German TPOTS

[ellenkushner]

Check out the cover for the German (Goldmann) edition of The Privilege of the Sword, coming in July.

Forgive me for saying that unless they've done some mighty fancy translatin', there are going to be a lot of confused little readers, there, when they actually get inside....

It's a cool painting, though. And her mother will be so proud of those nails.

ADDED: My "Sister-in-law Elect" (wedding this fall, we think - yaay!), who has lived most of her adult life in Germany, translates the copy thus:
"Katherine is delighted: her oncle, the Duke of Tremontaine, has invited her to his residence. The country girl can hardly wait to be introduced to the Riverside society, perhaps even in the context of finding a husband. But then everything turns out differently. The duke finds it much more amusing to teach her the art of fencing, and the enticing city reveals itself quickly as a maze of intrigues, secrets and criminals. If Katherine is to survive here, she is forced to fight: for herself, her family and her love..." Not bad.

Comments

[stevenagy.livejournal.com]

LOL. I tweaked to the nails first thing when I saw the cover. Though I have to say that blade seems a bit oversized.

Setting all that aside, though, I like the background color, its detail, and the glove/arm detail. I'd definitely pick it up off the shelf to look inside.

[aynatonal.livejournal.com]

OK, that blade is hilariously huge.

[theniwokesoftly.livejournal.com]

That's kind of like the Italian cover of The Name of the Wind, which has a painting of some random guy with an eye on his hand. None of the characters in TNOTW are anything like that.

[ellen-denham.livejournal.com]

Cool picture. Interesting title choice, too: Die Dienerin des Schwertes "The Servant (female) of Swords." Definitely gets across this is about a swordswoman!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Ooo, weird! I have no German, so just assumed "Diener" meant "Privilege." (Can it also translate as "Handmaiden," or is that a stretch?) They seem to have a bias toward Heroic Fantasy. Interestingly, they wrote to ask us whether we'd mind having THE FALL OF THE KINGS be translated as ' DIE LEGENDE VOM LETZTEN KÖNIG means “The Legend of the Last King” ' - I wasn't thrilled, since it loses several of the careful resonances of the original title - but now I see how they're marketing them, at least I get the, ah, picture....

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

"Oh, Sir, it is the biggest I have ever seen!"

Love your icon, though.

[ellen-denham.livejournal.com]

I just checked my German dictionary, and yes, "handmaiden" works too.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

Oi. At least it's not quite as random as the German cover for The Etched City. Gives you the impression it's about, I dunno, creepy necromancers in cowls reading from their black grimoires or something.

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

I love the icon. Is it available for the stealing?

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

It is a veritable fantasy sword--entirely too big for the sort of hilt and guard they have with it.

And totally off topic--I was in a newish used bookstore in my neighborhood (which I can tell is going to be trouble) and the proprietor and I were talking about books (as one does) and your name came up. I confessed to knowing you and she wondered if you ever came to New Orleans. Which made me stop and think. We have no conventions to draw you here, but would you ever come here just for the pleasure of it? What if you were invited by, say, Tulane or someplace like that? I would offer to put you up, but I still have those pesky cats and if you came with Delia that would be a problem.

But we do have an amazing music scene, as well as the Faulkner Festival and the Tennessee Williams festival.

[theniwokesoftly.livejournal.com]

Sure! Just credit, please, because I spent about an hour photoshopping it. :D

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Ooh--TPOTS in German? I'm excited already. (One of my ways to help myself learn German is getting translations of fantasy books I've read in English. The problem, of course, is finding them.)

It seems to be a trend that the covers of novels in translation just get curiouser and curiouser as time goes on. Although, in an interesting twist, the German cover of Cassandra Clare's City of Bones (recommended on the amazon.de page for Die Dienerin des Schwertes) is lighter than the American version, not grimmer. ...Then again, the American cover did leave a lot of room on the upper end.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

"She's beautiful, she's rich, she has a huuuuuuge . . . um, sword."

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Will do. (And you did a lovely job. Rene would be proud.)

