reason. 🙂
Hmmm…
The Green Knight
Cracklings and Stirrings
A Stirring in the Leaves
Voice Verdant
What fun!! The first thing that jumped into my head was:
“Of Hives and Forests” (or Bees and Trees perhaps??) and “Walking with Bees and God” (or The Divine) “You Can’t See the Forest for the Bess” (OK that is just silly. Hummm, obviously I must put more thought into this.
That last one should read “You Can’t See The Forest For The Bees” but it still is probably more frivolous than you wish.
The Taxonomy of Bees (or substitute spies or agents)
Speaking to the Trees sprang to mind. We’ll see if anything else pops out.
Westmoreland Masque / Cumberland Masque
The Unblinking Eye
Waggle Dance
Whitehaven for St Bees
The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood
From the Wood
Taking Flight
Russell of the Leaves 😉
A Good Man in London
And I second Waggle Dance, since that could be interpreted as bee-spy behavior.
Where the Grass Grows
I Spy Something Green
The Beekeeper’s Family
Hidden In The Trees
The Silence of Trees
Green Grow The Secrets
Green Is Their Hue
My Brother’s Keeper
My Little Eye
Green in Memory
Leaves of Memory
Leaves In Memory
The Forest (as in, “for the trees”)
Forest of Secrets
A Green And Secret Place
I’ll keep thinking! 🙂
Mmm…good ones folks! I’m game, but let me digest it. When’s the deadline? This IS fun! And I LOVED LANG! I’ll post my thoughts on it (LANG) in the VBC later. I really like it and I really loved Russell this go round.
Hope things are well 🙂 !
C
*in Emily L./Gilda Radner voice* Nevermind. Missed that post up there. Ok a couple of weeks. We can do it :)! I’ll submit my ideas soon!
The Insinuation of Spies
Shadow on the Hive
The Emerald Queen
The Hive on the Fell
A Drone Among Queens
Password of Identity
Buzzing in the Brush
This game is fun. 🙂 I can’t wait to see which one is picked (and to read it!).
Does the emerald stickpin or Mary’s emeralds appear?
I always like titles that come from a quote:
The Direction of Sunbeams
(From “The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.” – Henry David Thoreau)
Or perhaps more fitting to spies and leaders:
Fighting the bees.
(From A. Lincoln – “When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”
Or directly relating to the Green Man:
A gleam on a blade of grass.
(a quote about the Green Man from William Anderson, in “Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth.” San Francisco: Harper Collins. ISBN 0062500759.)
I’ll need to puzzle this one out a bit more!
How about the Buzz In The Forest or The Hive In The Copses.
I keep thinking Swarm also, The Swarm In The Forest, Or Agents of the Swarm. Myths and the Swarm. Now you have done it, my brain won’t let this go. It will keep churning out lame titles.
HIve Intellegence and Tell the Bees
The Ancient Green
The Secrets of Green
Beneath the Green
The Green of Ages
AUGH! I just spent brainpower and time on writing a lovely list of titles which seem to have been lost in the posting process. If they reappear, forgive my tired and whiny brain. Here’s the highlights:
Emerald Renaissance
Verdant Sleuth
and my personal favorite,
“The Sagest of Men.” I like it cause sage means both ‘green’ and ‘wise.’
OK, now I’m sure my previous post will appear and I’ll look like a sleepy moron. Good night.
I like Strawberry Curls’ suggestion of “Hive Intelligence” a lot; if you switch it around to “The Intelligence of Hives” you get a similar cadence to “Language of Bees,” while getting several levels of meaning. Also, I found a quote by James Sanborn: “When I accepted the commission, I had something of an epiphany in the research I did about the agency, actually the science of espionage. I realized there is a connection between the sciences and the invisible forces of man.” SO, how about, “Invisible Forces of the Green Man”?
Can’t be references to the Green Man yet, can there? It wasn’t ‘coined’ until 1939? Jack in the Green is just as boring….
How about…
Effigy of a Green Man
Laurie,
Here are a few suggestions – perhaps one or two may kick-start your creativity…
Have no doubt you will find a title yourself given the time to set aside past allegiance, etc. Suspect a day or two removed from any lingering disappointments and tiredness will renew your mental prowess and voila!…
Besides: Forest Green (and the varying shades within that hue) is my favorite color so I’m definitely rooting for you.
Illusions in Green
Forest of Illusions
Wars and Illusions
Illusions and Wars
Forest of Secrets
Secrets in Green
Hives and Illusions
Secrets of the Hive
Sages, Symbols and Secrets
Conversations in Green
Conversations and the Green Man
Conversations with Jack
Scenes in Green
Green Secrets
Secrets Illustrated
The Green Man Exposed
Exposure in Green
Uneasy Peace
Reduction of Identity
The Secrets of Bees
Combing the Green
Between the Wars
The Hidden War
Roaring Bees
Language of the Green
Language of the Forest
Symbols in Green
Symbols of the Forest
Symbols and Illusions
Seen and Unseen
Hidden in Plain Sight
Look Back, Look Ahead
Green was the Dragon
Forests of War
War Illusions
Camouflage and Illusions
Deep Camouflage
Forest Camouflage
Hive Camouflage
The Camouflage of Bees
Flying Illusions
Connections and Camouflage
Green Transparent, Forest Opaque
Opaque in Green
Forest Fancies
A Forest of Illusions
Speech in Green
Pagan in Green
Forest Pagans, Uneasy Silence
Conflicts and Silence
Hidden Agenda, Hidden Wars
I know you will think of the perfect title – one that reflects the many levels and nuances sure to be found in this latest venture… Dig out your thesaurus, throw a “naming party” for close friends and family, play a few rounds of Pictionary or any other creative game while you converse about possible titles and it won’t be long before “Aha!” rather than “Huh?” is heard.
🙂
“Tongues of Green”
“Apiary Invaded”
“Wax Occult”
“To Wax Occult”
You’re right. This is quite fun!
It’s very late and I’m tired, so I’m sorry if someone’s already posted this, but the first thing I thought was The Language of Trees. Rhyming and continuity. Or something. Cheers.
or “The Secrets of Trees.”
The Green Man was not a figure in anthropological circles until Lady Raglan pinned down the name in the 30s, but as a figure, he’s been around for a long time–pub names reflect local people and events, and Green Man pubs abound.
Sisterhood of the meadows, Sheperd of the trees
Woodsman and the beekeepers
Sylvanophile
Coyote in the woods (Too north american?)
Loki in the forest (You did say trickster)
Loki’s disciple
Bees in shadow
Heart of the green
Bees in Green Country
Bees in the Green
The Green Man’s Bees
Bees on Green Leaves
Whispering Bees
Bees in the Foliage
Foliate Bees
Green Foliate Bees
The Trickster’s Bees
By Beck, Tarn and Fell
A Dappled Knave
My first thought was also
The Language of Trees
as mentioned above.
