Thursday, June 26, 2003

Distant Earl-y Warning

Having a girlfriend sure keeps you busy! But not busy enough to dissuade me from accepting yet another writing assignment: the “Small Scout Ships” book for the Traveler roleplaying game. That should get me some more geek points! My friend Colin Dunn has been writing a number of supplements for Traveler and Jovian Chronicles, and he was kind enough to foist this on off on – I mean, to give me the opportunity to put my own spin on this particular SF universe. Cool! I’m writing fiction – for MONEY!

Not much money, and it is a game supplement, not a novel, but still…

A strange idea popped into my head a few weeks back: what if I were to take some old science fiction novels and movies with “Earth” in the title and replace “Earth” with “Earl?” What kind of stories would result?

Well, I discovered that if I actually wrote the stories, I could actually construct a far-reaching narrative – dare I say, an epic? Check out this list of novels in the life of a mythical Earl, arranged in chronological order:

The “Day” novels (AKA the Earl-y Years):
When the Earl Was Young
The Day the Earl Stood Still
The Day the Earl Caught Fire
The Day the Earl Got Stoned
The Day It Came to Earl
The Day the Earl Moved
The Long Afternoon of Earl
When the Earl Tilted

The “Anatomy of Earl” series, comprising the novels:
Bones of the Earl
The Brains of Earl
The Monster from Earl’s End
Earl Made of Glass
Earl’s Oddities
Worms of the Earl
Terraforming Earl

The “Earl Enslaved” series, comprising the novels:
Earl Enslaved
The Stubbornest Broad on Earl
Subjugating the Earl
Dibs on Earl
Earl Can Be Fun
The Last Man on Earl
…And the Earl Did Not Swallow Him
The Man Who Fell to Earl
The Greatest Show on Earl
Earl Girls Are Easy
Twixt Heaven and Earl

Inside Earl:
The Hollow Earl
Cave Pirates of the Hollow Earl
At the Earl’s Core
Tarzan at the Earl’s Core
Maureen Birnbaum at the Earl’s Core

The Swashbuckling Years:
Earl, the Marauder
Earl vs. the Spider
Report on the Recent Outbreak of Entertainment from Earl
The Menace from Earl

Emperor Earl:
Imperial Earl
The Empress of Earl
Representative of Earl
Foundation & Earl
The Dalek Invasion of Earl
Galactica Discovers Earl
The Little Green Men Send an Ambassador to Earl
Prisoners of Earl
The Shrines of Earl
Exiled from Earl

Earl’s Offspring:
The Naked Earl
Before Earl Came
Earl Comes
Earlseed
Earlborn
Farewell, Earl’s Bliss
A Child of Earl and Hell
A Child of Earl and Starry Heaven
Daughters of Earl
Inherit the Earl
The Girls from Earl

“The Madness of Emperor Earl,”
An Earl Gone Mad
Cursed Earl Asylum
A Paradigm of Earl
This Island Earl
The Rise and Fall of Earl

Earl on Trial:
The Defendant Earl
The Case for Earl
I Speak for Earl

The Clone Wars:
Earl 2
The Fourteenth Earl
Earl Eighteen
Earl’s Other Shadow

Earl Under Attack:
Target…Earl?
Tom Swift and His Atomic Earl Blaster
Earl vs. the Flying Saucers
Invasion: Earl
The Day Mars Invaded Earl
Battlefield Earl
Suicide Ship to Earl
Earl Factor X
The Man Who Stopped the Earl
The Earl in Peril
Earl Needs a Killer
Retreat from Earl
The Ship That Saved the Earl
Invaders from Earl

The Twilight Years:
Pilgrimage to Earl
But What of Earl?
Ecce and Old Earl
Dawn for a Distant Earl
The Songs of Distant Earl
The Legend That Was Earl
Earl Abides

The Death and Resurrection of Earl:
Assignment: Earl
The Last Days of (Parallel?) Earl
The Earl Killers
The Destruction and Exculpation of Earl
The Man Who Killed the Earl
Earl on Fire
The Dying Earl
The Earl Dies Screaming
How Death Came to Earl
Exit Earl
The Late Great Planet Earl
When the Earl Grew Cold
Cold the Stars Are, Cold the Earl
Requiem for Earl
Soliloquy at the Tomb of Earl
Lest We Forget Thee, Earl
When the Earl Lived
The Spirit of Earl
The Man Who Saved the Earl
The Earl Doth Like a Snake Renew
The Earl is on the Mend

The Search for Earl
Earl Does Not Reply
The Quiet Earl
The Earl is Missing
Echoes of Earl
Earlsong
20 Million Miles to Earl
Five Million Years to Earl
Northwest of Earl
One Step from Earl
The Far Ends of Time and Earl

Earl’s Return
Earlbound
The Bridge to Earl
The Earl Gods are Coming
Earlblood
Earl in Transit
Earl Triumphant

Of course, there would be television spin-offs, including From the Earl to the Moon, Gene Roddenberry’s Planet Earl, and Gene Roddenberry’s Earl: Final Conflict.

Collectively, this massive work shall be known as The Earliad.

Oh, come on. You know you’d buy at least a couple of books in the series…

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