Foreign Translations

Regardez! Un livre!

So I don't make a lot of noise about this, but I've been cleaning out my Archive Room for the past few years. Actually calling it the Archive is a rounding up a bit - it is the small room in the basement where I've been stashing all the extra copies of games, author copies of books, long boxes of old comics, and other material that, back east, would end up in the attic or the basement. Seattle architecture has neither, ergo, the Archive Room.

And Anne Trent has been gracious enough to be my ebay mistress on this, organizing and selling off not only my stuff, but that belonging to Stan! as well through the Stannexmart. And she's been doing pretty well, and I haven't been that pushy about promoting it, since I just want to get old games and books into the hands of people who would want them, not because they are collectible or are from "The collection of Jeff Grubb" (note, on Anne's page, if there is a J (or JG) after the title, it is from my stuff, if there is an S (or an S!) it from "The collection of Stan!).

But she's hit a bit of a rock in moving some of the old books, and I want to help. Said rock is in the department of foreign translations of my books.

Over time I've gotten English-language author copies for my books, which is cool and mandated in the contracts. But also I on occasion get foreign translations. These have usually been in drips and drabs, without rhyme or reason, and usually consisted of an email or phone call from the editing department to the effect of "yeah, we're cleaning out the library up here - would you like a couple copies?" And they themselves get copies of the translations at rates that vary from prompt to glacial, so books that were in print years before would suddenly show up.

And these copies found their way into the Archives, and now find their way onto Ebay.

I don't read the various languages these are translated into, and only with Anne's aid do I know know that Azure Bonds, the first novel from Kate and I, was retitled "The Swordswoman" and "Revealing the Mysterious Symbols" in Japanese. I did know that the original book was broken into two smaller paperbacks, in keeping with Japanese novels, and that parts were illustrated. And I lThe Brothers' War - Bruderkrieg, though the massive tome is beyond me.
oved the name of the German edition of

The thing is, in the states, at least, these things ARE collectible, in that there are far fewer copies of Bruderkrieg, or Le Chant des Saurials floating around than of The Brother's War and The Song of the Saurials. And if you actually can read them, then that's just a bonus.

And, of course, you help clear out my Archive Room (now if I can only get rid of 90 longboxes of unsorted comics, I'll be in business).

More later,