Our people call this "terrible nerd shit". Let's Read Foreign SF&F

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Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Long, boring preamble:
As the title (hopefully) makes abundantly clear, this thread will read through (N, when N equals or greater than 1) obscure foreign takes on the sci-fi and fantasy genre, and see how common tropes and archetypes mutate as they cross the cultural and linguistic barrier. Though to be fair, that's a needlessly highbrow and elaborate way to look at this � it might be just about reading obscure nerdery with no deeper intent. Just thought I'd make that much clear before I embark on a rambling introduction:

This thread owes its genesis to the excellent Let's Read the Sword of Truth, which really helps illustrate how fantasy and sci-fi may act as inadvertent thought experiments laying bare the issues with certain ideological concepts which somehow became borderline mainstream (and, of course, the issues that arise when an already terrible philosophy is interpreted by a stupid hack). But if it takes something as unpleasant and preachy about its own stupidity as the Sword of Truth series to expose weird, writhing sexual politics of objectivism (a lovely phrase borrowed from an expunged review of Hitman Absolution), then what about other cultures / languages that borrow popular (essentially Anglo-Saxon, Arthurian / Tolkien-esque) archetypes without really thinking about how they'd mesh with their new environment? (Not that popular fantasy and sci-fi don't have a lot of cargo-cults without any need to cross a single border � see the all too common attempt to square a circle by having the protagonist be both a humble peasant lad and a scion of noble blood as well as the heir to ultimate power).

The most obvious example of a cultural difference that springs to mind is the huge torrent of Russian sci-fi time-travel / A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court novels that sprang up in the 90's and has yet to abate. While most of the time-travel novels (not "shocking twist" short stories) we're familiar with deal with restoring the status-quo � "setting right what once went wrong" and all that � Russian sci-fi has an entire sub-genre of people from the present day who arrive in the past and set about disrupting the status quo, making sure the USSR / Russian Empire never collapsed, handing over the nuclear bomb to the Soviets in 1940, and the like. Russians aren't exactly as pleased with the existent status quo as Americans are.
�
We're not going to read those. There's way too many and they're all waaaaaay too poo poo. I value my time and sanity too much to even attempt (not saying I'll never do a single one of those, or that someone else, whose life and joy is not dear to them, cannot do a readthrough in the thread).
The loving point, finally:
Instead, we're going to read through a book I thought was absolutely fantastic as a wee lad of� err... 20��..about 10 years ago. Nimrod Harel's "Heresy".
I'd call this a typical example of Israeli fantasy� except that's not really a thing. There are (give or take) 6 million people who speak Hebrew. That's enough to justify a thriving translation market for sci-fi and fantasy, but not really enough for a homegrown author focusing on the genre. Hell, I've been told that Israel's foremost authors don't really make a living from book sales, as such � unless we're talking about the sales of their English translations (being a tiny fish in the ocean is apparently far more profitable than the biggest one in the local puddle) . I can't even think of sci-fi / fantasy stories that found anything like mainstream success in Israel (Etgar Keret kinda uses some tropes, but in his typically "tasteful" way that by no means could get the narrative classified as sci-fi proper)

The fact remains though � there are a LOT of kids who grew up reading (poorly) translated fantasy, a bunch of fan clubs, a lot of keening about the lack of consideration for the genre from local publishers� and every so often, a successful ~~magician~~ Mentalist who can afford a ~~vanity project~~ labor of love. This is exactly the book a fanboy might write. It's exactly the book I wanted to write, and I was alternately annoyed and elated when I first read it. I even contacted Nimrod to ask for a sequel, only to get an extremely tactful "depending on the market conditions" in reply, so I guess this book flopped hard. This is a market in which "professional" scifi authors are happy to reach the triple digits, and� yeah. I can't even find the text online (which makes transcribing and translating a bit of a chore). Did this book deserve such a harsh fate? Guess we'll find out shortly.

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Xander77 fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Aug 27, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 22:01

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Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

In a fit of totally unjustified optimism, the second post is reserved for� something or another. Content links for the unlikely event the thread goes on long enough to need those? Fanart, in the far less likely event the thread generates any? Whatever, the reservation is here just in case.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 22:02

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

I'm going to translate the prologue more or less wholesale. The rest of the book will be heavily abridged and summarized, but� I want to flex my translation skills, and let you get a feel for the style (even though that's not really a thing you can do with a translation).

Ahhem:

quote:

Dedicated to Omri, whom Halermon (?) belongs to at least as much as it does to me.

* So� you may have heard that Hebrew doesn't have vowels. That's not exactly correct, but � they are reserved for children's books and the spelling of weird new names / words (so, perfect for fancy fantasy novel names. A proper Elven name is a mess of apostrophes and punctuation, and you get pretty much all the expected jokes on the subject). For one reason or another, this book is absolutely devoid of helpful vowels, so I have to pretty much guess how anything is actually pronounced (for instance, H-L-R-M-O/U-N) based on what sounds reasonable / hilarious.
Google search doesn't turn up an Omri, so I guess he's Nimrod's son, as that's the most :3:

interpretation. Nimrod was 30 at the time this book was published, so Omri must have been 10-12, with a high tolerance for gore and elaborate swordplay. I kinda get the feeling that he was a huge Berserk fan.

Prologue posted:

In the hours between the moons, all who lived on Halermon dreamed the same dream.
In their dream, an extirpated city spread forth, encompassing the horizons with mounds and mounds of abandoned fornications and foundations, collapsed pillars, giant conclave ceilings laying split between the ruins. It seemed as though the city was cast down from great height, and splintered minutely against the ancient ground.
And the ground was ancient indeed. Every single one of the dreamers, except for the most simple, felt it at once. This was the Prime ground, the first expanse formed from the chaos.
In the center of the city, if one can point at the center of an entity encompassing both horizons, a light glittered. The light called to them with the seductive whispers of the first snake, with the mewl of the first cat going in heat, with the victorious shriek of the first eagle, echoing amongst percolating canyons. And they answered the call.
And then they were there, next to the light source, crossing thousands of leagues in one single step.

It was a great transparent stone, returning the rays of the grand sun and gleaming at a great distance. They now stood next to it, one and all, but did not spot each other. For each dreamer, there was only the stone, himself, and none other.

For a long time they stood and stared at it, ensorcelled, deeming they could see a silhouette travelling within, like an insect trapped in amber. Then a thundering thought came at them from within, and they knew the time of the competition was coming.

An Eminandorian (?) cricket awoke from its sleep and forgot something its mind was incapable of comprehending. In the Deprandian (?) army's bear-stables, hundreds of black battle bears turned in their slumber, which was nearing at its end with the dregs of the winter, and forgot. A long-haired, tattooed nomad babe awoke from his sleep crying, and forgot its reason for doing so within moments. An Abanali (?) lad who lost his virginity at the start of that night arose with the memory intact � but the naked girl in his arms awoke moments later, and as they rode together once more, he had forgotten. A Yahzee (?) elder from the Yaharmudza(??) district did not even awake from his sleep. He quietly slipped from the dream into the eternal slumber of death.

All who lived in Halermon dreamed the exact same dream. Most of them were too stupid to remember, much less understand. Most of those who recalled their dream, consigned it to oblivion with the light of the dawn, or during the following day, for all know that the stuff that dreams are made of is the hardest to recollect. The few who remembered and shared it with their friends � and there were chiliads of those � were astounded to hear that their gossips dreamed an identical dream. Some laughed and dismissed the mystery as a rare and odd coincidence of no import. Some made signs against the evil eye, sang a prayer to appease their gods, or just spat aside, as their land and custom dictated.

Only a scant few remembered the dream and understood its meaning. For those, it was the last time they have slept a fearless sleep.

Well, that was quite the enticing (if somewhat generic) prologue, wasn't it? Not yet, it wasn't. We're not nearly done here, as the rest of the prologue chapter moves on into specifics, and (IMO) reflects the overall tone of the book much better.

quote:

Thebolt awoke from his sleep. He dreamed a different dream � his dream featured one of the portly serving girls from the "Nomad" tavern. This girl caught his eye during his last visit to the tavern, and now she appeared in his dream to lounge against him with the full weight of her flesh. Thebolt loved women who doubled him in their weight, and the dream was turning into a rather fortunate dream*. However, at this point the girl sensuously stuck out her tongue, and dragged it across his throat, and by Zama (?) that tongue was completely frozen! Thebolt awoke from his sleep in a fit of panic.

