In case you missed the jumble of words on the covers of Synchronicity and Demergence, my science fiction/fantasy series is currently titled “Social Science Icons & Grace”. It reflects some of the key characters, namely Dr. C.G. (aka Carl) Jung as the social science icon and God conferring the grace. Logical but dumb, I’ve decided.
What the series name doesn’t do is reflect the genre particularly well, which is its own challenge. The genre name I’m going to adopt now and forevermore is science fantasy, though there’s not universal agreement in the author community on how to categorize books like mine. Some just say science fiction, others fantasy, still others “soft” science fiction and possibly literary fantasy. What makes it science fantasy? Star Wars, which I mentioned in my last post, is a great example of science fantasy. It’s science fiction because it takes place in space, has aliens, etc. It’s fantasy because of the existence of the force. It doesn’t fit perfectly into either the science fiction or fantasy genres, hence, science fantasy.
My series is science fiction because of the psychology, parallel universes and colonization story. It’s fantasy because of God, the afterlife, and the Skinwalker (among a couple others). It could be “soft” science fiction because even the supernatural elements have a science-y feel to them, unlike if I’d gone full paranormal with a plot of sparkly vampires cavorting with werewolves and humans. For example, if there is a God shepherding souls from one plane of existence to another, is it too much of a stretch to think there’s a “supernatural” creature capable of taking advantage of that mechanism to steal the discarded containers? I know hard sci-fi folks would complain about a multiverse with a God in it, but almost 85% of the world population is religious, so I wanted to build a world reflecting that.
Back to the point… a series name with the words icons and grace doesn’t come across as belonging in the science fantasy genre. For a while now, I’d been playing with shortening it to “Science Icons & Grace” (better) or just “Icons & Grace” (worse), but nothing seemed right. Then I had a brief thought that if Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie can be made better by mashing up their names and producing Brangelina (marriage and mashup RIP), could I do the same with my series name? And could a mashup make the series name seem more science fantasy and less religious manual? I think so!
Introducing the new series title: “Psycons & Grace”.
While it still has the word grace in it, that word is absolutely overpowered by the mashup psycons, which is distinctly science fiction/fantasy. And what is that mashup? Psychology + icons = psycons.
Admittedly, I wasn’t (and still am not) sure of this mashup. I had to ask my writer relative (wrelative?) about it and she confirmed that yes, she thought it was great and no, she wasn’t lying to me. So if this series title bombs, I can now blame her. Yay.
Once the covers are complete, the execution work begins. Both Synchronicity and Demergence will have a new look and title, new book descriptions, and improved front/back matter. Then, when the pre-order for Alchemy goes live, I’ll fully update the Amazon series page for “Psycons & Grace.”