Open Question-Where to Start

[gemdol.livejournal.com]

Where should one start if reading Ellen Kushner for the first time?

Re: Open Question-Where to Start

[burgundy.livejournal.com]

You'll get varying answers on that. Here's (http://nagaina-ryuuoh.livejournal.com/371437.html?thread=1310189#t1310189) what I've said previously.

[burgundy.livejournal.com]

Every time I look at that cover, I get this mental image of Katherine wearing Chicks in Chainmail fantasy bondage gear. It is not an image I much appreciate. (Not that I have a problem with the image of an attractive woman in fantasy bondage gear; it's just not how I'm used to thinking of her.)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I second the admiration!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

If you think she had trouble putting on boys' clothes...! No, no. It doesn't bear thinking of.

NOLA

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

We used to spend a lot of time in Louisiana - NOLA for sure, and also Lafayette & points in between. We were just saying the other day how much we missed it! But you're right that we almost never travel just for pure pleasure these days, not when we're on the road so much for profit: staying home has become a lot more attractive now that there's less of it. Not that we don't manage always to have tremendous fun wherever we go! So, sure, please get us an invitation to speak or teach somewhere, and if it fits the old Schedule, we'll probably be on the next plane. Thanks for asking!

[burgundy.livejournal.com]

And her poor mother, if she ever found out! Alec, I'm sure, would think it was hilarious.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Actually, Alec has a prudish side, at least where women are concerned - women he likes, anyway - and this might be just above his comfort level. Unless he was really drunk.

[burgundy.livejournal.com]

That sounds more right. Certainly he would hate the idea of anyone ogling her while she was wearing it.

I wonder what Marcus would think. Not in public, obviously, but if it was just for him?

[yaoi-in-exile.livejournal.com]

Wow. o.o What a leverage issue. If there's a massive blade and a teeny-tiny hilt, exactly what is the phallic metaphor...?

Certainly hope Katherine's had her tetanus shot, what with all the pointy-spikies. (Do they have those in Riverside?) And, goodness...surely that's not the sword Richard gave her! He must have a lot of faith in her biceps.

And is that tapestry in the background? *hunts for cloth-related subtleties*

[the-darkstar.livejournal.com]

Well, as I am from Germany I can at least confirm to you that this is one of the better Covers I've seen the last years.

Anyway, German readers are used that "What you see doesn't necessarily mean is what you get".

Back in the 80s there were this Boris Vallejo paintings really "in": Naked Woman on Giant-Firefly and so on - and it didn't bother the publishers that there's no sex nor giant monsters to find inside. .-)

Robin Hobbs Magic Ship series just became some Manga-like covers, probably just because Mangas where very fashionable a few years back.

Sigh.

However, I went to the publishers website and they managed to write a decent backcover text. This also often really doesn't fit.
However here it really tells you what the book is about (and that it is not about a warriorwoman Sword & Sorcery-style *hehe*)

I didn't read anything translated from this guy yet, but have hopes it will be okay / good.

All in all, I really think it is a good cover for German standards!
They could have done so much worse! :-)

As for the title translation:

Yes, it's more "handmaiden of the sword" than "Servant of the sword".

I guess they want to achieve both the attention of readers of fantasy as well as readers of historical novels, and for this it's a pretty good cover.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! This is both interesting & useful, and I hope other authors who've been baffled by German covers now will have more insight.

If you do end up reading the translation, I'll be very interested to hear what you think!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I suppose it would depend on whether that image exists already in their culture, whether it had any sexy resonances to any of them, or was just plain silly - in which case, even Katherine would probably laugh her head off - at the concept, anyway. Since Marcus doesn't really like swords & fighting - it's one big interest he & KT don't share - then whatever sexy dreams secretly invite him, I doubt the "Chicks in Chainmail" would be one of them, though.

[beth-bernobich.livejournal.com]

Oh my. What a very big...blade.

I shall have to buy me a copy and see if I can still read enough German to understand the translation.