Business notes ... why is the coffee gone?

[kinzel]

Note the oneth:

Things move on: yesterday I personally visited several printers around the state while looking for new quotes for Liaden Universe Companion #2 ... yes, the book will mostly likely be over a month late. Forgive me, please. At one good-sized printing plant I happened to be met by the owner who was grabbing a coffee in the front office; his office manager recalled that we'd done other printing at their plant over the years. He looked at a sample of LUC 1, mused that the paper was ... likely "natural" at 50 or 55lbs. And he said, "this is laminated -- you want that, and these blank pages are on purpose, right?" Then he took my info and passed it on to his estimator (who had called for a detail by the time I got home.

At the other plant, it took the front desk person *5* requests and quite a few moments on the intercom to get someone to help me, and that person moved me to the "cold call" office and after a short while began slapping at his chest heroically... trying to shut his cell-phone off but not succeeding. He then excused himself and stepped out of the room and spoke on the phone for some minutes before returning to tell me my page count must be off, and that without a micrometer he couldn't be sure of the weight of the paper. I mentioned I'd several other bids out and gee, could he tell me about "the guy in Farmington" and he complacently said that yeah, they'd bought him. Young sales guy then promised to "feed this into the system" and promised me an answer, probably this week.

Sooooo....
wonder who I'd prefer to deal with?

note the twoth:

in house we have the first round of interview questions from a German magazine, phantastisch! ... and since these are email interviews it could take awhile before it appears. Apparently the rapid appearance of the German editions of Agent and friends is drawing some interest. One informant reports we're getting sandbagging reviews on amazon.de -- but how would I know? Anyone here speak German?

note the threeth:

originally meant to be a travel week ending up at TuckerCon/ARCHON/NASFIC, instead this is a recuperation week of sorts and though I'm keeping busy it certainly is not at the same pace as if I were off to the shadow of the Arch. I have shipped some fliers off to NASFIC ... and am hoping the reach Myles, who took over my room when it became apparent I couldn't go. Friends of Liad -- if you see Myles and haven't seen fliers, ask him: I sent two mixed packages. Meanwhile a repeat request -- if you know you're going to be at a convention, we can ship to you before hand to to your destination, but beware, some places charge absurd amounts for handing over a ream of paper. In any case, with luck, we should have some SRM and Liaden interest flyers. Cross fingers. And BTW, anytime you're at a con and it's closing time, Liaden fans are encouraged to pick up and take with them any Liaden flyers they see that appear destined to be tossed ... you can send them back to us media mail, share them with friends, take them to your next convention/book club meeting/family gathering....
we really prefer them to be used, once printed.

Note the four:

Somewhere around here: ... a blog of note ... especially if you are a writer or interested in writing process ... http://asterling.typepad.com/incipit_vita_nova/ ...
enjoy. If anyone asks, tell 'em Steve sent ya. Meanwhile, if you see a notable blog on a genre-related topic, feel free to let me know....

Note the fivest:

Sharon is apparently not going to Con*Cept in the beautiful city of Montreal this October, while I apparently am. I note Baen authors David Weber and Tanya Huff involved in GoH spots ... it ought to be fun, though I guess I'll have to see how or if my cell service works there...

Note sixish:

I do hope Friends of Lid will be able to put together an FoL breakfast or lunch or party at NASFIC, and if you do I'd love to have some (webbable) photos. I have to tell you that after four or five years of being on the road six to ten weeks for conventions I am going through extreme con withdrawal this year. Attention convention committees: the necessities of Sharon's work schedule these days means we need to plan *far ahead* ... if we win the lottery big-time we may be able to return to a more informal life-style, but the health insurance situation being what it is in Maine, we're expecting I'll be doing more gallivanting than Sharon. If you'd like to see us both, please ask well ahead.

Note the seven:

I have a feeling we're going to hit at least 45 chapters in Fledgling at the current rate, possibly 50. Might be able to get it done, rough, this year. We shall ... see.

Meanwhile, our good (and extremely patient!) buddy Sam Chupp of the Fledgling podcast reports on the order of 150 or 160 subscribers (I guess this is RSS feeds?) to his near weekly reading of Fledgling. Try a listen, do ... and this week, make an effort to tell your friends about Fledgling and the podcast...

Still here? Thanks for reading all this dense stuff! Visit often, tell your friends,
and enjoy!

Comments

Re: German translations

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

You're braver than me. I'm bilingual, have never been able to write Fiction in German, but I would not touch translation with a bargepole.