* I'm not going to interrupt the translation for this purpose again, but I have to assure you - the choice of words, turns of phrase and repetition is meant to convey the exact style of the original.

quote:

He was supposed to guard the searcher party until the hour of between-moons, but he fell asleep on guard duty. Thebolt had this minor problem, nothing serious, most certainly nothing any of his searcher party comrades ought to know about, as he intended to get rid of this marginal problem any day now. Thebolt liked the booze, and the booze liked him. Every once in a while he would slip a tiny sip from the little flask he kept near his heart, but only late at night, and only far from the eyes of his comrades. This could cost him his job and much more, but as noted above, Thebolt was fully in control of the problem.
Tonight, the problem was more under control than ever. First there was the one and only sip to keep his senses sharp while on guard; after that came three more, as he recalled he had jerky for supper, and that, as we know, is hard to digest; the other sips he excused by the flask coming to an end, and it being a shame. What exactly would be a shame, he could not explain, but he still poured the bitter warming liquid down his throat.

�

The first actual abridgement, holy poo poo. It's just a short paragraph about Thebolt drunkenly going to sleep, but it's a start. Do let me know which parts of this you find utterly redundant (not "the whole thing", thanks) so that I'll know what to summarize in the future .

quote:

It was the horses frightened neighing that woke him from his alcohol-soaked sleep, he thought. But after a moment, he deduced it was the cold sword blade held against his throat.
The dawn was rising, and the first pale beams of light started to make their way through the frond � an ill omen for a man with a blade against his throat. Thebolt's eyesight slowly focused on the silhouette towering above him.
"Where is the girl?" asked the stranger holding Thebolt's life at the point of his sword.
Thebolt could not understand a single word of this simple question. "What?" he asked in shock.

"The girl that was within your company till yesterday. Where is she?" The stranger spoke Glorian with a southern dialect, maybe Eminandorian. Thebolt, who was born in the duchy of Vigos (?) and raised there, spoke the languages of the duchies. It was a mixture of Glorian with an Ozilian (?) dialect, with influences from western Murian, that is to say, Dorian, and northern Murian, that is Adelionian (?) joined with the unique accent of the Duchy-born, which emphasizes the ends of words and swallows their start almost entirely; but it was Glorian nonetheless at the end of the day, so Thebolt had no acceptable excuse for failing to understand the language of his interlocutor. Except for the remains of alcohol and the fear of death, of course. "The girl?" repeated Thebolt in amazement.
"Put down the sword" a voice said behind the stranger. It was Lord Langford, the commander of the searcher party, now standing ten steps away from the two, his sword in its scabbard and his arms crossed on his chest. His eyes held a somewhat amused look, as though he found the whole spectacle entertaining.

The stranger turned his torso towards Lord Langford, his sword still pointing backwards, pressing against Thebolt's throat. "Excellent soldiers you have here, commander", he said.
Langford smiled with derision. "The smell of ale reaches all the way here. Private Thebolt had committed two infractions requiring a court martial. Infractions that merit a death sentence. However, you will not be the one to execute that sentence, I cannot allow that." By the time he finished speaking, the rest of the searchers, five in total, have spread in a semi-circle around the wagon, and unlike their commanders, their swords were drawn.

"I have no intention of doing so. I'm looking for the girl that was riding with you" the stranger said. His lofty figure, nearly six feet in height, looked like a mighty cliff surrounded by an aura of dawning light. The first detail Lord Langford noticed about him was the stranger's left hand: the palm was missing, and the shirt sleeve was tied around the stump. Afterwards the lord noted details less relevant to the field of combat: the stranger wore black Emindirian cloth pants, sown with great skill, and tall black leather boots. A short grey-silver cloak, reaching to his waist, hung from his broad shoulders, buttoned with a single dark-blue gem at the center of his chest, as was the habit of Emindorian nobility. Under the short robe he wore a very thin white silk shirt, and the fabric rippled with the light morning wind. Tin ripples blew through his long hair, going down to the middle of his back, colored black except for streaks of grey across his temples, giving him an older and wise look. His nose was harsh and curved, and his eyes shone with a steel-grey frost. His sword reflected the dawning light in a purple blaze, and like the weapons of the Guardian-Brothers, whoever looked at it might imagine the sound of string instruments in the distance.

I might have skipped all of that, but � unless I'm terribly mistaken, this might well be the most elaborate physical description in the entire book. And we're not even dealing with a main character, as such. Also, his sword is purple. Because that's scary.

quote:

Lord Langford thought this was a worthy adversary. He could kill him now, but something about the strangers question bothered him. Where is the girl, the stranger asked. Imojen (? I just like the mental of image of "heya, it's me, Imojen") he recalled. And then he understood � Imojen was gone.
The Lord recalled being awoken by the horses neighing, and immediately spotting the missing guard. He heard voices from the wagon, and the dawning light outlined two human silhouettes, and a purple sword gleam. Quickly and covertly he had woken his troops. But he did not recall waking Imojen, or even seeing her. Imogen was indeed gone.
"You don't know", the stranger said, as though guessing his opponents thought sequence. He lowered his sword and started to walk away, as though the warriors and their drawn swords were merely a part of the harmless landscape.
"Stop! ordered Lord Langford.

�
(Somewhat obvious "don't you walk away after that poo poo" posturing.

quote:

The stranger drew a deep breath. "I will make an exception and won't kill you for your rudeness", he said. He turned his back on the lord and started to distance himself once more.
"I asked you a question!"
�
The stranger turned quickly, his mane and his short cloak fluttering in the wind: "You've missed your chance" he said quietly, as though explaining his actions to an invisible third observer, and raised his sword in line with his eyes. The lord's soldiers also raised their swords, ready to defend their commander, but Langford stopped them with a wave of his hand. "This is between me and him", he hissed. The soldiers lowered their blades, ready to intervene as needed.*

*Spoilers � not really.
"I am obliged to warn you that I am a former Sting warrior, and I've been trained in the three sword disciplines of the Defrendi (?) Ancients. I am also one of the best swordsmen in the duchy of Vigos today", warned Lord Langford, as he was required.
His answer was a skeptical smile. The stranger raised his sword high, allowing it to gleam a spectrum of purple colors in the great rising sun. "You'll be sorry to hear this, but I'm not from from Vigos".
Lord Langford shrugged.
�
The Defrendi Ancients Pact required him to give warning. Arrogant though his words sounded, they often saved a great deal of bother, and a greater deal of a mess. From now on, each of them was on his own.

quote:

"You are messing with the wrong man", hissed Langford, deliberating on his opening move.
"You're not messing with a man", exclaimed the stranger, and crossed the five steps between himself and his opponent in a single leap. Lord Langford wasn't ready for what came afterwards. The stranger attacked him with a wild strength, like a rabid wolf, swinging his sword with amazing speed, and cutting through the air with a purple trail rushing to kill him. Only at the last moment did the lord manage to raise his sword to block the wild attack. He was pushed a few steps backwards, but the purple sword kept striking without mercy. Three more flashing blows followed the first, and the lord found that for the first time in his life he was forced to choose the worst type of defense � retreat.

The stranger knew how to use a sword well, but certainly did not reach Lord Langford's level, who was, just as he declared � a scion of the Sting group. What made the lord pace back, step by step at a slow but steady rhythm, was the mighty force with which the sword fell upon him. Every contact between the blades transferred a shocking impact across his hand. An impact so strong it almost made him drop his sword: so strong he felt the pain of the blocked strike in the back of his head, his feet, his other hand, his eyeballs, by Zaman! He knew he couldn't hold on for long against the terrifying attack; it seemed as though every sword stroke was stronger than the last, and he wondered what would break first � his defense or his sword.

The stranger didn't seem to be trying too hard, the giant sword as a sliver in his and. He struck over and over, without any particular wile or grace, but with the persistence of a miner laboring over a major vein of gold. That's not how you fence, thought Langford, that's how you cut down a tree. And this tree was a few blows away from falling down.

In a desperate move, the lord decided to try a low direct penetration (? Anyone with fencing experience to provide the proper terms here? We're going to have quite a bit of sword fighting in the future) in the Kozaro (?) style. It was a surreal, almost outlandish attack, taken from the very margins of the first discipline, and to the best of his knowledge it was never used in a real fight, except possibly by the famous Kozaro. A low direct penetration required one to kneel, and Langford knew very well that should the attack fail, he will find himself kneeling in front of his opponent with his sword stretched out far ahead of him; a sort of grotesque marriage proposal that will end with his head being plucked like a ripe fruit. On the other hand, should the attack succeed� any sort of direct penetration decides the outcome of the combat, and a direct low penetration ends it on the spot. The blade slices through most of the vital organs in the torso and ends its journey in the spine, leaving the victim split on his opponents sword like a roasted pig on a grid. Legend told that the famous Kozaro had slain an elder wraith with this attack. Legend also told that Kozaro was a madman who lost his life at 19 by falling on his sword. Lord Langford decided to take the chance.

