Rant: Retitling

I don't know who decided books needed titles, but it's become a tradition. The problems start when books have more than one title. Sometimes this happens because publishers are retarded: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone became Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in America because the US publisher was afraid the American public would confuse it with a philosophy textbook. David Brin's Kil'n People became Kiln People in America because, well, the publisher thought the American public was too stupid to understand the double meaning in the British title. (Do you see the pattern?)

And how shall we explain that Alfred Bester's Tyger, Tyger became The Stars My Destination, or how Fred Pohl's Demon in the Skull was renamed A Plague of Pythons? Can we stick with just one name, please? Is that too much to ask?

The most egregious renaming error may have been committed by the Vance Integral Project. When they republished his masterpiece The Dying Earth, they decided to call it Mazirian the Magician. Mazirian the Magician!? Are you kidding me? The Dying Earth is a perfect title. It perfectly evokes the sense of grand decay that permeates the book. But Mazirian the Magician sounds like a crummy second-rate piece of fantasy garbage.

The Reader of Books commands: No book shall have more than one title. Ever. Especially if the second title is stupid.