Probably not the right thing, though… how about
Whispering Leaves
My brain just won’t let this go, in the shower this morning it kept bugging me (sorry) and came up with:
The Trail of the Bees (or Swarm)
The Illusive Bees (or Swarm)
Tracking the Lights
The Path of Bees and Light
Illuminating Truths
The Movements of the Hive
Pathways to Family
The Family of Brothers
The Honey Seekers
Bee Prepared
Bee Alert
The Good Bee Woods (as opposed to E Nesbit’s the Would Be Goods)
If I post these, I hope my mind will stop coming up with new ones when I’m doing other things. The site ‘The Megalithic Portal’ shows many Lake District features suggesting nicely complicated scenes.
The Goodman Hive – I was just looking in the book ‘Santa Claus- Last of the Wild Men’ and it has some startling associations with Goodman.
A Greenwood Mask
A Hive of Wode (n.b.- OED says ‘madness’ is one definition of ‘wode’; associated with Trickster behavior in the Santa Claus book)
The Greenwood Hive
The Greenwode Man
The Greenwode Dance
The Foreign Greenwood
A Greenwood Brother
The Greenwood Watcher
The Forest Hive
The Travels of the Bee
Travails of the Hive
A Hive in Travail
A Portal in Green
The Green Portal
The Hive of Green Men
The Hive of Wild Bees
A Wild Hive
The Hive at the Spring
The Spring and Hive
The Spring Beehive
A Skin of Honey
Past of a Hive
The Memory of the Hive
Secrets Hidden in Green
Illusions In Green
The Language of Green
The Man in the Shadows
Unseen Shadows
The Shadow of the Croft
Secrets and Silences
Whew, Jessara, so glad I’m not the only person who gets caught up in these things. 🙂
PUCK
Some phrases that caught my ear while reading thru Green Man and John Barleycorn lyrics – I couldn’t quite make a title out of them, but thought they might spark something within your fertile brain:
the nut brown bowl
three furrows deep
rich green robes
sultry sun of summer
more phrases from poems:
“All greenness comes to withering” – from 13C poem
green groves of memory – from The Green Man by Lauren Raine
The Thought of Plants, Speaking Thru the Oak, from The Green Man by William Anderson
Intelligence with the Earth – from something by Thoreau
and one more by me The Song of the Trees
You all are sooooo creative! This really is fun. Just hope Laurie has as much fun processing all the ideas…. 🙂
Forests Shafts
Illusive Illuminations
Forest Depths
Drink Deeply of the Green
Tankards, Travel and Illuminations
Must stop…. this could become addictive… 🙂
The Painter of the Trees
I’m just going off Damian’s fondness for painting the Green Man…
Going with another Green Man related myth, what about The Wild Hunt?
For the James Bond fans: On Mycroft’s Secret Service
For the What the Heck?! Factor: Who’s Ya Grand-daddy? Shelock Holmes
Okay, okay, I’ll try to be serious from here on out…
Wait, I have nothing serious to say unless you think The Foliate Head would sell books. Nah, probably not, but it sounds cool anyway. And The Bloodsucking Head evokes creepy mental images. The Disgorging Head? That’s just nasty!
The Green’s Afoot?
Fairies, Ferries, and Foliate Heads?
Renaissance Men?
Nope. Still not one serious idea. I’m going to bed now.
P.S.
Are you sure calling this post Name that Baby! was such a good idea? This book would seem to have themes tied in (at least in some ways) to rebirth, and Russell and Holmes just inherited a toddler in the last book. Some folks could get the wrong idea, dontcha know. 😉
I very much like several of the previously suggested titles.
Getting my ideas out so I am not plagued by thinking about this, too:
The Last Fingers of Leaf (from The Wasteland)
The Grass is Singing (also from that upbeat text! Sorry, I was just thinking about Gatsby all day for some reason, and it’s a short leap to Eliot from there)
What about just Trickster?
The Green Interpreter (as in The Greek Interpreter, poor Mycroft! So glad he is redeemed in your books)
For that matter, Interpreter of Leaves
Watching Green
Gods and the Green
Gathering Green
What about Shakespeare? As You Like It is full of forests and spying!
Tongues in Trees
The Penalty of Adam
Oh my, titles are fun but I have to stop or I’ll sit here for an hour… I can’t wait to see what the title will be. So I can salivate over reading it someday….
Homo Sapiens Viridis, A Quandary
This is fun indeed! If only it didn’t make me insomniac… 😉
Out of the Green
The Portrait of the Green Man
The Hive Community
The Massacre of Males (I like the rhythm in this one, although it has nothing to do with what you told about the story)
The Intelligence of Bees
The Hive’s Bonding
Forces of Nature
A Study in Green
That’s it for now.
Random thoughts…hopefully not already said …
The Wispering Woods
The Layered Leaves
Varigated Voices
First, I’d like to say that I really like the title _The Green Man_ because it seems so fresh and different, but at the same time a fun little throwback to prior naming patterns a la The Invisible Man.
Having said that, I only have one submission:
Of Men and Trees
Can’t wait to read the book!
Talking Leaves (old Native American term for book).
Green and Pleasant Land
Sing All a Green Willow
By the way, I don’t see anything wrong with The Green Man.
The Woodwose Contingency
Well, it had occurred to me awhile ago that “Art in the Blood” might be a good title for this book, since it refers back to Canon and to Damian, and in addition might be considered a sort of pun – is Brothers not attempting a sort of art with his work in blood?’
And then there’s “The Horned One,” or “The Horned Man,” other persona’s of the Green Man, although perhaps too close to the original title.
Will keep thinking…
How about just Greenman, leaving off “The”?
Or: Verdigris
Green Graves
The Green of the Moon
Green Truth
The Color of Truth
Blood Green
The Green Man Whispers
The Whispering Green Man
Whispers in the Green
Fey Whispers
Fey Whispers in (or of) the Green
The Dance of the Green Man
Well, anyway, those are a few suggestions. Good luck, Laurie, titling things is not my favorite thing in the world!
I can understand the need to avoid ‘the Green Man’ as it is a common title of New Age materials, and perhaps not as literary as one would hope for a book about Holmes and Russell.
Perhaps a bit of a thought to ‘Robin Goodfellow’ or ‘Puck’ using the phrase ‘Goodfellow’s Dance’ which refers to being lost in the woods, or ‘Puck’s Tune’ which is what lures you into the woods to become lost.
A ‘Mask of Leaves’ would continue the Green Man theme, as well as the thought of spies and secrets. “The Spiral Path’ would conjure up an image of labyrinths and shadows, but might again lead back to New Age publications.
‘Dark Green Shadows’ might be too generic, as would a reference to a ‘Three-pipe Problem’.
Thank you, as this is a fun way to spend a moment with some sunshine and a morning cup of tea.
CapallGlas
I suppose The Language of Trees is just too close to the prior title for the publisher’s marketing department to swallow?