His eyes focused on the Kozaro spot through the thin silk shirt. If he recalled correctly, it was about three fingers above the navel. He repelled two more rampant attacks, and had to use every last ounce of his strength to keep his fingers closed around the pommel for the last one, and then quickly dropped to his left knee and his sword shot forth like an arrow.

The stranger did not try to block the blade. He was so enveloped in his own attack, that he forgot his opponent is capable of offensive action of his own, absurd though it may be. The Defrendian swords blade sank into the stranger's belly, and sliced through his diaphragm, lungs, heart, and its point emerged from his back and disconnected his four limbs from his brain.

The stranger looked with surprise at the man who impaled him. Lord Langford looked with surprise at the stranger impaled on his sword. If we weren't dealing with death, one might have said that their exchange of looks was like that of a boy and a girl losing their virginity; a kind of surprise followed by the thought "so that's how that feels". The sword was pulled out, and the stranger collapsed backwards.

quote:

Silence prevailed.
Lord Langford twisted towards his soldiers: "That was a Kozaro penetration", he mumbled as though refusing to believe it. His five soldiers looked equally shocked. The lord turned back to look at the strangers corpse. He had never found himself so close to death. The fact he was still breathing was a miracle accomplished directly by the First (female, Hebrew does gendered nouns)
He wiped the blood from his blade on the stranger's pants. Once finished, he turned to Thebolt, still sitting on the wagon with his mouth wide open. "You", he said. The other soldiers also approached Thebolt, their swords drawn.

Thebolt was too shocked to move, defend himself, or say a word. The most he could do was close his mouth and look at the crowd closing in on him.
"You pay for your mistakes*", said Lord Langford with a harsh voice.

* "One must pay for his mistakes? Mistakes are made to be paid for? It's a rather Israeli specific expression � something you commonly hear from a drill sergeant.

quote:

"You said it", a steady voice said behind him. Lord Langford turned his head slowly, as though he knew what sort of demon waited behind his back. He stood there, tall and straight, his short cloak waving in the cool morning breeze. His shirt has a hole in it, about two fingers in diameter, but smooth and whole skin la beyond it. The shirt was soaked with blood, but Lord Langford couldn't see a remnant of a bleeding wound. The stranger stood on both his feet, and looked at the lord. And smiled. "Where were we?" he asked with a somewhat dreamy voice. His gaze misted over and turned skywards, as though trying to catch a slippery memory. Suddenly his eyes lit up, "Ah!" he called out, as though finally recollecting. His gaze fixated upon the lord standing thunderstruck in front of him. "A battle" he cried once more, and his smile grew wider.

Lord Langford never saw the sword, only the purple storm that enveloped the stranger, and then himself. In the first eruption, the lord's sword broke in the middle, an iron splinter bouncing away, nearly poking his left eye out. Come the second eruption, Lord Langford lay on the bare ground, writhing in a growing puddle of blood. The whole spectacle didn't take any longer than the margin between two intakes of breath. The Lord, whose life was quickly streaming out, screamed in agony. His body was cut open in several places, and the pain was much too strong to hold on. The stranger approached the lord, who was twitching helplessly at his feet, and took off his shrieking head with a single blow. This wasn't a gesture of mercy, or a warriors honor code, not at all, the terrible screams were merely hurting his sensitive ears and he wished to stop them. For another moment he looked upon the beheaded lord, and then raised his gaze at the six stunned soldiers, standing knock-kneed in front of him. They looked ready to come to some arrangement, or to be precise, any arrangement.
"No choice", he sighed, and charged the six".

Join us next time (tomorrow?) when I post about Israel and the curse of the terrible, no good, absolutely lovely translations AKA why I ~~stopped worrying and loved learned to love archaic expressions~~ translated the entire thing above the way I have, and why it sounds the way it sounds to a native speaker.

Thoughts? Input? Readtroughs of far more interesting and obscure stuff?

Seriously � which parts should I elide further in the future, which should I expand upon? Should I strive to maintain a translation tone that will convey the exact style of the original, or just the intended meaning?

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jul 7, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 22:02

Earwicker: Jan 6, 2003

hmm ok interesting setup but I think you forgot to make a demand.

"I am going to translate this entire horrible Israeli fantasy novel unless you ________."

you gotta fill in the blank bud, what is it you are after?

# ? Jul 7, 2015 13:23

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

So let's talk about Hebrew translations, lexicon, and word-choice in epic fantasy novels.

Modern Hebrew is basically a century old, kinda. I mean, some parts of the initial version are lifted wholesale from the bible, others are upended from Aramaic, mostly used in Middle-Ages discussions, and some were invented from whole-cloth, based on principles haphazardly derived from the rest of the lexicon, made to fit everyday usage (the Bible does cover a large number of subjects, so the popular example of "going down to the grocery store" isn't quite on point � but "visiting a garage" strains the Biblical lexicon to its limits and beyond). Still, even given all of that, you'd imagine that (at the very least) reading a random bit of writing from the late 19th century would be about as difficult (or easy) for respective native speakers of English and Hebrew. After all, how far can a language evolve with the span of a single century?

Wrong again, hypothetical person answering my questions, as usual. Man, you really need to get your poo poo together; I don't think you got a single one of these right in forever.

You probably know that Modern Hebrew incorporates a fair deal of Arabic, some select bits of Yiddish, and like any modern language, quite a great deal of English, with more filtering in every day despite the best efforts of The Academy of the Hebrew Language .

This, parenthetically, is a body which busies itself with trying to come up with and promote a Hebrew name for everyday objects like Television / Disc on Key (which was actually created by an Israeli company and given that name, [ironically? enough]) or (better yet) come up with a more "grammatically correct" name for a laptop in Hebrew, since the existing one just isn't cumbersome enough. All this, while using the English (well, Greek, but you know what I mean) word "Academy" in their organization title, because the Hebrew equivalent "does not convey the breadth of meaning and history of 'Academy'". The irony is, as usual, completely lost upon them, which is one of the most typically Israeli things I can think of.

Anyways. As modern Hebrew was absorbing useful words at an alarming rate, evolving from a constructed language into an organic one (and, as much poo poo as I give to Eliezer Ben Yehuda, it was an impressive construction to have the potential to ~~become a reaaaaaaaal boy~~ come to life in this manner, going from no one's native tongue to uniting a nation of immigrants and refugees) it also shed a lot of needless weight in the form of quickly antiquated lexicon. Cumbersome synonyms, useless artifacts, pretty much the entire weight of Aramaic � gone from popular lexicon and consigned to oblivion / SAT fodder within decades. Pretty much� anywhere between 20 and 40(!)% of the original Hebrew thesaurus was gone within 2-3 decades of the moment the state of Israel was founded. GONE. No longer in use not just on street level � but in newspapers, public television, anything. As relevant to the everyday language as most of the turns of phrase in Shakespeare (I know � people generally emphasize how many modern phrases owe their origins to him, because there's nothing surprising about most of his speech being outdated half a millennia later) or the Habit of emphasizing Seemingly random Words to point out their Importance.

Now. Imagine you are an aspiring 21st century writer in a world that skipped directly from Shakespeare to Philip Roth and Chuck Palahniuk (to pick an utterly random example). Don't touch Robert Stevenson or Daniel Defoe. Skip Jane Austin and Oscar Wilde completely. Kipling and Hemingway (particularly Hemingway) are utterly foreign to you. You will (naturally) have very peculiar ideas of what "proper" literature sounds like. It will be cumbersome, unwieldy, full of esoteric and outdated words and phrases, and you won't see anything wrong with that because that's how "meaningful" or "important" proper literary ideas were conveyed to you, and will be conveyed on to your impressionable readers forever and ever until the end of days, Amen.

I'm not going to elaborate on the history of the struggle with this (not to overreact) absolutely idiotic and poisonous attitude, because it�s more than enough for a PHD dissertation. If you can google, look for " עברית רזה ושרירית" aka "lean and muscular Hebrew" � the story doesn't appear to be online in English, but it's basically about how a desperate search for an impromptu compliment of a style that did not fit the cumbersome orthodoxy turned out to be the first stone in an avalanche that rammed through the fortress walls in a steady torrent of mixed metaphors. One of my earliest impressions of the subject was this lovely translator using a newspaper opinion column to defend his choice of "Balconia" (not actually a word) over "Balcony" (the Hebrew equivalent, but you get my point) because the first conveyed so many more additional meanings beyond the authors intent.

