Das Lied der Dunkelheit
Oooh! Is that another cover? Yes it is! According to bookseller website Libri.de, it looks like my German publisher, Heyne, will be publishing their translation of The Painted Man in May 2009, right on the heels of the UK paperback and the US hardcover.
Once again, all I have is a tiny thumbnail of the cover, but I gotta say, I kinda dig it. It’s peaceful and beautiful, but also kind of lonely and sad. I think it speaks to a lot of the themes in the story, as Arlen’s journey takes him to amazing places no one has seen in centuries, but forces him to do it alone, with no one to share in his triumphs, or mourn him if he fails.
The title will be Das Lied der Dunkelheit, which google translates as “The Song of the Darkness”. Not sure why they changed the title, but that’s a publisher’s perogative, and it could well be a translation issue. I was told by the head of Unicorn, my Greek publisher, that “The Painted Man” would translate into Greek as “The Transvestite”, which, not that there’s anything wrong with men wearing stockings and garters if that’s their thing, is not entirely appropriate for a book about a tattooed guy who kills demons. Song of the Darkness is a little pushbutton, but hey, sometimes that works.
And maybe the musical reference sounds way more badass in German. They are the people that gave us Ride of the Valkyries after all, and you don’t get any more badass than that.
I think they just dig Rojer the most.
Hm…transvestite…well Arlen did go through a transformation. Not sure it was the big but…you could throw us a kicker. Jardir….you never know….
That actually looks damn good, definately deserves a space on the wall. 😉 Man I keep on going back to the world map, and it’s incredible to see how far Arlen has travelled!
This looks really good! But, having said that, I can’t wait to have my own live copy of The Desert Spear. I am a greedy little bookwyrm.
LOL, I followed the pushbutton link, and the “Part One: Words and Sentences” of the webpage makes for amusing reading. The “Call a Rabbit a Smeerp” really reminds me of a fantasy trilogy I read a year or so ago…it was pretty bad . The author tried to inject some “originality” into it by renaming animals and food and drink with silly names – beer becomes “bol”, for example. I only read the whole trilogy because as a rule I don’t abandon things halfway through.
Not abandoning things is an admirable quality quite lacking in our day and age. It will serve you well as both a writer and a politician, Chantal.
The Turkey City Lexicon was a big help to me in my early writing days, and I think every would-be writer could do worse than to give it a read in its entirety.