It could be nice since the story flows from The Language of Bees.
One last thought: I hope the suggestions inspire you, Laurie, but there’s a part of me hoping that you’ll still name it yourself. You could always award the prize to the person who inspired you the most.
I don’t know much about the plot, but the first thing that sprang to mind was “A Goodman is Hard to Find”….
Here are a few thoughts:
A Voice in the Wood
A Voice in the Forest
The Language of Leaves
The Speech of Leaves
Talking Leaves
Eyes in the Greenwood
Hidden in the Green
A Green Disguise
Spying in Green
The Green Spy
Cloaked in Green
Cloaked in Leaves
The Conundrum of the Homo Sapiens Viridis. Well, that’s layered, upmarket, and tantalizing, also requiring people to say “Huh?”
I thought about bees, nature, the Green Man, England, London and the Lake Districk (aka Lakeland). I thought about the fact that MREG’s name came from a quote, but that most of the books were not named that way. So here is my first attempt. There may or may not be a second! By the way, I tried to not read the other suggestions so as to not be swayed by them, so if I repeated another idea, I apologize in advance:
“Down in Green Pastures”
Source:
AUTHOR:Old Testament
QUOTATION:He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 1
ATTRIBUTION:Psalm xxiii. 2.
“The Memory Be Green”
Source:
AUTHOR:William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
QUOTATION:The memory be green.
ATTRIBUTION:Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2. [text]
“The Ends of the Earth”
Source:
AUTHOR:Old Testament
QUOTATION:The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.
ATTRIBUTION:Proverbs xvii. 24.
“The Greenest of Things”
Source:
AUTHOR: Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)
QUOTATION: Those eyes the greenest of things blue
The bluest of things grey.
“The Worker and the Drone”
“Collecting the Nectar”
“Nectar From the Drone”
“Of Foliage Dense”
“The Prankster of Lakeland”
–Marjorie
Deliverance of the drones…?
De-lurking to say *gah!* Merrily beat me to my idea, Art in the Blood. What about The Lonely Hive?
I loved loved loved The Language of Bees. Just wonderful. (Also, about pooped my pants when I got to ‘to be continued’.
Korina
PS I just noticed, in the very bottom of the left corner of this page, there’s a tiny smiley! 🙂
Maybe, hmmm…
The Green Knight…
I was quite taken by the connection between the green man and other wood spirit mythology – fauns and satyrs and the like.
Perhaps, the Green Faun, or The Voice of the Faun?
Thanks ever so much for the chance to throw spaghetti at your wall and see if anything sticks.
Chameleons
You know, it’s really most unfortunate that the words “tree(s)”, “leaves” and “green” all have that nasal, unpleasant “-ee” noise. “Green” in particular is a very ugly word.
Anyway, despite multiple brain-rackings, the only title I can come up with at present is Taking Dictation from Trees. More later in all likelihood.
The Watching Wood
Carved Spirit
Living Wood
Wood Watcher
The Silence of Wood
*I’m* having a good time. Research is right up my alley.
Is there a deadline for submission of a title? My apologies if you stated it and I just missed it.
Thank you,
Roxanne
I’m not creative, but here are my suggestions:
Into the Green
Secrets in the Green
Truth in the Green
Man and Myth
Man Behind the Myth
The Ties that Bind
Ancient History
Have you considered a play on the word “canopy”? Although it can mean a shelter or covering, in terms of trees, it also serves to obscure the ground or the sky depending on your point of view. I don’t know precisely what the story is about but considering the rest of the books, it could be a reference to be what can be seen or not seen through the canopy. Sorry for no concrete title, just that word came to mind.
Riffing off Strawberry Curl’s suggestion: To Tell the Hive or maybe: Go Tell the Hive
Since the phrase “The Language of Bees” was taken from Holmes’ book on bee culture, I wondered if something else from that book might be appropriate for the next title. That’s is where I got Hive Intellegence. Some suggestions:
The Way of the Hive
Loyalty to the Hive (taken from “A bee has no loyalty to the keeper, only to the hive”)
Bee Play
The Future is All
The Call Of The Future
Password of Identity
Since there will be much of Mycroft how about
“Omniscience”
Jack-in-the-Green
Green Jack
Tell the Bees
The Beekeeper’s Son
Spies in the Land
Flies in the Honey
Honeycombed
The Beekeeper’s Brother
Hive of Spies
Playing off some of the other suggestions:
The Hives That Bind
Face in the Leaves
The Mask
Green Magic
King of the May
Foliate Spies
Plants
Green Plants
Casing the Green
Woodwose Shadows
The Secrets of Vines
Family Trees
I have some utterly random, general ones that were floating ’round my brain and which probably won’t fit the story at all!
A Far and Rising Sound
The Remaining Unfortunates
Spies, Lies and Six Dead Innocents
The Resounding Cry of STOP
An Inkling as to Motive
The Bootlaces of a Madman
And my favorite (at least in this case), The Keyhole in the Oak Tree.
Gosh, this IS fun!
Hrm. I have to get the puns out of the way first:
The Russeling of the leaves
Sorry about that.
The Metamorphosis of Blossoming
Animal, Vegetable, Mystery
The Foliage Facade
The Wisdom of the Wandering
Hidden Ties
I’m sure they’ll be popping into my head all day!
If all else fails, click on this random title generator site. 😉
http://mdbenoit.com/rtg.htm
First, I like the title “The Green Man” But if we must change it…
The Foliate Head
A Verdant Riddle
An Assembling Hive
Acanthus Characters
Agents of(or for)the Hive
A Study in Green
Shades of Green
Green Agents
A Green Dialect
Verdant Vernacular
The Linguistics of Spies
Looking over the other suggestions- I really like Jan’s “Hive of Spies” and Leanne’s “The Green Interpreter” Good luck with the writing- a big fan!!
And:
“Doublespeak”
“Verdant Vernacular”
“Grammar of the Green Man”
“Conclave of the Hive”
–Marjorie
I think “The Tongues in Trees” might be an intriguing title, after this Shakespearean quote from “As You Like It”:
“Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from human haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
Titles are sooooo important to me. They are the first intro to anything and I am one of those people who always want the title to be intricately connected to the plot, characters and sub story. So how does one title a book before it is written? Working titles aside, there is something magic about a title, and despite my concerns that one can’t title something without reading the whole thing… here is my attempt at guessing what will be important in the novel formerly known as The Green Man.
Damien and Estelle will figure prominently, along with Mycroft (who will be furious at the lack of respect he was shown in the last installment). Family, then, seems to be a promising theme: how family is interwoven and interpreted in the greater context of Russell and Holmes and how their families are more chosen than natal, despite the blood links. So as I sit thinking about these ideas… I like the idea of Blood Relative, or Relativity, (an homage to the intelligent little boy, Levi, who died too young– though Einstein won’t have come up with his theory yet,) or Brothers in Arms, or Children of Art (Damien and Estelle, as well as the Holmes Brothers are all children of artists, and Russell’s mom was no slouch with her garden diary) , or the Artful Children, or Family Trees. Something along these lines would be interesting, as well as have some mystery around them. Rather than stick with Holmes references (bees) one could go with Russell references (Begats, if you will) or lineages.