All this is (hopefully) mostly in the past for all intents and purposes � except when it comes to SF&F translations. Because no one really gives a poo poo about the translation quality, because the quality of the original prose (let's be fair) is probably not the highest, because you really want to convey how epic the action / backstory / song sung by annoying elves around the campfire are� you basically have a lot of translations that get the Hebrew equivalent of dipping into Early Modern English in the middle of an orc-slicing mise en scene.

As I mentioned above � though there aren't a lot of sci-fi writers in Israel, there are a lot of fans. That means that there's a lot of fan circles, blogs and reviews that feel obliged to check out a new homegrown novel, even if its quality is lacking. I feel as though Heresy may well owe half its sales to reviewers, and I will be quoting from relevant bits as we go through the novel. One of the more relevant bits in the very first review � this novel feels like a translation. The reviewer blames this on a failure to translate the authorial intent onto the page and on lacking editorial oversight, but I feel otherwise � this is exactly the prose style someone raised on terrible translated SF&F will choose, complete with the needlessly obtuse jargon and elaborately archaic turns of phrase out of nowhere.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Jul 7, 2015

# ? Jul 7, 2015 14:45

mallamp: Nov 25, 2009

Hebrew epic fantasy? We already have bible megathread. Sick burn, hot as hell. Ba dum tsss.

# ? Jul 7, 2015 16:54

mallamp: Nov 25, 2009

Anyway, you may want to edit thread title to better reflect purpose of thread, I clicked this hoping for discussion about stuff like Three Body Problem

# ? Jul 7, 2015 16:56

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

mallamp posted:

Anyway, you may want to edit thread title to better reflect purpose of thread, I clicked this hoping for discussion about stuff like Three Body Problem

I've actually asked the mods to edit the title twice over, as the original was unfortunately truncated. Do you have a better suggestion? How do you find the current discussion suggests a physics problem?

# ? Jul 7, 2015 18:42

Wungus: Mar 5, 2004

Xander77 posted:

I've actually asked the mods to edit the title twice over, as the original was unfortunately truncated. Do you have a better suggestion? How do you find the current discussion suggests a physics problem?

The Three Body Problem is a fantastic Chinese science fiction novel by Liu Cixin.

# ? Jul 8, 2015 12:09

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

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Hiyat the Silver walked through the nebulous corridors of the tabernacle without paying attention to the servants kneeling everywhere. He knew they were doing so without need to actually watch them. Two servants lost their life about an eclipse and a half ago � they kneeled before him, but not fast enough. He actually had to wait for them to do so. They did not rise again. Since then, at least, no such annoying ritual problems arose, and as he walked through the tabernacle, the servants fell like a human leaf fall*

The last bit is my own translation error� Hebrew has an actual word for that phenomenon (exfoliation? Meh). It's not a particularly great simile regardless, but at least it works.

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Hiyat did not consider himself to be a bad man. A cruel man, but not a bad one. He maintained a rigid definition of the two � a bad man enjoyed the suffering of others. Hiyat merely saw suffering as the necessary fastest and best way to achieve what he wanted. To be particular, Hiyat did not actually see himself as a man.

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Unlike himself, Hiyat's master was bad. "Bad" was far too weak a word to describe his master, he reflected. "Malignant" was a more precise definition. And the most correct term would quite probably be "Diabolical". Had he believed in Zaman, he would consider his master to be Imolo, the Exiled Prince, but he did not believe in her or in any other god besides his master. In his master, he believed fully and completely� having seen him in his full awful power, each instance inscribed with terrible clarity in his memory. He admired his master and feared him, and the thought of betrayal never crossed his mind. After all, one cannot betray a god. His master saw into his heart and knew what he was thinking at any moment. Even if Hiyat could find a way to deceive him, he knew of no conceivable way to slay him.
Hiyat's master was the God Mur.

(god Mur? Not sure what the proper capitalization of that nomenclature is)

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Hiyat knew the barber story. That was what the tabernacle servants called it: simply "the barber story".

About 300 years ago, someone paid the royal barber to slit Mur's throat. This was after Mur failed to conquer what will eventually become the Glorian kingdom, and Zaman's speakers kicked the poo poo out his armies with rains of fire and resurrected warriors. Hiyat thinks that was just an Imagineer's trick.
Yes, Imagineer. I guess the intended meaning is something along the lines of "illusionist" or at least "sorcerer" but the literal translation is goddamn Imagineer, and I'm sticking with that, because it's hilarious.

Anyways, some of the believers started to lose faith in Mur's manly might, forgetting

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the resurrection of warriors in the Battle of Adelion, the miracle of the Great Divide, stopping the great flood as Zefir, the ascension of the nine apostles, and countless other miracles that took place since the god Mur came down to earth.
�
Humans are short-lived and short-memories. Those sinners soon got another reminder of the god's power.
During the daily shave, the traitorous barber attempted to cut the god Mur's throat. As though his skin was made of steel, the blade slid off without leaving a single scratch. The poor barber did not live long enough to be properly horrified. The servants who dragged his body from the tabernacle could not identify him, and it took them hours to find that the faceless corpse used to be the royal barber. But Hiyat's master did not stop at that � he found the anonymous factor that was so generous towards the barber, and de-anonymized him before the sun completed its diurnal course from the moment of that unfortunate incident. As dawn rose on The Bloody Square (at the time still called "Victory Square") about two hundred people were executed � sliced, rather � after being brought in all the away from Zefir in barred cattle carts. Everyone dear to Silvan, the chancellor of Zefir, were slaughtered that day, starting with his nine children and down to the very last stable boy. That day established cultural norms that became the iron-bound law in the lands of Mur: the customary tool of execution was changed from a battle-axe to a simple razor, and the sentence was changed from "execution" to "a shave", known as a "last shave" amongst the Murian commoners. A thousand shaves were held since in various squares� but none forgot that very first mass shaving, and not even the city beggars, no matter how drunk, would be willing to tell of what their ancestors saw come that bloody dawn. Only the most careful of listeners might catch an alleyway whisper in the darkest hour of the night, telling that beneath the dark executioners hood was him� their god, the mighty Mur.

Eh. The bad guy is invulnerable, and kills the poo poo out of people. Ok. You gently caress with him; he'll kill your whole family and friends, down to the squirrel in your front yard. So far, so good. "Holy poo poo, he might be putting on an executioners hood and killing a bunch of people" � yeah, that's not really escalating things at this point.
The book does that a lot � backspaces that pile on more stuff that seemed cool at the time, without much consideration for how well the whole meshes, if at all.

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Mur was the sole Helermon god to wear the guise of flesh, as any Adelion child knew.
�
Hiyat knew the history and the Book of Challenge by heart. Mur the mighty, known as "The True" by the subjects of Hadura(?) (My first instinct was to go with "the Dorians" but those are mentioned again, so I guess that's either a different country that just has a similar name, or an editing oversight) "The Rebel" by the barbarian tribes of the Damarian steppes, and, as mentioned above, "The Mighty" by the Dorians, challenged the rest of the Helermon gods in the year three thousand and four hundred of the seventy count. In the Book of Challenge it was written "the Mighty shouted three greats shouts to the heavens, each unanswered", and furthermore "and each shout went; you that exist � come down and fight!" and since no god came down to fight Mur, the new gods believers gained inconvertible proof that theirs was the one and only God. Unlike the apostles, Hiyat thought that the First, the Holy and the Merciful, the idols of other religions, did indeed exist. They've heard the Mighty's shout, and shivered behind the cover of clouds, listening to their bones shake.

Hiyat enters his master's abode without knocking.

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At first he loved treating the palace as his own. But as the eclipses passed, he noticed a thin smile touching his master's harsh lips, and realized he was allowed a certain degree of rudeness� turning even this minor insubordination into a graciously granted privilege, the master took over the last bastion of rebellion in his servants soul. As the eclipses went by, Hiyat kept to his rudeness mainly by force of habits. Or perhaps to remind himself of the distant past, when he was his own master � he now neither knew nor cared. It seemed to him now as though he had ever served his master, and when he tried to recollect when he ceased calling him "my King" and first referred to him as "my Master" he found he had forgotten that as well � the past was one grey blur of willing slavery.

Mur's rooms are covered with pictures of battles, featuring Mur himself on his crimson horse Zavul

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Mur's mighty tresses whipping around his head, his bare chest and pupil-less eyes making him look like a demon. And who could tell? Hiyat only knew his master for two decades, and before that considered the gods to be mere sha'ala for the masses.

It's all about as fancy as you'd expect, with gold, ivory, silk etc. The broken shield � one of Mur's main symbols � repeats in the decorations.

