Where Did the Cat Come From? Or, Who Translated This S&*%?

Where Did the Cat Come From? Or, Who Translated This S&*%?

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Christie 2Talking about subtitles last week got me thinking about book translations. It’s a different beast, of course; for one thing, translating prose isn’t subject to the same time constraints that translating dialogue is. So that should make translations better than subtitles, right?

In general, I think that’s true. However, with one exception, I’m going to focus on occasions when it’s been done badly. After all, when the translation’s done well, no one notices.

We all know examples from our mundane lives of unfortunate, or impossible, translations. I’m sure everyone’s heard the story of Chevrolet having to change the name of their Nova for the South American market. In Spanish, “no va” means “doesn’t go.” Not the best name for a car.

As I’ve mentioned before, I often read in Spanish to keep in practice, and since my preferred reading material is genre (Fantasy, SF and Crime), this has often meant that I’m reading books translated into Spanish.* This can be helpful, since I often own the book in English, and if something gets away from me (miss the meaning of two or three critical words and the whole paragraph can go wonky on you) I can check the original, which is far superior to hauling out the dictionary and trying to sort it out piecemeal. I learned this the hard way.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer… In the Beginning, Part Four

Blogging Sax Rohmer… In the Beginning, Part Four

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illo-Sax Rohmerrohmer2We already noted in our last installment that Arthur Henry Ward had adopted the pseudonym of Sax Rohmer for his relatively successful career as a music hall songwriter and comedy sketch writer. He would later claim that he worked as a newspaper reporter during these years, but that his articles were published anonymously. Allegedly he covered waterfront crime in Limehouse, but he also claimed to have successfully managed interviews with heads of state. There is little doubt the man was a great raconteur, but none of the anonymously published articles and interviews Rohmer credits himself with writing have ever been located by researchers. It is highly questionable whether he ever actually worked as a journalist or at least to the extent he claimed. What is factual is that he did begin having works published anonymously.

As a young man, he ran with a crowd of self-styled bohemians who occupied a clubhouse on Oakmead Road in London. Each member of the gang was known by rather fanciful nicknames with Rohmer being known as Digger. Their activities ran from simply hanging around the clubhouse to picking up girls and attempting various get-rich-quick schemes to avoid making an honest living. Some of their schemes were of questionable legality.

Around this time, Rohmer decided he would fictionalize their exploits. It is believed he authored seven stories about the Oakmead Road Gang. Five manuscripts were known to have survived their author’s death: “Narky,” “Rupert,” “Digger’s Aunt,” “The Pot Hunters,” and “The Treasure Chest.” All seven stories were submitted for anonymous publication to Yes and No. It appears only the first of the group of stories ever saw print. The surviving four manuscripts passed upon the death of Rohmer’s widow to Cay Van Ash. When Van Ash died in Paris twenty years ago, Rohmer’s unpublished manuscripts were being held by a friend in Tokyo (where Van Ash lived for many years while teaching at Waseda University). When the friend had his visa rescinded on short notice in 2000, he was forced to leave his  belongings behind, where they were junked by a Japanese family who thought the storage boxes contained worthless garbage.

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Goth Chick News Checks into The Grand Hotel

Goth Chick News Checks into The Grand Hotel

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The Grand Hotel-smallWhen exploring the back roads on the far outskirts of my beloved New Orleans, it is not unusual to spot the occasional decrepit plantation home.  It will be there, nearly out of sight behind the dense, mossy trees, but you can just spot the vine-covered columns barely supporting what was once a magnificent monument to the splendor of the “Old South.”

The sight of such a house, nearly consumed by the wildness lurking just beyond the paved road, always ignites sadness and dread in equal measure; sadness at the idea that this once, much-loved structure has been abandoned to the swamp, and dread at the idea that those who once loved her might still be doing so while peering back at you from behind those rotted lace curtains.

An isolated, deteriorating mansion sitting at the end of an overgrown road triggers something in all of us.  You hear “I dare you” in the back of your mind.  You wonder if there’s a flashlight in the trunk and you start thinking there would be no harm at all in going up one or two of the porch steps, just to see…

Author Scott Kenemore knows exactly how we feel.

He welcomes you to The Grand Hotel, where nobody checks out.

Where the desk clerk invites you into his mysterious and crumbling hotel, then takes you on a little tour to introduce you to the hotel’s “long term” residents who only look like they never call for room service.

As the very proper and solicitous clerk takes you deeper and deeper into the heart of the hotel, secrets that have been hiding for eons begin to show themselves. Although your guide seems quite prepared for this experience, there is some question as to whether or not the rest of the world shares his readiness.

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Why Humorous Fantasy Isn’t Popular

Why Humorous Fantasy Isn’t Popular

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The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (six volumes)
“Clench Racing”

Dave Langford describes Clench Racing thus:

Up to six can play. The rules are simple: each player takes a different volume of Stephen Donaldson’s blockbuster Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, opens it at random, and leafs feverishly through the text. You win by being first to find the word “clench” (or “clenched”, “clenching”, etc). It’s a fast, furious sport, and a round rarely lasts a full minute.