However, I strongly urge you to tell your publisher, that you won’t get a ton new readers with this book, but you will certainly not be losing any either, especially after the cliffhanger from Bees. Tell them your public is going to read the book no matter what it is called (Language of Bees part II comes to mind!) The Green Man would have been perfectly fine with me and I am sure the rest of your readers. In other words, tell them not to worry. We read the novels you write because they are great novels, not because the titles necessarily jump out at us.
My suggestion for The Green Man:
Into the Gloaming
Would “Random Woods” work?
The Leaving Man
Green are the Leaves
A Leaf is a Terrible Thing to Waste (lame, I know)
Spies Like Us
The Spying Eye
Leaves and Grass (a take on Walt Whitman- Leaves of Grass)
My Leaving Spy
Of Bees and Leaves
Leave
Thanks for allowing participation! (“Long-time listener, first time caller.” [Gross Pointe Blank])
Kait B.,
I thought at one point that Laurie should name the new book “Be Continued”. That way when people read LANG, they would know where TO go next! To “Be Continued”! Silly of me, very silly.
–Marjorie
‘Watchful eyes’
This could refer to the ‘green man’ who looks down at us from buildings around the world.
Or to the way Mycroft is always in the backdrop looking over his brother.
Or to the spy work that Russell and Holmes will be doing.
Random off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions:
Child of Pan
Daughter of Pan
The Hunt for the Green Man
Verdant Whispers
The Mystery Within the Trees
The Green Masque
The Mark of the Green Man
Footprints Leading Nowhere: Chasing the Green Man
The Hunt for the Green Man Killer
The Green Man Mystery
The Face in the Woods
The Haunted Wood
Mystery Within the Green
The Green Man Murders
The Tree Man
and some silly ones:
Death by Ent
Attack of the Killer Shrubbery
The Tree That Ate Poor Alice
The Leaf Man Commeth
The Tree Man Stole My Baby
Marisa
Different Dieties
The one that popped into my mind instantly was “Leaves of Green”. Kinda lame, I know, but I really like “The Green Man”.
Tricks of the Mind
The Woodsman
Man of the Forest
Woodsman’s Riddles
Spies among the Trees
The Forest’s Secrets
A Study in Verdigris
Or possibly a play on the multiple meanings of the word sage…
The Sage Old Man
The Knowledge of the Sage
The Hive in the Hedge
The Spy in the Shrubbery
(ok, i was just having fun there 😉
The Bonding of Bees
Mycroft UnderCover
The Secrets of Bees
Suspicious Jaunt
Covert Trickster
The Invisible Ruse
The Epitome of Formidable Men
Suspicious Redemptions
Suspicious Spectators (as is the quiet green men in the trees/buildings)
keep the bee theme language maybe in some way… To Bee or Not?
or in text 2B r Not 2Bee, lol. or just 2Bee.
it could go on… Beeing and Becoming… or would that be Beecoming?
i liked The Green Man… sorry they didn’t like it.
Resurrection of Viridios
“DEO VRIDI SANCTO”
The first thing that jumped to my mind was….
A Green and Pleasant Land
…from the English hymn and Blake’s poem. It makes me think of the kind of sinister overtones to the hymn and the Children of Light in The Language of Bees, and all the different ways the title can be interpreted.
Or:
A Pagan Green
A Sylvan Hunt
The Agent in the Green
I’m new at this, but with Mary Russell being the primary focus, you should play on the word God but include her… such as “The Goddess and the Green”
How about…
“A Rogue in the Woods” or substitute any synonym for woods, such as “thicket”, “weald”, “copse”.
Weald and copse sound Holmes/Russell-ish to me.
“The Tree That Ate Poor Alice”
Marisa,is this a reference to the Alice in LANG? I hope not.
Alice
AKA the slut in LANG
I was on fire with curiousity by the title _The Green Man_ but I guess if it doesn’t cut it, we can help come up with some alternatives.
A Voice in the Trees
The Voice of the Trees
The Wispering Leaves
The Quiet of Wandering
I’m sure I’ll be thinking of them all day, but that’s all I got for now. 🙂
What about Into the Woods or In the Greenwood
Hello, Ms. King!
When I read your posting above regarding a new title for “The Green Man”, and you mentioned “a man living in the woods who is a bit of a trickster”, the first trickster who came to mind for me was the Norse god Loki.
While I don’t think “Loki” necessarily makes a more engaging title than “The Green Man”, I did a little research into literature involving Loki. In the old Norse poem “Lokasenna”, Loki decides to incite conflict amongst the gods with taunting, or as stated in the poem “mix their mead with malice.”
Mead is brewed from honey, so….
my title suggestion is “Mead and Malice.”
I’m excited to hear of the next book! Thank you for telling the tales!
Elizabeth
Eyes in the Distance
Traveling Eyes
The Nimble Brothers
Cryptic Eyes
Eyes that Mystify
Insidious Watching
Insidious Observations
The Less Scrupulous
Under Scrutiny
There’s always UNLEAVING, but the marketing people won’t like it either because it’s hard to spell.
I actually like THE GREEN MAN–nicely British, reminds one of pubs as well as fertility rituals. Leaving off “THE”, as somebody suggested above, or making it plural, GREEN MEN…
Cheers,
Sarah
You can send in more than one entry right? Here are more titles…
A Face in the Hive
Apis Mellifera Verdant
Colony of Spies
Three Drones
The Apiarist’s Brother
The Secret Colony
The Beekeeper’s Brother
A Green Interpretation
Leaves a spy
Beware the Idles of March
Wild Honey
Dark Colonies
Evolution of a Hive
A Face In The Crowd
Swarming Suspicion
A Deception in Camouflage.
Brother, brother, go find your brother.
A Brood of Wasps
The Paper Wasp
Mastery of Growan
Mastery of Mystery
Mastery of Hive
The compliment of Growan
Hive of Growan
Primary Color Hive
Restful to the Eye
The Door of Mastery
The Verdant Voyeur
The Face in the Trees
Eyes Under the Green Canopy
The Truth Seekers
Mycroft and the Case of the Green Man
What about “The Wearing of the Green” — as a play on words, referring to the Green Man, as well as acts of rebellion–if this involves spies?
Can’t wait to read it!
Several good ones above, including “Study in Verdigris.” It made me think, why not play on other canonical Holmes titles?
Example: “The Case of the Green Man”
“The Adventure of the Green Man”
“The Disappearance of the Green Man”
I like “The Green Man,” myself.
Words of Pan
Since I suspect the new book relies heavily on the action that’s happened in “Language,” how about a title that reflects the closeness of the books?