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The focus of the room was the gold and silver gilded coffin, which hanged from the ceiling on dozens of thin silver chain. The believers called it "the Holy Coffin" and many legends were told about it.
�
It was half the size of a real coffin, too small to contain a corpse. Maybe a child's body, Hiyat thought, but never asked his master about it. He had the vague feeling he would not take such a question well.
�
Every so often, he would glance at the ceiling and wonder what a human god, or a godlike human may find so necessary as to always keep it close.
�
The Holy Coffin also featured heavily in the battle arrays decorating the room. Hiyat recalled trying to joke with his master once, cynically remarking that his conquests looked like an ostentatious funeral. His master's hand tightened around the handle of his ivory throne, till it was crushed into white powder, slipping between the gods fingers like a fistful of sand. Hiyat has been in many battles, but he knew he was never closer to death than at the moment ivory turned to dust. He never knew why his master spared him � it surely was not mercy, so it must have been necessity, he supposed. "I live while I'm needed". What an encouraging thought, he thought. But at least it was better than the purposeless life of the multitude.

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At the center of the room, surrounded by large soft pillows, sat his master. At the moment, he lay with two of his concubines. Dozens more were sitting or lying in different places across the room, all as naked as the day they were born. Not far from the ivory throne lay the body of one of the girls, her skulls totally smooshed*, as though run over by a carriage wheel. Hiyat noted that he should tell the servants to remove the corpse once he left. The master lost an average of one concubine every cycle of days, due to violent rage fits. Oddly enough, the other girls, who knew their eventual fate would be no different, looked less like condemned prisoners and more like stupid sheep following the herd to the slaughter. Their eyes were wide open in perpetual astonishment, and their full lips were used only for wan and hollow smiles, and cries of pleasure that shook the tabernacles foundations and made pedestrians across the capital stop and smile. They must have been drugged, Hiyat supposed, though he knew of no drug with such strong effects. Nevertheless, he refrained from tasting the wine and fruit.

One more note on throwing poo poo in without editorial oversight, just because it sounds cool � the girls are relaxed, chill, and ready to be slaughtered, not in the least bit active. Oh, and also screaming in passion for the whole city to hear. Sure.
*Once again, all word choices are intentional and congruent with the original.

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His master was also fully naked. His skin was dark like that of the northern nomads, and his head shaved clean, except for a thick, coal-black braid originating from the center of his head and going to the middle of his back, wherein it split into dozens or hundreds of thin braids that swept the floor. The god Mur stopped his actions and turned sharply towards Hiyat. Hiyat served his masters for twenty eclipses, and this wasn't the first time his master's gaze made his gasp in shock.
His master's eyes were pure blue � with no pupil or white parts� You could never tell where the eyes were staring at a given moment, and they seemed to see everything. The other part of Mur's appearance that made Hiyat uncomfortable was his height. Hiyat was taller than most other men by a head or so. His master was two heads taller than him � by human standards a literal giant.

Hiyat thinks Mur is an incarnation / reflection on earth of the god in heaven.

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A reflection or otherwise, a small example of his calm would be enough to have a Speaker of Zaman change his faith. Hiyat once saw his master murder one of his concubines in cold blood. The murder took over a minute, with the god holding his left hand around the concubine's temples and squeezing. The girl screamed like crazy, and her perfect body twitched like a fish out of water. Throughout this, the master talked with Hiyat about raising the taxes on the land of Mirandora. His voice was quiet and stable, and his head never once turned towards the victim twitching between his fingers. You could guess the master was angry from the content of words, not from the way they were spoken, for his voice was almost completely devoid of intonation. Nevertheless, Hiyat had no doubt that his master felt emotions, for an emotionless man cannot enjoy acts of cruelty, which his master very much had.

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"You came in at a bad time", calmly stated the god Mur.
"I am sorry, master" he said, and bowed in submission, "the matter does not allow for delays". The master stood at once, ignoring the concubine moving over his loins as though possessed, and she fell off him with a faint moan, like a dry twig, and though her head smashed against the hard marble floor, she apparently felt no pain. Her eyes remained closed, and her lips open in supernatural pleasure, while her delicate hands rushed to continue the task her master suddenly y ceased

Mur sits in his ivory throne, for the first time in decades. Hiyat fixates on the missing handle (sloppy maintenance) and feels there's an implied threat there.

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"You have failed", said the god.
Hiyat looked straight into the pure blue. "Indeed. I had lost the girl's scent near Tentalas. I could have gotten rid of her art Hosto, but you commanded otherwise".
Mur's lips curved into a frozen contemptuous smile. "When I wish to be rid of you, I'll command you to get rid of her. Until then, do as I command and keep your sword in its scabbard. You are needed."
"Needed", wordlessly repeated Hiyat, drawing pleasure from the word.
"Where is she headed?" asked the god.

Hiyat doesn't know (a contemptible failure). She made an alliance with the Duke of Vigos, who gave her the searchers and Langford to escort her to Tentalas to search for the stone. Langford was really impressive (former Sting, commander of the palace guard) but she left the party just before Hiyat caught up.

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"A contemptible failure," repeated his master.
Hiyat did not answer. "May Imolo take you" he cursed in his heart, but knew his master will hear.
"He did, and he returned me here", said the god without a trace of a smile. Then he grew quiet and thoughtful � or at least that's how Hiyat interpreted his frozen expression.

Hiyat waits half a day without moving a muscle, at which point Mur continues as though he just finished his last sentence:

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"Listen here, my handless slave. The times are twisted. The dream came sooner than expected, and now plans change. Call the chancellor council tonight. Tomorrow you will return to Glorian, trap the little slut and bring her back here, alive but in chains. No more following and skulking � I've let her play more than long enough. In one diurnal course from now, you must bring her back. Beware � she's not as innocent as she looks. Bring along a pain-chain. Four cycles should be more than enough to amend the damage your foolishness had caused."
�
"My whore of a mother guessed right, the time of the children is upon us� if you smell the right wind, it will reek of blood, handless one, rivers of blood".
�
For the first time in decades, Hiyat could sense a hidden tremor in his master's voice as it emphasized "blood". The air smelled of uncertainty, a promise of change. Or was that just his imagination? This was enough for cold sweat to snake down his back.
"As you wish, master", he said.

Tune in next time for eunuch and imaginer adventures!

# ? Jul 9, 2015 15:24

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Sorry about the delay, was busy writing for pay, which unfortunately takes precedence.
When we left off, the god Mur sent Hiyat to recover Imojen from wherever she is.

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The Silver One left the tabernacle. �Rise!� he ordered the heavy-set eunuch that kneeled before him. �Where does he get them?� he wondered. All the Loramis, the tabernacle eunuchs, looked alike to him. Even the offensive scent was the same. Their white, dough-like skin was hairless, and stretched placenta-like over their obese bodies. Their piggy little eyes looked dead even when they smiled. Mayhap they are castrated upstairs as well, he wondered. And the smile was even more nauseating than the moon-pie face across which it spread, since tiny pointed teeth rose between pale lips. Whatever reason they had to file their teeth, he could not imagine. Certainly not for the purpose of fighting, since a single sword-blow should be enough to spill the guts of this clumsy fatso long before he manages to wipe the pointy smile off his face. Hiyat occasionally considered confirming this hypothesis, but made sure to keep his balance. Unlike his master, he preferred not to be seen as an unpredictable madman � it made working with people that much easier. �What is your name?� he asked.
�Loram-Dal� the eunuch answered, and immediately began to drop to his knees again, but Hiyat stopped him.
�Stand up!� he commanded angrily. He had no time for elaborate courtesies. Not now. �Find Loram, your master, and tell him to get to my chamber without delay. Drag him from his bed if you have to, for this is our master�s command. Run like the wind, Loram-dal, for your life depends on it!� he commanded with a mocking smile.

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Loram the Stargazer*, advisor to the god Mur, was the person most hated by Hiyat out of the wide selection residing in the tabernacle. In fact, he was the most hated person in all of Halermon, and there were two good reason for that: the first was, that he did not care for the way he looked upon his master. The second was his left hand, cut off at the wrist and constantly pulsing with pain.

*Literally �Star-er�, but Imagineer is enough of a stupid name for one day, IMO.