Clearly, Fandom has a tradition of affectionate mockery of the books it loves. Furthermore, Geeks, the cultural group that includes Fandom, tend to value intelligent wit. It seems odd then that Humorous Fantasy isn’t a massive subgenre.

It’s hard to get facts and figures. An industry insider friend says that Humorous Fantasy’s bestseller/midlist ratio is the same as for other subgenres, it’s just that there’s less of it. Similarly, two authors I know who had humorous fantasy series that petered out both said that the main problem was the size of the market. One of them told me about how at conventions people’s eyes glazed when he talked about his humorous series, but lighted up when he talked about other projects.

Of course, you could argue that Terry Pratchett is so prolific and so very good, that he simply absorbed the subgenre. However, in Heroic Fantasy there’s room for Patrick Rothfuss and Joe Abercromby.  George RR Martin may dominate Epic Fantasy, but he has peers. It seems that a typical reader has slots for several favorite authors in a couple of chosen subgenres, but just one slot for Terry Pratchett Humorous Fantasy.

So, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb assuming that Humorous Fantasy isn’t popular compared to other Fantasy subgenres. Why is this?

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Black Static #40 Now on Sale. Maybe, if You Move Quickly

Black Static #40 Now on Sale. Maybe, if You Move Quickly

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Black Static 40-smallOn my way home from work yesterday, I dropped by Barnes & Noble to pick up the latest issues of Asimov’s SF and Fantasy & Science Fiction. I couldn’t find them at my local B&N here in St. Charles, Illinois, so I made a special trip all the way to Schaumberg.

No dice. After poking behind all the knitting and puzzle magazines for nearly 10 minutes, all I managed to come up with was last month’s Asimov’s and Analog. Both clearly stated “On sale until 9/2” in the bottom left corner, which tells me the new issues are more than a week overdue.

Come on — what’s a guy gotta do to buy a science fiction magazine around here? It’s almost enough to make me give up and buy Health Magazine instead. Maybe I can get some suggestions on how to reduce all this stress in my life.

Now, it’s not strictly true that all I found was Asimov’s and Analog. Just a few inches over, hidden behind the latest issue of McSweeney’s, I discovered something unusual: issue #40 of British horror magazine Black Static.

Well, this is timely. Just last week, as I was formatting the article on the British Fantasy Awards and looking for pics to go with it, I stumbled on the cover of Black Static #33 (containing Best Short Story winner “Signs of the Times,” by Carole Johnstone), and I thought, “Damn, that’s a mighty fine cover, with that creepy subway, and floating vapor, or whatever the heck that is. I should really get a copy of this magazine. I bet I’d like it.”

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Vintage Treasures: Mustapha and his Wise Dog by Esther M. Friesner

Vintage Treasures: Mustapha and his Wise Dog by Esther M. Friesner

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Mustapha and his Wise Dog-smallEsther M. Friesner’s first novel, Mustapha and his Wise Dog, was a considerable success and it launched her lengthy and very productive career as a fantasy author and editor. Since it appeared in 1985, she has produced over 40 novels, over half a dozen anthologies, and more than 180 short stories.

Mustapha was a humorous fantasy and, at a slender 175 pages, a very quick read. It was also one of the few fantasies with an Arabian setting on the shelves in the mid-80s (or even today, for that matter). It became the first of the four-volume Chronicles of the Twelve Kingdoms series, which continued in Spells of Mortal Weaving (1986), The Witchwood Cradle (1987), and The Water King’s Laughter (1989). Here’s the book description:

Spells, Enchantment, and Treachery

Some tales are told for gold; some for joy. But who would guess the ancient storyteller’s purpose in beguiling the children of the bazaar with the strange story of Mustapha and His Wise Dog…

Mustapha, young and clever, was outcast by his own brothers to wander in a dangerous land with only his magical, mischievous dog Elcoloq at his side. They were the unlikely warriors chosen by the gods to challenge the evil rising to threaten the world. They were the defiant ones willing to venture into the kingdom of powerful warlocks and seductive witches only to discover the fantastic journey yet awaiting them… a destiny of unforgettable adventure filled with dread demons and a treacherous lady… an awesome odyssey to a country of death, beauty… and a storyteller’s secret.

Mustapha and his Wise Dog was published in 1985 by Avon Books. It is 175 pages, priced at $2.95 in paperback. The gorgeous cover art is, sadly, uncredited. The book has been out of print for over 25 years and there is no digital edition. Used copies are easy enough to find, but this is one title ripe for a new edition — digital or otherwise.

Goth Chick News Crypt Notes: Holy Millennium Falcon Han Solo!

Goth Chick News Crypt Notes: Holy Millennium Falcon Han Solo!

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Holy Millenium Falcon Han SoloWhere Star Wars is concerned, even a goth chick can go fan-girl.

Just in from the UK today: A pilot taking publicity photos for a flying school accidentally buzzed one of the sets of the new Star Wars movie with pretty impressive, if unintentional, results.