The Flight of Bees
or
Flight of Bees
Since you’ve mentioned that Mycroft will be vital to this story, it reminded me that one of my favorite ways you’ve continually described him as a “bookeeper” that keeps tracks of more than just pounds and yen. So several ideas that could play on that:
Settling Accounts
Unsettled Acounts
Balancing Accounts
Unbalanced Accounts
By now you’ve caught the pattern here :o)
To get more theatrical/literary, there’s the Puck/Green Man angle.
Restore(ing) Amends (‘and Robin shall restore amends’ or anything from that last soliloquoy in Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream)
Speak of the Devil (which is more of a sinister tone, but apparently was a way to call on Puck, who knew?)
In that same vein, apparently Puck comes from the word “unsettled” in many languages, which fits in interestingly.
Good luck with the book naming!
Phineas Woodman
The creativity from this readership just keeps amazing me. Can’t imagine how inspiring this could be for our AUTHOR!
I really like the idea of juxtapositioning Mycroft’s protecting British intrests through his intelligence organization – infiltrators beginning the attempt to destroy democracy and the building of a single new family who’s emotional well-being is, at this stage, so very fragile.
This new character – “the green man” a.k.a Robert Goodman (is he indeed?!) may be the unseen – perhaps barely seen – protecting presence that both assists Mycroft (and probably Holmes too) in some mysterious way while somehow safeguarding Estelle and Mary or perhaps Damian…
I suspect that’s why the original title was The Green Man – Goodman is somehow the unseen benevolent champion (as in the chivalric code) of this episode. Perhaps a play on Goodman’s role or his name might be the way to go. (Though add me to the list of those who liked ‘The Green Man’ in the first place.)
The word “good” has numerous listings in any thesaurus. Robert the Bruce is definitely a, if not the foremost Scottish champion so any link between he and Robert Goodman might be something you wish to encourage.
Robert the Bruce and the Spider is a well known tale. We might be drifting away from Bees but Spiders are rather beloved in literature and may be an image to weave into this title… Just think what delicious webs are to be woven!
Have fun Laurie!
(Not sure which is the lesser headache… not thinking up a good title or having hundreds of suggestions for that title. At least the suggestion list has humor included! And at best may be very inspirational! 🙂
A touch of emerald madness
The Secret of the Green Man
The Green Man’s Secret
Wow. What with all the summer term duties, I have been so busy I haven’t checked your blog or the forum for quite a while. Now I finally remember surfing by – and this is the first item that somes up. Brilliant …
How about;
The Good Man
Hard Choices
Deceits and Other Lies
Broken Holmes
Fool Me Once
Sub Rosa
False Face
The Foliage Labyrinth
Family Foliage
Leaves of Consequence
Breath in the Thicket
Underwood Refuge
Prophesy unto the Wood
Prophesy against the Forest (Hes 20,46)
Which lives by itself in a forest (Micha 7,14)
Counted for a forest (Jes 32,15)
A fire in the forest (Jer 21,14)
Kindle the forest
A leafy track
Sylvan honey
The Trickster Eremite
The Viridian Jester
The Dark Wood (thanks to Dante!)
Hunters in the Green Wild
The Cernunnos Conundrum
In homage to the spy stories of Eric Ambler – Green for Danger
Eyes of Deception
Through the Spyglass
Eyes Undercover
Men of Deceit
Not to be Deceived
Random thoughts and trying to link the title back to LANG
The Rise of the Colony
The Birth of the Colony (I suppose this could be the bees and the Holmes family…I dunno)
The Birth of the Hive or The Rise of the Hive
Art in the Blood (Hey its worth a try! Plus I suspect they’ll be much of it in this novel)
More later…
Oh and if we want deception:
The Deception of the Drones…
Protectors of the Hive
The Shrewd Guardian
Guardian of the Innocent
Guardian in Disguise
The Tongue of Trees
Operative Odin
Operation Odin
Watching Woden
Lots about Mycroft, so how about:
My Keeper’s Brother
or
The Keeper’s Brother
What the Green Man Saw
The Eyes of the Green
Soul of the Green Man
The Woods Have Eyes…
Don’t know really, that is what popped into my mind when i first saw the wikipedia page about the Green Man. The eyes just stood out, and since you mentioned spies…
An Agent of Bad Fortune
The Intelligencer and The Charlatan (a spy and a trickster)
The Intelligencer’s Confidence (A spy’s secret or confession)
The Furtive Wood
A Colony of Agents
A/The Grove of Intrigue
Perhaps . . .
Verdant Secrets
I thought of one more . .
Blind Man’s Bluff
Rustling Leaves
Since it has a lot of Mycroft, how about Brother’s Keeper?
I go out of town for a little, and look what happens! How about that — 142 responses, an all time record, yes? Some nifty ones, too.
Actually, I quite liked THE GREEN MAN. The good John Lescroart said that of his 14 books, he only gave titles to 6 of them (but gee whiz).
Not too many thoughts so far:
The Man in the Tree
Oak and Ash and Thorn (that’s swiped from Kipling, actually)
I’m going to stick up some key words on my mirror and see if my unconscious comes up with something else. best//Meredith
Anyone else feeling bad for LRK, because she has to decide and weed amongst our ever-growing list of comments?
And kudos to everyone’s creativity!!! (I’m still pulling for mine, but I love reading everyone else’s!!!!)
🙂
My contribution 🙂
The Renaissance of the Soul
Rebirth
The Father of Nature
The Coming of Days
And there you go! 🙂
The first thing that leapt to my mind on reading your post was the title:
A Supposition Of Bees
Though I cannot say why, or if it’s entirely appropriate either. But there you go, that’s my offering.
As someone who has difficulties coming up with titles for my own humble writings, I truly appreciate how difficult it is for your good self. My editor nearly blew a gasket when she read the working title for my next SF novel: ‘Come The Inquisitor’. I’m almost sure someone is going to suggest I change that one. *grin*
Wow, lots of great ideas here! Count me in as liking the original title. The Green Man is short and sweet and fits with other titles in the series: O Jerusalem, Justice Hall, The Game, and Locked Rooms.
But of course, I have a couple of ideas, which someone may already have suggested. I’ve kind of lost count.
Brother’s Keeper – I like John’s suggestions concerning Mycroft, but this way the title could be taken to be about Russell and Holmes protecting/helping Mycroft or the other way around, or both at the same time!
For a different type of play on words – Hide and Keep
The Dancing Bee
Bees communicate the distance and direction of a food source through a complex code of dance movements. Like a spy network, they communicate in a way that others can not decode.
Eyes Between the Leaves
The Hidden Green
A spy in the Hive
portrait in green, growan man, or woodsman.
I’m staying away from all things relating to trees, woods, bees etc as they seem to have been covered. I did have another suggestion – “Circles,” as we’ve already seen the stone circles, and we have the circle of Holmes’s life, and of his son and grandchild.