The only translator I've ever read who could make words sing is Annemarie Boell, who translated Susan Coopers 'The Dark is Rising' sequence, so it can be done.

The worst is the... person who translated Judy Tarr's 'Hound and Falcon' trilogy and slapped another ending on it because someone appears to have disliked the original one.

Re: German translations

[od-mind.livejournal.com]

The Patron Saint of Translators, as best I can tell, is William Weaver, who translates the original Italian of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino into English. Translating (as you note) requires a particular genius that seems to be pretty rare.

(One of the things I like about Val Con is that he approaches the task of translating among languages he's fluent in with fear and trembling.)

Incidentally, Ich habe kein Deutsch, but I'm pretty good in French. Are there French editions of any Liaden Universe(tm) works?

Re: German translations

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Have you read Umberto Eco's "Rat and Mouse"? He looks at translation as negotiation -- it is impossible to produce a perfect translation, you have to negotiate what you are willing to lose for the effect you want.

Re: German translations

[od-mind.livejournal.com]

He looks at translation as negotiation -- it is impossible to produce a perfect translation, you have to negotiate what you are willing to lose for the effect you want.

Exactly.

The best French class I ever took was a daunting thing called "Advanced Grammar Through Translation". One of the things we studied was the classic translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland into French, wherein the translator was faced with the question of how to handle a thousand puns in English. It was fascinating to be able to see that negotiation in action, where meanings were bent slightly in order to facilitate an 'equivalent' pun in French...

Re: German translations

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Ouch, I'd hate to have to translate 'Alice'. That has to be one of the more extreme examples, with not only wordplay but also deliberate poetic amphigory (is it even possible to translate Jabberwocky?). It can be seen with the Bible and poetry, some versions keeping the poetic forms intact but losing meaning, some using a different poetic form from the destination language and others going for the meaning and losing the poetry.

My preference with a language that I only partially understand is a combined translation, with both a "readable in English" form and an 'interlinear' form (with the original interspersed with a literal translation). That way I can real it for comprehension but can also refer to the original for the literal meanings, poetry and wordplay. I have a volume of the Norse "Poetic Edda" done like that, it really needs the original for the poetic aspect but my Norse isn't good enough to to understand it just from the original. One of my versions of the Bible is like that as well (Greek interlinear).

Re: German translations

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

No, there are not ... we've apparently not had enough French readers to demand a French publisher take on the Liadens....

I, alas, was once a traveling poet and a very mediocre student of Spanish. Despite this, I found Pablo Neruda readable and read him in original when I could and English when I couldn't. Imagine me, young gung-ho "going to be a writer one day yes I am" university student coming face-to-face with someone who had mistranslated one of his more powerful images!

Not a pretty sight. Since this person's appearance was funded as part of "interdisciplinary studies" and the English faculty knew me for one who was willing to back up my disagreements with "authority" they let me stay at the reception even after the question-and-answer session got warm. I gathered later we were all to have bowed in awe in being able to rub shoulders with ... sigh.

But yes, translation is uncertain, and someone is always more right than the translator.

Re: German translations

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

The worst is the... person who translated Judy Tarr's 'Hound and Falcon' trilogy and slapped another ending on it because someone appears to have disliked the original one.

ARGGHH!

Did you ever tell Judith Tarr? She would probably like to know...despite the massive annoyance and irritation it will cause.

Re: German translations

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

She knows and was rather apalled at the thought. I hadn't realised for a long time - I'd read the German translation, then couldn't get my hands on the English ones, and by the time I got to read them, I no longer had the translation at hand.

And for all that, on close examination, the translation is *dreadful* the story stuck in my mind as one of the most beautiful stories I'd ever read, and was one of the reasons I became a reader of fantasy - I wanted more books like that. Finding the books much more beautiful in the original was the icing on the cake.

Re: German translations

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I agree, she writes beautifully, and it was an awesome series.

Re: German translations

[od-mind.livejournal.com]

My favorite Bad Translation moment (though not in the same league as the Judy Tarr example you cite) is from the F. Ledoux translation of The Lord of the Rings. Toward the end of the book, Eomer refers to Merry as "Holdwine of the Mark". Holdwine = Anglo-saxon holt 'woods' + wine 'friend' = "friend of the forest", "Ent-friend".

The translator, of course, didn't notice that the name was Rohirric and not Westron, and rendered it with an old French word for "cup-bearer". Hold+wine, get it?