Matthew Myatt originally thought his pictures were of experiment aircraft at the Greenham Common airfield in Berkshire, England. Greenham Common is a former RAF airbase. Myatt was photographing one plane from another and it wasn’t until he got back and started reviewing his images that he realized what he had captured: none other than a partially built Millennium Falcon and an X-Wing fighter.

It appears that, at least in part, director J.J. Abrams will use models for filming rather than pure CGI. As one excited fan wrote on www.theforce.net, “Who’d’ve guessed filmmakers still build physical models?” and “Looks like the Falcon got a paint job!”

Star Wars is due out in December, 2015

Segundo de Chomón: Forgotten Fantasist of Silent Film

Segundo de Chomón: Forgotten Fantasist of Silent Film

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Voyage to Jupiter, 1909.
Voyage to Jupiter, 1909.

Fantasy, science fiction, and horror themes have been in the movies since almost the beginning. During the first few experimental years, movies consisted of simple scenes such as a man sneezing or a train pulling into the station, but soon that novelty wore off and audiences wanted stories. Since the medium itself seemed almost magical, directors began to experiment with the fantastic in order to tell gripping tales.

Most film buffs know of Georges Méliès and his 1902 Trip to the Moon, generally considered the first science fiction film. Méliès started out as a stage magician so it’s not surprising he added an element of the fantastic in his pioneering movies. Other early filmmakers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière and Thomas Edison tended to film realistic subjects or historical/adventure stories, although Edison did make a version of Frankenstein in 1910.

Lost amid these famous names is a man who did as much for the development of fantastic film as any of them. The Spanish director Segundo de Chomón pioneered many early special effects techniques and worked on some two hundred films. Having spent much of his career in France and Italy, he’s been claimed by no country and thus has fallen through the cracks of history.

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Graham Joyce, October 22, 1954 – September 9, 2014

Graham Joyce, October 22, 1954 – September 9, 2014

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Graham Joyce-smallGraham Joyce, the World Fantasy Award winning writer of The Facts of Life, The Tooth Fairy, and Some Kind of Fairy Tale, died yesterday of lymphoma. His first novel, Dreamside, was published in 1991. He followed it a year later with Dark Sister, the first of his many fantasy novels to be nominated for (and win) the British Fantasy Award. All told, he won the British Fantasy Award for best novel a total of six times, for Requiem (1995), The Tooth Fairy (1996), The Stormwatcher (1998), How To Make Friends With Demons (2009), and Some Kind of Fairy Tale (2012). His 2002 novel The Facts of Life won the World Fantasy Award; his final novel, The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit (published in the UK as The Year of the Ladybird in 2013) was released in 2014.

I met Joyce only a handful of times, most recently at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego in 2011, where he entertained the Black Gate team — including Katie Redding, Scott Taylor, and I — with his stories and his relentless energy. A month ago Graham wrote of his diagnosis in a powerful post in his blog:

This is what I mean by the shocking clarity that cancer brings… if a dragonfly buzzes my ear like an aeroplane I’ll still be going, ‘What did it say?‘ Because the screw that has for so long been loose in me hasn’t been tightened by cancer. Actually I know what the dragonfly said. It whispered: I have inhabited this earth for three hundred million years old and I can’t answer these mysteries; just cherish it all.

And in turn the Heron asks, with shocking clarity as it flies from right to left and left to right: why can’t our job here on earth be simply to inspire each other?

Graham Joyce died on September 9th, at the age of 59. He is survived by his wife Suzanne and their two children. He will be missed.

Future Treasures: Shattered Shields, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Future Treasures: Shattered Shields, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt

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Shattered Sheilds-smallWell, here’s a fun thing: an upcoming anthology packed with tales of epic battles and soldiers struggling against overwhelming odds, with a stellar cast of contributors.

Shattered Shields is edited Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt, and will be available in November. Jennifer — who got her start as an RPG reviewer in Black Gate magazine back in 2002 — has previously edited no less than ten anthologies, including Space Tramps and Human for a Day. Her co-editor Bryan Thomas Schmidt has also edited Space Battles and Beyond The Sun, among others.

The book includes a brand new Black Company story from Glen Cook, a Paksenarrion tale from Elizabeth Moon, a Runelords story by David Farland, a tale of October Daye from Seanan McGuire — and a story set in the World of Zang by our very own John R. Fultz. Here’s John on his story:

“Yael of the Strings” is my contribution…  Most of the Zang Cycle stories were collected this year in The Revelations of Zang, but this is a brand-new excursion into that world. The protagonist isn’t a soldier at all, but a minstrel whose fencing skills become his only chance at survival when the red tide of battle overwhelms. “Strings” revisits the nation of Ghoth with its behemoth spiders (from “Oblivion Is the Sweetest Wine”), and introduces Sharoc, Land of the Griffon.

Readers who remember John’s terrific sword and sorcery tale, “Oblivion Is the Sweetest Wine” (from Black Gate 12) will surely want this one. Other contributors include Cat Rambo, Robin Wayne Bailey, Dave Gross, James L. Sutter, and many others.

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