I hope someone is keeping track of these for our Esteemed Founder!
The Hubris of the Bees
The Hubris of Men
Honeybees and Hubris
Monumental Hubris
I seem to be stuck here so I’ll go away now. 😉
I’ve tried to read all the previous ideas so as not to repeat, but I don’t trust my unconscious not to grab an earlier one! with that note:
Shadow Masters
Queen of Shadows
King of Shadows (one of my fav Shakespeare lines “Believe me, King of Shadows, I mistook!”
Flights, Shadows
Watcher
A Pattern in the Leaves / The Pattern of Leaves
The Eloquence of Trees/Leaves
The Syntax of Trees
The Watcher in the Woods (or Watchers in the Woods)
The Shadows of Branches
Whispers in the Woods/Forest
Murmurs in the Trees
Peering through Leaves
Viridian Eyes
The Viridian Man (I’m a Latin teacher–I have to get those Latinate words in!)
Subterfuge in Green
The Subtlety of Pan
This is fun!! 🙂
” To quote: It doesn’t have the layered nuance of The Language of Bees. It doesn’t seem either upmarket or suspenseful. It’s not tantalizing.”
Obviously not enough “Green Man” pubs – or for that matter “real pubs” in NY (taverns and bars don’t count)… and “not tantalizing”? Guess it could be confused with little green men and the SF genre… As far as “upmarket” goes maybe the title should not depend too heavily on the cover artist… Or “suspenseful”; well 168 comments so far have me on the edge of my seat… ?
“…and I’ll tell you that it’s about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft (lots about Mycroft) and spies (spies are important) and the Green Man—aka Robert Goodman—and Damian and Estelle from The Language of Bees and boats and planes and trains and cars and…”
(Sorry if I’m repeating someone…)
Espionage and Expeditions
Unseen Champion (or “Guardian”)
Guardian in the Green
Glimmer Beyond the Web (or Hive or Comb)
Patterns of / in the Honeycomb (or just “Comb”)
Gadzooks! He’s Green
The Green Man Cometh
Deviltry in the Forest
Red Hands Green Man
Beginnings Threatened
Now let’s see… in 1925 Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) announced he was taking dictatorial powers over Italy…
T. S. Eliot wrote “The Hollow Men” which ends:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Maybe…
Unseen Endings
Unseen Entrapments, Unseen Endings
Monsters Overt and Covert
(Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf while in jail in 1925)
Monsters, Madness and Looming Wars
Silent Wars, Silent Sentinel
If Leaves Could Talk
Swarming Hordes, Coming Battles
Enough for now… 🙂
The Poetry of Espionage
Spying Out the Land
The Concervative Bohemian
Well, heck, make that The Conservative Bohemian.
He found him in a desert land (Deut 32,10)
Thorns of the Wilderness
Pastures of the Wilderness
The Kernel of the Trunks
(…trying hard – and failing – not to think of: Goethe’s Faust: “So this, then, was the kernel of the brute!”)
“Selective Weeding”
>Selective weeding is for those areas where you desire selective elimination of vegitation. The
desired effect is to allow more managable plants to dominate the treated area.>
Not knowing the plot of a novel makes finding a title a difficult task. Feels like shooting in the dark. But then my mother used to say: “Where one cannot see, one must not be ashamed to touch.”
“Shrubbery Vision”
Low the Whispering Woods
The Green Blade (from the hymn, “now the green blade riseth”)
A Green Shade (“annihilating all that’s made/ to a green thought in a green shade”)
The Green Wheat (“wheat that springeth green”)
You could also play with ideas of mythical forests from the Middle Ages, like Avernus, Arden, Sherwood, Broceliande… Merlin was caught in a tree once, by a sorceress named Vivian. (Nice symbolism for the villain and Russell: power trapped by a more-powerful woman.) The Tree Tomb or The World Tree would be a good title.
There’s also the Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Charity. And the Cross was sometimes called the Tree. Green Fruit of the (Poison) Tree? or how about Nectar from the Tree of Life? (Okay, that’s probably going a bit too far, but at least it’s bee-related.)
I can’t wait for the next one. I’ve been a Laurie King fan since 1995, and you just keep getting better. Thanks for all you do.
The Intelligence of Trees
The Forest Primeval
Of Intelligence Primeval
Rime of the Ancient Woodland
Whatever Remains (or What Remains)
The Queerest of Men
Living by His Wits
More Chestnuts… 🙂
Forest Coverings
Of Spies and Foliage
Spies in the Woods
Threatened (or Imperiled) Lives
Deep Cover Forest Glimpses
Of Spies and Threatened Lives
Did the Nightingale Sing?
Who Heard the Bird(s) (giggles)
Song of the Woods
Songs in the Forest
Cacophony and Chaos
Dissonance and Fragile Lives
Peripatetic Espionage
Lucifer Disguised
Possibilities of War
War Looming, Branches Enclosing
… if punts are used… (I know they are not on your “transportation list” but they are so attractive… conjuring up such romantic images… though are on the slow side for escaping…)
Poling and Deep Cover
Poling through Woods (or Forest) Grim
Jewels and Dross: Punt Through Forests Dark
Ah, I really have to get to RL now… and this is so addicting – so FUN (comparatively)!
🙂
While I still like ‘The Sagest of Men’, I reread this:
“The book follows immediately on the heels of The Language of Bees, chronologically and thematically. If the titles link, all the better, but it’s not a deal breaker if they don’t.”
and thought that if “The Language of Bees” was the first title, then the subsequent book should obviously be
“…And What They Heard.”
Happy reading.
So, a couple more: If it’s about spies, then something to do with Joshua?
Joshua’s Brothers
Joshua’s Hive
Of course there’s always “The Curious Incident” or has someone already published that one?
I’ve been thinking some more on this subject:
Smoking the hive ( connection to bees and smoking out spies!)
The Sweet Assault (from “The Bee” by Emily Dickinson)
An ear for furious Latin (from “The arrival of the Bee Box” by Sylvia Plath.)
I am so looking forward to seeing the winning entry!
Tree’s a crowd
The Root of all Evil
Can’t see the Forest
Cause of the Trees
is he grouchy??then how about “Forest Grump”
Ok..I am quite through
Mondegreen???