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About 20 years ago, Mur�s capital city of Sakal-Mur was one of the five Imagineer cities, and was called Kir-Sakal. It was the first time in known history that one of the free cities was conquered, not counting the destruction of Kir-Sodai by the Perception itself. The very idea of capturing a city with that power protecting it was absurd. His master�s audacity thrilled Hiyat.
Why didn�t the rest of the free cities help Kir-Sakal? Was it true that Loram the star-gazer handed over the keys to the city to Mur of his own will? And the greatest question � what made Loram, who took the vows of Perception, break his vows(!)(*) of neutrality, allows his master to enter the Kir-Sakal serverum, make it � may the ears of Imageneer�s be roasted � into his private tabernacle, and then continue to serve him?
�
Hiyat had no notion of the nature of the alliance between Loram and the mighty one, which made his despise the blue Imagineer all the more.
�
When made it to his chambers, his personal servants informed him, down from his obeisance that Loram the Stargazer was waiting in the guest rooms. Hiyat entered the audience room, but then recalled a niggling matter, and turned to the still kneeling servant: �Make sure they drag out the girl lying in the tabernacle� and then stepped through the door.

*I�m thinking of marking exceptionally egregiously formatted sentences with a little (!) just to emphasize the way they sound is off in the original text.
Note that we�re getting like 3-4 nicknames for Loram in a page or two. See the �throw it in� approach above.

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The exiled Imagineer was wearing his threadbare blue-rob, and leaning on his star-staff. Since the day the Serverum was turn into the god�s tabernacle, Loram shed his grey robe, the symbol of perception, and none outside the tabernacle saw his face again. The eunuchs were not allowed to leave and he accepted no new students for the skills of Gazing and Undermining after the city was taken � the existing ones were sent to the remaining Serverums.
As the head servants of the might god, he and Hiyat often had to discuss matters. Loram generally had his say through the mouths of the eunuchs, which may have accounted for Hiyat�s dislike thereof. Still, that was much preferable to talking to the senior Imagineer face to face.
�
�Things are happening� said the Silver One.

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�Things are happening�, echoed Loram. �The time of the children came at last�.
This was the second time Hiyat heard the unfamiliar expression� but he would rather ask every beggar in Sakal-Mur before asking the stargazer.
�
Loram would ask nothing of Hiyat; he never did. Just like him, he also held to a childish pride. The Silver One smiled his mocking predatory smile, allowing just the edges of his lips to twitch lightly as though in a fit, hoping to make the old man uncomfortable. He was probably the only one to walk upright (!) who could mock this man and still draw breath. �I have ordered the chancellor council to be summoned�, finally said Hiyat, and based on the frozen expression of his interlocutor�s, he guessed it was known to him, as he knew of everything that took place between the walls of the tabernacle through the eyes and ears of his bald and obese servants.
The last council was summoned three hundred eclipses ago, during the Nine-Conquests era, before any of them was born. To the best of Hiyat�s knowledge, that was the only time the council was summoned in full. His master always preferred to summon his councilors one at a time. Much faster and less noisy, he would say
�The summoning will be held come the next diurnal course, on this very day. It will be held here, at the Tabernacle�

This manages to hurt Loram, who is still the only one to call the place �Serverum� as though hoping to see it free, despite handing it over himself, and despite his exile overriding his code of conduct. Hiyat wonders once more why Loram gave up the city to Mur.

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�What are your news for them?�, quietly asked the Imagineer.
�War. The greatest of wars. Every single one of Mur�s countries will participate. Every male who has reached the age of eleven eclipses and is yet to reach sixty one will be enlisted. The master will lead the army himself, as in the days of old, and you�ve been chosen to be his battle-Imagineer. I congratulate you, Stargazer.�
�
Just the look in the old man�s eyes was worth turning an empire upside down and sending hundreds of thousands of men to their deaths. The Imagineer will be forced to leave his glorious solitude for the first time in twenty eclipses.

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�And where are you headed?�
...
The old man broke his habits to ask a question, and therefore already knew the answer. �The voice answering means more than the answers�, the saying went. �On an urgent mission�, the Silver One spoke, and said no more, to leave the impression intact.
�Try not to lose the girl this time�, said Loram, and now the edge of a mocking smile touched his own lips.
�The girl will be found�, said Hityat with a quiet steely voice, that took him a lot of effort to maintain.

Really, he should be somewhere in the black acid pits for his failure to trace her the first time. Alternately, Mur could reveal the location of the girl again, as he did the first time. But no, he�s giving Hiyat enough rope to hang himself.

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Loram seemingly read his thoughts. �I would start looking for her in the Pira springs, north of Tantales. She�ll end up there, upon my word, Silver One�
The contempt Hiyat felt for his interlocutor reached its peak. The old bean remembered the kindness of his youth, for what other reason would he have to volunteer information to his sworn enemy, the one who betrayed him. Hiyat hated being dependent on the mercies of heretics, and even more he hated the fact that the heretic before him couldn�t help but like him.
�She�ll be there with another three � two servants of the Perception and a boy. I recommend you keep the boy alive. You have my word that doing so will leave your master grateful enough to forget your latest failure.
The Serverum master turned to walk away. �Loram!� called out Hiyat.
The old Imagineer stopped, but did not turn around.
�You want to replace this ragged cape�, said Hiyat to the old man�s back�(!), after all, you are going to be famous�.
Loram�s shoulders stooped. He quickened his pace at once and left the room.
Hiyat the Silver allowed himself a genuine smile.

Join us next time, when we finally get to meet the protagonist. Five guesses as to what his age / occupation / location are.

(What, did you think that the girl being pursued by the evil empire was the protagonist? Don't be absurd, she's a girl)

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Jul 23, 2015

# ? Jul 23, 2015 17:19

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Did you truly think this was over? This isn't even my final form.

Seriously though, I'm hoping to get a regular update schedule up, and either power through to the more interesting bits (and yes, there are plenty of interesting bits) or finish this and move on to something more representative.

Chapter 2, in which we're finally introduced to our protagonist, Avis.

Last time around, no one took the bait and made a guess as to his status and occupation, because... he's a farmer lad of 18 or so, obviously. He's feeding his masters bony (one n) horses with terrible local fruit, and convincing them to eat up, with promises of hay rather than straw (I don't know enough about farming / horses to tell if that's a genuine improvement) in the future pie-in-the-sky sort of deal. Meanwhile, he bitches about his life and his work, not without cause, as we'll soon see.

But first:

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"Avis, Avis!" the call came again. It was Lika, daughter of Fizzo, shaking the foundations of the Levatin manor, only she can raise her voice to such octaves, as I know first hand, Avis sniggered to himself."

Besides wanton cruelty to the common comma... you REALLY don't want to introduce your protagonist as he smugs it up. Few qualities are less endearing.

(Also, as a compromise I'm going to change some word choices to make the text more readable, but mostly keep the run on sentences intact)

Anyways, he's been finding a lot of snakes in the straw he shifts. They may fear him more than he fears them, but that only makes them more dangerous (Odds on either the horse persuasion or the snake thing being foreshadowing of more world-shaking events / politics?) He throws their bodies to the pigs, and recalls the first time he's done so, without cutting the head off first. This poisoned the pig, at which point:

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"A cat-o-nine strike for every eclipse!" screamed master Hovo in a voice saturated with sha'ala drug, but Avis could not hold on to the post for more than six straight strikes, and collapsed fainting come the seventh.

Lika told him later that this did not stop master Hovo from finishing his punishment, but then Big Rako, Avis' father, emerged from the night and grasped Hovo's hand, stopping the cat in its tracks. Before the task masters [work-managers in the original text, which is ever so fantasy-ish / fearsome] could swoop down upon him, Big Rako took off his shirt and wordlessly grabbed hold of the punishment post, casting a giant shadow over the young Avis, who laid beneath him, weeping in his insensible faint.

Master Hovo raised his hand and stopped the taskmasters from casting their murderous ire upon the intractable serf who dared raise his hand against his maser - else-wise, Big Rako would have been gasping at the gallows even before Avis awoke from his slumber. Master Hovo laughed, spit to the right, as he would when in good spirits, and the cat-o-nine started whistling once more. He started counting from the start, said Lika, who came out to watch the matter play out in the middle of the night along with the rest of the serfs [? Why the middle of the night, given the pretext for the scene, and why are we taking a break from it just now for a Lika update?]

Once the twelfth strike landed against Rako's back, he called out once again, with a sober coldness this time, "a strike for every eclipse!" and kept the count for sixteen more.

So far, so effective, but why stop at "effective" when you can keep piling on?

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It seemed as though big Rako does not feel the stings of the cat, even though master Hovo made sure the strikes were sharp enough to cut the flesh, but still he cried out, and the other serfs cried right alongside him, there in the hour of the moons-change. Avis knew his fathers tears came not from the heights of torture caused by the cat, but from the depths of humiliations and despair that were the destiny of every serf. The other three taskmasters each also grabbed a pig-skin lash, a whipping stick or a cat, each according to his taste, and joined master Hovo, each one landing twenty-eight strikes across Rako's torn back, a strike for every eclipse.

