Verber Books

[Georgeanna Abson]

Bernard Werber (born 18 September 1961 in Toulouse) is a French science fiction writer, active since the 1990s. He is chiefly recognized for having written the trilogy Les Fourmis, the only one of his novels to have been published in English. This series weaves together philosophy, spirituality, science fiction, thriller, science, mythology and consciousness.

Werber's books anthropomorphize animals including dolphins, rats and ants. He also uses characters symbolically to reflect "the stage of the evolution of the soul". In addition, he defends the vision of a collectivist global government that acts as the "world police" and that imposes strict birth control.[1][2][3]

Amandine is a journalist, working for a video game magazine. One day, she gets fired, finds her boyfriend with another woman, and contemplates suicide. She finds a mysterious website, advocating an underground group named Exit, which advocates a kind of murder game: By killingsomeone who wishes to die, another member will try to kill you.

Of course he would have been delighted that his words had reached a British prime minister and a president of the United States, but neither Churchill nor Roosevelt was his prime intended audience. The people he wanted to warn were his fellow Jews.

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So, you're a Filmmaker. You're sitting down with a Scriptwriter between the Watercooler and the Coffeemaker, trying to decide on a name for your epic story about a guy who verbs nouns. Yeah, he verbs them till they're adjectives. Wait, that's it! He's the Noun Verber!

This isn't a very popular trope for the actual titles of movies or TV shows, but it's an old standby for fantasy and science fiction authors who need a name that sounds detached from the real world and yet is immediately understandable. For some reason, a very common verb for this is "stalk." The most common noun is probably "death."

Compare Luke Nounverber (when the same principle is applied to character names), Verber Creature (the same principle applied to how a species is called) and The Noun Who Verbed. Adjective Noun Fred could be considered the intersection of this trope and Protagonist Title. See also We Will Use WikiWords in the Future. A common part of a Verbal Business Card.

Comic Books

• Hero and villain names often follow this trope, with such names being almost as common as Something Person. Also, once upon a time, Captain America's comic was subtitled "Commie Smasher".
• Daredevil: The Marvel supervillain Death Stalker.
• Hellblazer: John Constantine doesn't explicitly blaze hells but should probably qualify for this trope.

Literature

• The Beast Player.
• The Death Eaters from Harry Potter.
• In the book The Gift, the Chosen One's title is Wind Tamer.
• Stormbreaker.
• Banewreaker and Godslayer by Jacqueline Carey.
• The Bladerunner by Alan. E. Nourse. Bladerunners smuggle medical supplies to Back Alley Doctors.
• David Gemmell's Druss the Legend is known as "Deathwalker" to his enemies. Well, one nation of his enemies.
• In the comic book tradition of doing this with super-person codenames, the Whateley Universe has one of its heroines named Bladedancer. Plus side characters like Shadowdancer.
• In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent is... The Sandwich Maker.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• In The Black Company series by Glen Cook, most of the original Ten Who Were Taken with the exception of the Limper and the Howler. (Stormbringer, Soulcatcher, Bonegnasher, Moonbiter...the list goes on. Most are Exactly What It Says on the Tin, too.)
• And another Deathstalker, just to prove a point.
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
• Firekeeper Saga
• The Shadowhunters from The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices.
• Trollhunters
• The Cosmere:
• Warbreaker has many of the Returned with names like this, such as Blushweaver, Lifeblesser, and the titular Warbreaker, although not all Returned have this type of name.
• ''The Stormlight Archive:
• Each of the ten Orders of the Knights Radiant identified by such an appellation. Only the Dustbringers have a problem with theirs, insisting on the euphemistic "Releasers" out of a feeling that their proper name is too close to the similar name of the forces of the setting's Big Bad: the Voidbringers.
• Many Shardblades have been given a name of this type. We see examples such as Sunraiser, Loremaker, and of course, Oathbringer.
• In Wax and Wayne, 300 years after the Catacendre, Feruchemy has been diluted in the population to the point that instead of all sixteen powers, a Feruchemist only has access to one each. Each type of Feruchemist has a name, four of which are this trope: Bloodmaker, Soulbearer, Windwhisperer, and Steelrunner.
• The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: The main antagonists are a band of corrupted mages called the Soul Eaters, and The Hero is revealed to be a spirit walker. Also, four of the six books are titled this way.note Spirit Walker, Soul Eater, Oath Breaker, Ghost Hunter
• The DC Comics "DC Icons" series of YA novels are all titled like this: Wonder Woman: Warbringer, Batman: Nightwalker, and Catwoman: Soulstealer.
• The first two books of The Fallen Gods Trilogy are titled Godkiller and Sunbringer.