Sorry, I just couldn’t resist…
More musings for your spreadsheet:
(oh if only you do fine a gleam of gold amidst this huge pile of slag…)
All Covered in the Western Wood
The Old Man in the Woods (or Forest or Grove or Copse or whatever…)
Traps Snap – Thunder Claps
Creeping Softly o’re the Green Wood (maybe “from the Green…)
Mysterious Rustlings, Watching Woods
Softly Creeps the Green
Softly in Green He Comes
Disguise and Recognition
(Really Laurie; if you can read through these without pulling hair out then it’s only because you must be laughing madly…)
Chasing Bees, Ducking Swarms
Rising Thunder
The Family Holmes
Diary of Coming Madness
Journal From the Eye of the Storm
Conversations from the Hives
Of Men and Furies
What the Green Man Saw
(I really did like “The Green Man” but what does this side of the continent know…)
Journey to the End of the Wood (or Forest)
Unearthing Swarms
Leave it in the Woods
The Brothers Holmes
The Brothers Holmes; Savta Mary
(Not a clue… that’s really not a title but a state of mind…)
Clues in the Deep Wood
Sight in on the Bees
Metamorphosis in Green
The Metamorphosis of the Hidden
(Hope you don’t put all these suggestions on Post-Its, stick them up on the nearest fence and fire darts (or guns (paint?), or bombs (water of course) or whatever is handy) at them… Might be good therapy though…)
Midnight’s Woods
Darkness Begins
After Dark; Hidden Sentinel
Double Deception (or Triple or whatever number is needed)
probably better as: Deception Doubled (or Tripled or whatever…)
Holmes on the Home Front
Formidable Fraternity
Ok, Ok; enough… I give up. For now. There are two and a half days left… hehehe 🙂
Woven in Green Garb
Sleeping Woods, Slumbering Spies
The Greening of England
Good and Grief in Green (or Good, Grief, and Green)
Catching Green Shadows
Giving Up the Green
hehehe; and you thought we were out of preposterous ideas…
If The Bees Could Talk Would We Listen
If We Could Hear the Bees
Convoluted Conundrums in Green
Give it Up for the Green Man
I’ve always liked “Emma Lathen: titles… (what a pair!) so maybe:
Going for the Green
Green Grow the Spies
Murder Within Woods
Spies and Rising Sap
Death Against The Grain
Woody Mayhem
Green Grows the Forest (or Woods)
Murder on the Go
Ok, Ok, no outright appropriations allowed…
Leaving the Green
Wearing Green
The Wearing of the Green
If Leaves Were Green
When the Green Woods Beckon
If Only He Were Green
Overwhelmed by the Green
Art In Green
Green Art, Green Lives
had enough yet? hehehe; there’s still time to conjure more farcical flights of fantasy… 🙂
Wooden Tongues
Shadowed Green
The Cunning Man’s Pursuit
Final try.
In The Shadow Of The Stones
Green Dreams, Grey Deeds
(or Black Deeds / or Black Acts – well you get the idea…)
Dreaming in Green Shades
Gracious Me! I’m Sure He Was Green
Green Games
The Great Game; Shades of Green (or Shades of Green: Playing the Great Game)
Shadows in the Forest: Playing The Great Game
Green Glimpses
Green Lenses
Ms. King, Ms. King; Are You Sure He Was Green
(foolish grin… and ready to duck when you throw your computer at me… :))
The Great Game: The Green Man
(or The Green Man Plays the Great Game)
If The Green Man Talked
As Told By The Green Man
Speech in the Green Woods
Hidden Green in Plain View
(Are you sure you want to give us until MONDAY to keep this up?!?!?!)
O, Green Man
The Peaceable Green
The Green Man: Nemesis On Guard
Nemesis: Guardian in Green
(Hope you are “vacationing” away from this website for the weekend – battiness on this side of the page is enough don’t you think?)
Jumping Jehoshaphat! Don’t Just Stand There, Mr. Green!
If Green Were My Thing I’d Drink Deeply of the Woods
Did You See What The Green Man Saw
Seeing Red, Being Green
Red Hands, Green Man
(You do know that English now has 1,000,000 words listed in the dictionary…. we’ve barely begun to tap the possibilities… and so far repeated words is pretty astronomical…)
The Green Avenger: The Great Game
The Great Game: Green Revenge
The Forest Apart
Green Man: Forest Screen (or Forest Screams)
(Wasn’t there a contest for recently “worst title”? Or was that “worst opening paragraph”?…)
Deep Cover, Green Camouflage, Dark Stirrings
Refuge in the Forest (or Woods)
The Green Thing Makes Me Scream
If Greatness Was Green
The Greatness of the Green Man
Sacrifices, Subterfuge and Sabotage: Art in the Great Game
(LRK humming under her breath: “…just a few more hours.
That’s all the time you’ve got. A few more hours…”)
🙂
The Greening of the Hive
Greening can mean rejuvenation, contrasting the lost swarming hive in The Language of Bees with Holmes’ attempts to restore the hive and everything it symbolizes. Greening also allows for the significance of the Green Man’s influence for good or ill.
The Forest and the Trees
Honey from the Rock
Had to contribute!
• The Language of Birds
(A sequel to The Language of Bees. ‘The Language of Birds’ in Norse mythology means a sign of great wisdom)
• Blood and Deception
• The shadow of Green Man
Yggdrasil
Mímir’s Well
Green Desert
The Green Chapel
I really did edit it down a bit — here’s the short list:
The Tree Oracle (another of the Green Man’s traditional names)
The Green Oracle
Gathering the Hive Song
The Honey Thieves
Ear to the Hive
The Message Keepers
Circling the Hive
The Green Jest
In the Trees, Listeners
Just when I thought I was done:
A Trick of the Light
I wonder whether Laurie will feature Goodman as a merry force of nature, or as an irresistible force for turmoil. In fact, he’s the complete opposite of Mycroft.
Green Gods
The God of the Woods
The God in the Woods
The Family of Man
The Glade
Falling Leaves
The Turning Leaves
so far, that’s it……
I’ll give it a shot.
To Catch a Spy in the Woods
The Eyes in the Woods
The Emerald Spy Theory
Creeping Among Emeralds
The Act of Viridescence
A Viridescent Voice
Wreathed in Ivy
To Spy on Emerald Voices
Viridescent Jack
The Viridescent Nature of Barleycorn
Outwitting the Beekeeper’s Brother
It Takes Spies and Green Men
Spying Over Emerald Woods
Spying Over Jaded Woods
The Voice in Fallen Leaves
I’d call that plenty.
Pagan’s Passage
The Path to Enlightenment
Good luck selecting from all these wonderfully creative entries!
Many Kinds of Madness
Swarming Into the Green
Grey Eyes, Green Man
Absolute last – yes I mean it – the very last post in this section… (well almost the last…
No! I mean it, the absolute last…
Honeyed Conversations
(or Honied) – depends on what spelling Russell likes…
Honeyed Conversations, Hidden Doings (or Actions or Deeds or Spies or…)
Forest Subtleties; Honeyed Conversations
A Bite of Honey While Danger Lurks
(Mmmmm; a moment while I become “un-sticky” (unstuck?) again… now there’s a thought!
Sticky Subterfuge (or Circumstances or Ends or Spies or…)
Sticky Situa… naaaahhh been done… Wickets? Well maybe Sticky Wickets; Sticky Ends
Sticky Pitch: Forest Coverings
(For goodness sakes… get off of “cricket” – that was Lord Peter, not Holmes… Holmes punted; and I don’t mean American Football either…) (Ok… then…)
Rustling Forests; Storm Warnings
Rustling Forest: Holmes Front (NOOOO!)