Eventually Rako's feet fails, and he dropped to his knees, his hands still grasping the punishment post, leaving which count as an act of rebellion, punished by a new count of strikes at best, and a hanging at worst. He knelt there for another moment, praying to Zama the Loving Mother to save him, and then lost consciousness and folded around Avis, protecting him from the terrible outside, his hands still around the post. The taskmasters still haven't finished their work, but a furious noise passed through the onlooking crowd, and master Hovo commanded them to stop. Avis would prefer to forget his twelfth birthday, but he failed to do so every morning before he opened his eyes.

I rather like this bit, good Marxist reader that I am. This isn't Faldor's farm that we're dealing with here - a serf's life is really rather lovely, as would be the life of any "simple farmer boy" protagonist, really.

But never mind all that - let's talk about what a big old whorish whore Lika is. Because nothing goes along with torture like underage sex.

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Lika was more than three eclipses younger and two heads shorter than him. Her body, which wasn't as overtly skinny as that of the pickers, nor as voluptuously curvy as that of the cooks, seemed to tempt any male that came across it. Her long earth-hued hair was always carefully arranged around her heavy breasts, and those were nestled in her ragged white blouse like over-ripe fruit on a market stand. They drove Avis insane, and lured him into sleeping with her in this very barn just last eclipse, despite knowing he was breaking the laws of the Sovereign and the shire.

Like's father, Fizzo, was one of the new taskmasters... luckily he came to the mansion after Avis' twelfth birthday [? So... Lika arrived before he did?] else-wise he would have sworn vengeance against him as well, and never touched his daughter, no matter how tempting and wanton.

A few days before her fourteenth eclipse (so, when Avis was 17 or more) Lika gave him her virginity in the snake-filled threshing floor. Come her 14th birthday, a girl is given to the shire Sovereign, and the very thought of sleeping with a girl that was sullied with Levetin's seed made Avis so filled with nausea as to want to throw up.

And indeed, a few days after Lika had given herself to Avis, with a great deal of pathos and an impressive vocal range, she was dragged into Levetin's quarters, where she was taken throughout the night, her screams disturbing the sleep of the serfs. Though Avis hoped to feel joy at the thought of slipping damaged fruit to the Sovereign, he instead found himself spending the night in the snake-barn, wailing in tears. It was only his fathers presence outside the barn that kept his son from grabbing hold of a pitchfork and going out to meet the Sovereigns testicles, if not his Adam's apple. [Translators note - I'm guessing about the "Adam's apple" bit. The term used is either so obscure or just entirely made up that google does not recognize it]

Some taskmasters say the Sovereign is a sorcerer and can see into your heart, Rako says he's just a man, who will be judged by Zama as any of his serfs. Master Hovo, his peniless druggie second cousin, now an influential taskmaster with gold in his pockets and a cat in his hand has this to say:

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Sovereign Levetin is a great man. Even greater than however great you thought he is... great! By Zama, Sovereign Levetin is a great man!

Which is pretty good, I'll admit.

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Afterwards, Lika became an assistant-seamstress [probably not a Pratchett nod] as the Sovereign's mansion, his favorite serf kept close to his heart and his bedchamber. Fizo, her father, was quickly promoted to taskmaster and even got a good pot of land of his own, all in return for allowing his youngest daughter to turn into the Sovereigns slut. Avis thought that something in Lika's eyes hinted that this would be her destiny long before her curves filled out. The nomads said that beggars and whores could be spotted the day they are born - perhaps they were right.

Avis suspects (or hopes) that Lika is still in love with him, but reminds himself he feels nothing but contempt for her slutty slutty sex-slave ways that she totally has a choice about.

quote:

Lika was another minor victory in the chain of triumphs Sovereign Levetin and Master Hovo had over him, and the worst thing was that they never knew they were even in a competition, yet kept winning over and over.

Avis should dress up, because the Sovereign wants to see him. Lika hasn't seen the Sovereign himself in a while, and it takes a few pages to establish that some sort of terrible disease is killing him.

quote:

"Even the fools working the earth on the edges of the shire know it. Every serf alive whispers about it. But they don't know what I know. They haven't seen the sovereigns face before he started screaming the night away, as I have. I promise you, Avis, our Sovereign is hearing the black melodies. He will die a sinners death. The mukhtar talks to Zama every night, and if his healer won't save the Sovereign, it's because Zama wills his death." A smile made its way onto the girls fearful countenance. A terrible smile which contained the sorrow of a full eclipse, a full eclipse spent in the company of Sovereign Levetin.

quote:

"Zama is not merely loving, but also just", said Avis, quoting from the book of [whatever]

Lika stops him from hurrying to the Sovereign by revealing more details about his twelfth birthday - master Hovo looked at the mansion window before sparing his life, apparently at the Sovereign's bequest, even though that never happens. The Sovereign also conducted / orchestrated Rako's beating like a symphony. Fun times.

# ? Aug 25, 2015 17:12

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Where's Solaris. Or The Dirty Pair Strike Again.

# ? Aug 26, 2015 02:20

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Effectronica posted:

Where's Solaris. Or The Dirty Pair Strike Again.

Feel free to write up the first one - personally I can't stand Lem's work in general, but you might find it palatable. I am planning to do a lot of Russian / Eastern European stuff later one.

# ? Aug 26, 2015 11:55

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

Xander77 posted:

Feel free to write up the first one - personally I can't stand Lem's work in general, but you might find it palatable.

What don't you like about him?

# ? Aug 26, 2015 12:35

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

A human heart posted:

What don't you like about him?

His sense of humor, his views of human nature, his philosophy and his use of language.

# ? Aug 26, 2015 13:24

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Xander77 posted:

His sense of humor, his views of human nature, his philosophy and his use of language.

so ... everything that makes him great, then. Right.

# ? Aug 27, 2015 01:14

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Shorter updates, cliffhangers:

Master Hovo is pacing, twisting his cat-o-nine around. Hes not actually supposed to carry it when not punishing anyone, so as not to dull the fearful impact, a per Levetin's advice:

quote:

The man whom he despised and admired in a mixture he failed to comprehend

which is just a fantastic bit of "tell, don't show".

But anyways, his uncle is "busy masticating and regurgitating his sanity", so he's pacing and snapping the cat everything in his path, completely avoiding sha'ala, sleep, and young boys, shaving himself five times a-day (we're not even keeping to the stupid "diurnal course" thing) to ward off disease, and even sinking so low as to chant prayers in his room during the nighttime.

Hovo is

quote:

Skinny, thin, and unsightly. His bulging eyes were covered with brown sha'ala stains, like brown oil spreading over the water of a tepid pond. His nose was broken in two different spots, but the man who did that lost his male parts as a result, so for Hovo those two humps down his beak symbolized something else.
...
His awkward looks brought many a fellow in the ancient quarter of the capital to an early meeting with Zaman*, as he could move with deadly speed, and do more with a knife in each hand than a Perception Steel-Eye could with a sword that he was taught to swing as a child

*At the moment I'm really not sure if Zama and Zaman are the same god/goddess, or if that's just a sudden change in spelling / one of many editing errors.

Hovo started out as a scummy but deadly bounty hunter, dragging fifty corpses out of the ancient quarter and to the gates of the nearest defenders barrack within an eclipse.

For some reason him being famous and doing their jobs for them annoys the defenders, and 4 of them ambush him.

quote:

To the best of his knowledge, Hovo was the only human who could parry a sword-blade with a dagger-blade. It was a very short fight.

So short, it's not worth recapping. Hovo is fast, the defenders are not - anyways, that's his sign to leave the capital and start cracking the whip at his uncle's Shire.

Hovo fears nothing like he fears the disease, against which his knives are powerless. His prayers to Zaman go as follows:

quote:

He did not ask her to heal his uncle, merely a fair chance;
"Make the damned demon take up a form of flesh and blood, and I'll take care of the rest"

Levetin is not just sick, he's apparently possessed. When he's having a fit, something hangs him in the air, "by an invisible nail" grabbing him by the hand, tongue, neck etc, and it's not a pleasant sensation.

They suspect... a voodoo rebellion, basically, even though they know that the Perception, which is the local brand of magic, doesn't do that poo poo and doesn't require magic items. The serfs belongings are searched, a few are painfully executed, and that doesn't help at all. Further attacks are even more painful, and it's all they can do to keep Levetin quiet (except though Avis just said the serfs keep hearing him scream). There's a different invisble torture each night now, and I really feel as though this book was written one page at a time, because Lika really should have hinted at SOME of this, because it really doesn't fall under any meaningful definition of "disease".