Game Books

• A few installments of Fighting Fantasy uses this naming method, notably Star Strider, Spellbreaker, Moonrunner, Magehunter, Stormslayer and the spin-off adventure Dungeoneer.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering is positively brimming with nounverbers, such as the famous Planeswalkers. Many of their nounverbers verb nouns with verbs that don't even make sense. How does one weave smoke? Or braid it? How does one grin gristle? Why would some elves who live in the wild want to slay it? What's so great about a creature who can see something six feet away? And who would ever want to buy spirits from a giant monster?
• Dungeons & Dragons also has its fair share of monsters that are nounverbers, most famously the Mind Flayer.
• Warhammer 40,000 has a few Chaos Legions that fit this trope - Word Bearers & World Eaters, for example.
• As does the Imperium, such as the Blood Drinkers and Flesh Tearers. Yes, those are the good guys (relatively speaking, of course).
• Many Chaos forces use the [noun/adjective]verber template:
• Bloodthirsters and Bloodletters are the greater and lesser daemons of Khorne (Bloodletters riding Juggernauts, giant evil rhinos made of living metal, are called Bloodcrushers instead), while Blood Slaughterers are huge tick-like Walking Tanks. Earlier editions included siege weapons such as the Blood Reaper, Death Dealer, and Doom Blaster. If you're sensing a theme here, Khorne is empowered by the spilling of blood, from his faithful's enemies or themselves.
• Chaos warmachines include the Forgefiend (giant robot centaur with guns instead of arms and head), Maulerfiend (melee version of the Forgefiend), and Heldrake (living metal dragon).
• Nurglite forces can include Plaguebearers, Eyestingers, Spoilpox Scriveners, and Sloppity Bilepipers, and favor a huge scythe called a Manreaper.
• The Tyranids have a Carnifex variant known as a Screamer-Killer.
• The orks, being a straightforward lot, tend to give their troops, weapons and vehicles names that are as subtle as a choppa to the face: Tankbustaz are anti-armor specialists, the Lifta-Droppa lifts and drops a vehicle (preferably on its allies), the Deffrolla is a big spiky cement roller affixed to a battlewagon (itself a combination of tank, bunker and pickup truck), and then there's the wonderfully evocative Bonebreakaz, Braincrushaz, Bonecrunchaz, Gutrippaz, Spleenrippaz, Gobsmashaz, Lungburstaz, and other Bowelburnaz.
• The Eldar, not to be outdone, have troops such as the Death Jester, Bonesinger, Spiritseer and Dark Reapers, and a class of weapons known as Deathspinners. The users of said weapons, however, are an aversion - at least until someone figures out what it means to be spiding the warp.

This chapter shows that if there is a verber in a sentence (the participant that passes the verber entailment, as shown in Gonzlez 2021, Chapter 1) it is always the subject of the sentence. If you are reading this book, you are the reader (the verber entailment). The participant that passes the verbed entailment (this book was (the) read) is the direct object if there is a verber in the sentence; if there is no verber, the verbed is the subject (this book was sold to you; this book reads well). The indirect object is the beneficiary (or maleficiary), never passes the verbed entailment, and owns, gains, or loses the verbed (this book belongs to you); if you bought this book, you own this book; if someone gave you this book, this book belongs to you. Verber, verbed, and beneficiary (verbee) are not just another label for subject, direct object, and indirect object because the verbed and even the verbee can be the subject (this book was published in 2021; this author was not given an advanced for this book). Furthermore, rules of languages are easier to state in terms of verber, verbed, and verbee, as this book shows.

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