The ABCs of Spying and Escaping (giggle)
Red Herrings and Bees
If the Five Red Herrings Spoke the Language of Bees (grin)
Timetables, Tickets and Trickery in Green
(…well there was a 1923 edition of an ABC in that trunk…)
Dance Craze; Danger Haze
Shimmy or Tango; It’s the Bees Knees
Of Men, Maps and Motors
Searching Men; Engaging Motors
Bees in the Trees and What the Green Man Heard
(I really am running out of… No! Wait…)
Terror, Tangos and Travel
Trains, Planes, Spies and Lies
Ain’t We Got Fun? Yes! We have No Bananas: Using Popular Culture as Codes, Distractions and Misdirections / a Handbook for All Really Good Spies Between 1918 and 19…
Green Cheese and the Green Man
(Ok Ok, I just threw in the cheese but then Campbelltown had a great dairy that makes really good cheese and Clan Campbell – well they are (or certainly were) very fierce warriors – Campbells make up a large part of many present day Scottish Highland units – their clan Black Watch tartan is used even now by the Royal Regiment of Scotland and other military units…) If Russell is “hidden in the depths of Scotland” she may need a bit of Argyll protection – not to mention sustenance…)
Chestnuts, Cheese and Chasing Illusions
(or there is Wummle, a soft mould ripened cheese which is wrapped in a green rind, from Torphins up near Aberdeen…)
Guises and Names: the Green Man and Royal Concerns
Goodman; The Green Man Unveiled
(Might be fun to read about the “King of Kippen” and his visitor the “Guidman o’ Ballengeich”… so just how did Robert Goodman get his name? – both names have strong royal connections… not to mention that the Windsors only had their new name since 1917…)
Green Guises; Guessing Games
Swarms, Gaggles and Green (I said “gaggles”, not “giggles”…)
Grateful for the Green
You’ve GOT to have enough ideas by now! Right?!?!?!? Pass the cheese boys and fill up my glass.; I can’t stand any more… besides, there are some very good suggestions in these comments that didn’t come from me…
And heard in the distance… “So long, farewell
Auf Weidersehen, goodnight. I hate to go and leave this pretty sight… yeah, yeah, I’m getting to the “champagne…”
🙂
I like the bit at the end of the Wiki page, where the Green Man in Sanskrit is also known as ‘The Face Of Glory.’ I also like ‘A Council Of Leaves’ and, depending on the timing of the story (I don’t remember when exactly ALOB ends) ‘May Day’ and ‘Lord of the May.’
Apologies if this has been done:
Woden’s Labyrinth
I still fancy Art in the Blood…yeah yeah…call me a purist ;)..
BTW, I love what you’ve done with Mycroft! If I think of something else, I’ll send it along.
I tried to cover a few of the categories mentioned above. Hope these help you!
Wild Hunt (which is sometimes said to be led by Woden)
Silent Forest
Balance of Nature
Fraternal Blood (in case the relationship between Holmes and Mycroft is tested)
Honeyed Thorns
Grove of Lies
Lunar Madness (tying into Damian’s pseudonym as The Addler, his moonscapes, Estelle’s name, and Brothers’s madness)
Here is my suggestions:
House of Leaves
The Old Ways
The Stone Man
The Demon and the Man
Okay, I’m out for now.
S
Ladies and gentlemen, Donna has lost her mind. There will be no search party, and refreshments and dancing will be held in the ballroom at a completely unreasonable hour. Kindly update your schedules.
Anyway, I thought of a few more, just for the sake of the sacred Last Minute, and any potential lameness and/or silliness will not kill anyone! Here they are:
One Mossy Deathbed
The Painted Corpse
Breaking the Sky
The Forest Made of Keys
A Most Regrettable Lack of Scruples
The Right Way to Undo Things
Heartwood
Oh, and Setting Fire to Flappers, just for fun.
Nothing but an old cave. [this is part of a line in the Green Knight tale; upgraded to modern English]
Voice in the Dark.
All I’m able to think of is
Voices in the Leaves
— which doesn’t quite get at the “murmuring of innumerable bees” feel I’d want to try for, but still sounds mysterious.
I like the following:
I Spy Three Simple Eyes
The Green Man and Ultraviolet Sight
The Multifaceted Green Man
Ruby J Whatsherfac: You’re quite right… apologies…shuffles toward reformatory… wistfully listening to sound of loud party in distance… Sighs and picks up copy of LANG to reread… 🙂
I liked The Green Man. I don’t find anything yawn about it. Makes me think of The Third Man, The Thin Man, and The Green Knight.
If this book ties up the story in The Language of Bees, it will probably have more about Damian Adler and his daughter, Estelle. Therefore I would suggest that this book be titled The Painter and His Daughter, although this does not seem to fit with what Ms. King has previously mentioned. Perhaps another reasonable place to look for a title would be in the passage of The Language of Bees where it discusses Woden and the Green Man.
(The )Woodwose
(The )Foliate Head
Either with or without the ‘the’s if that’s not obvious.
Trees and Deities
Men of Acanthus and Clover
The Curious Incident of the Tree in the Forest (lol)
Just a few ideas. Best of luck, Ms. King, naming a baby is a daunting task!
Dominion
The Cunning
Watchword
The Semantics of Trees
The Canon of Spies
Dominion of Trees
More suggestions:
The Good Man
The Family
The Spy Master
For God and Country
The Detective’s Brother
The Woodsman (I think someone already suggested that).
Okay, hope that helps….
Cheers
S
Oh…and if it is a lead on from the Language of Bees…how about the Language of Leaves 🙂
S
Cultivating Designs
A Cultivating Design
A Culture of Intrigue
AAAH! There’s another Sara?!?!? We must talk!
Ok here are my contributions
A Time of Leaves
A Time of Greening
The Life of Leaves
The Underside of Leaves
Good Traveling
Resurrection Path
Cedars in the Wilderness (this whole thing just seemed to cry out for something Biblical – this is from Isaiah 41:19 in the TANAKH since Russell is Jewish.)
I can’t wait to hear what you pick and to read the book!
Gail
This should be fun 🙂 Here are my ideas:
Green Speech
Green Speaking
(The) Tangled Wood
I may come up with more later. Do you know yet what part of 2010 it’ll be coming out in?
So, I’ve been in the studio all day, and colorful images of trees and leaves have permeated my most recent works.
Vermilion Leaves
Emerald Paths
Green Invitation
Grey Shadowed Paths
A Dark and Shadowed Path
Oak Shadows
Just an evening thought or two over tea and honey.
CapallGlas
Greenman makes me think of greenmantle by John buchan…or of course of the old greenman that is so fashionable right now with new age.
What about … The voice of the forest