Hovo knows Levetin dislikes him but wants to keep the Sovereign title in the family. Segue to memories of Avis' twelfth birthday, and Levetin's instruction to take down Rako - Hovo stopped beating him because he disliked the interference in his work, not because of the crowds displeasure.

quote:

Any vast crowd of imbeciles needs a single leader to move forward a single step, and that leader has a single throat to be cut when need be.

Conclusion - Levetin likes Avis and hates his father. Therefore, Hovo doesn't care for Avis being called into the mansion. His sha'ala addled mind (nevermind that two pages ago we said he's too scared to take any sha'ala at the moment) jumps to a conclusion, and his hands to jump to his knife hilts.

# ? Aug 29, 2015 20:00

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

New characters!

(Sorry about not quite working out the "shorter, faster updates" thing. The Valve model in action)

Rawo is annoyed out his meditation by Samia, who is sitting on a tree branch and playing the flute. Badly. The Imagineer girl is doing everything she can to childishly annoy the guardian-brother during their journey. As we switch to her perspective we realize it was because

quote:

He had about twenty annoying features that drove her insane, but they all fell into the same category: Rawo couldn't give a toss about her. Period.

Sam was used to be surrendering to her will, without even the need to express said will out loud. Ever since her body started filling out in the right directions, since her blood-red hair (!) waved past her hips, since she learned what made the world go around. Even the black patch over her right eye held men enchanted. The only thing that attracted men more than pure feminine beauty was the little flaw. Sam understood men.

Rawo was the exception. At first, that made her suspect him of tendencies that would get him expelled from the guardian-brotherhood from which he was banished regardless.

But when they stopped in a [terrible terrible, description abridged] pub in northern Vigus, a waitress with the rear end of a beast of burden (!) started hitting on him. After telling her that "the redhead and I are just busieness" he asks her to stay in a different room for the night, if she doesn't mind.

quote:

Why would she mind? She wouldn't care if he slept in the stables to make love to Cicero, his Kadian horse, if he was going for the equine look anyway.

Rawo may have a dusky warrior silver fox appeal, but it's nothing to a sophisticated lady like Sam, blah blah blah, tsun tsun tsun.

Rawo asks Sam if she's still seeing "it". It is apparently some form of vision that keeps getting weaker, so they should hurry up. They're entering Levetin's shire now, spouting exposition about the political order as they do (the Sovereign shouldn't have much of an armed force, unlike the king he's serving), and apparently the serfs are free to leave whenever they want, which makes all the whipping and hangings kinda odd.

Really, they don't foresee any problems a purse full of gold, Rawo's tattoo of a sword-rune and Sam's tattoo of a purple-eye rune wouldn't solve. The kingdoms are peaceful, and no conflict is brewing. Foreshadowing!

Their horses are worn out from the fast pace they set as they follow the vision. Though Sam should keep her strength for sudden trouble, she gives Cicero, Rawo's horse, the illusion of a few nights sleep.

Sam is the only one who can follow this particular vision - she's quite pleased about the Perception requiring her services once more, though she's been banished from studying the Imagineer arts. She'd gently caress the Imagineer elders (not literally, which is why she was kicked out) but she's still loyal to the Perception, and is willing to undertake the quest.

Anyways, even though she "almost lost sight" the vision just a page ago, now the black mist seems to cover half the continent before her, pulsing in pain.

[This was fairly quick. The next chapter doesn't have any breaks, and plenty of dialog, so I might take some time translating it)

# ? Sep 21, 2015 18:21

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Interview with the Sovereign (In which everything and everyone is really grim)

Avis wears his dads wedding attire to talk to the Sovereign, and it's all humorously too large for him (he also forgets to zip up and stick his shirt down his pants like a good ~~adult~~ nerd). Apparently the locals wear baggy open-ended pants that outsiders mock as "skirts". But that's just jealousy talking, because these pants are incredibly comfy, and it's important the readers know that.

Hobo comes along to escort him. Avis is now almost as tall as him now, has farmer muscles, and looks like a soldier rather than a hot boy. Avis knows Hobo is more dangerous than ever, and they can both hear:

quote:

Avis' kneecaps sing together like an insane woodpecker

Avis used to think the mansion holds many mysteries to be explored, but since his twelfth birthday, he thinks of it as the source of all evil, and quite frightening. The entrance hall is filled with a mixture of random gaudy but expensive art. Avis is impressed.

The Sovereign Gaspar Levetin is the son of a whore who died of an STD shortly after giving birth to him, and (possibly) a junior cook at the garrison by the name of Levetin.

quote:

The young man was overjoyed when he found young Gaspar on his doorstep... he placed the moist note back in the babies fist, and dragged the crib to the side of the road by his home, hoping that some rich fellow may stop and pick the baby up before it starves to death. That was Levetin sr - full of compassion.

Comedy!, I guess? Anyways, he eventually picks the baby up, and never gets around to getting rid of him. Gaspar grows up as a young hoodlum.

The father ends up becoming the cook for the kings middle son (Tyro), and when the king is invited to an inspection of the army and a meal, he sadly doesn't live long enough to taste the desert. In return, Levetin gets a little shire north of the capital, a fair bargain for all concerned. Shortly thereafter, Levetin senior marches in front of the army, carrying the younger brother's head, as Tyro carried the king's head by his side (because that's the sort of subtle thing you do if you bother with poison for your assassination, obviously). Tyro decreed that kings are no longer necessary, and he is now the "Mukhtar" (literally "chosen one", but mostly used to refer to a village elder, an association familiar to Israeli readers, and so kinda odd).

quote:

This marked the beginning of a brand new age, and like any good revolution, the new age was identical to the old one.

(This is the point at which one would mention Levetin getting his own shire, with the assassination plots done and as he gets to rule it, but who cares about such details)

The father is a lovely ruler and dies to a riding accident within the year (apparently it's an actual accident, for once). Gaspar, on the other hand, turns out to be a natural ruler ("perhaps proof positive his mother's calculations were wrong") who becomes an expert in Glorian politics and art (despite the gaudiness of his hall, I guess), "general and specific court intrigues", manages to annex bits of neighboring shires, and becomes known as an all-around bad motherfucker.

quote:

The squished, skinny and bald man lying in bed with a piece of wood between his teeth had nothing in common with the infamous Sovereign Levetin, except for the fact that they were the same man.

Levetin looks like poo poo. His skin is papery and transparent, everything about him that isn't covered with dried vomit is full of sweat , and his nightclothes haven't been replaced in eclipses. He calls Avis over:

quote:

Ten steps stood between him and the Sovereign, and Avis started walking with tears running down his cheeks to the the floor tiles. Whether these were tears of terror, self-pity or helplessness, he could not say. He only knew one thing for certain - with every step in the endless journey towards the Sovereigns bed, his life was running out. At the end of that walk, the black disease that filled the room and emptied Levetin like a squished grape would find a new victim to feed upon.

Levetin's kicks Hovo out, despite his objections. Avis would just as soon not come any closer, and just as Levetin goes on a "Zaman does not forgive: not listening to the cries of a babe on his birthday, a young man on his wedding day, and an old man on the day of death" rant, he gets another fit and starts screaming (despite managing to stick the piece of wood between his teeth at the last moment, apparently).

With that done, he grabs hold of Avis and tells him he's not suffering from an infectious sickness, but rather some black juju (Avis rather doubts that). Whoever is doing that, is looking for "the stone of ~~scone~~ Kingship". On the day of the revolution, his father wandered the palace, looking for a place to piss before joining the head-carrying procession, when he walked into the royal bedroom (the servants go home during coups, and apparently no one else cared much?).

quote:

"You'd think the stone of kingship would look like the mother of all diamonds. Wrong. It looks more like a tiny crystal at best. A transparent quartz stone. Even uglier than that. But what's special about it is that there's only one like it, and that one is itself. Ask yourself: why are diamonds so precious? I didn't think you knew, so I'll tell you. They're not very pretty - to be honest from the distance of a foot even a jewelry expert can't tell them apart from glass. That can't be the reason. Diamonds are expensive because they are rare. If human poo poo was as rare, you could sell it for the price of diamonds. Now, consider the worth of a stone that is utterly unique. That's right - it's priceless. That's why it's called the stone of Kingship, inherited from king to prince for hundreds of eclipses, from the day Glorian was established. It could have been the case for hundreds of eclipses more, till the kingdom collapsed, if my dad didn't have to take a piss.

Moments after he saw the stone, it was in his pocket. That was my father, quick to take chances and very stupid. Had he been caught, everything he got would have been taken from him, and more. Though I wasn't even 18 eclipses old at the time, I knew he could lose everything because of a stone he couldn't even sell. I grabbed the stone, and rode a fast horse for two days and two nights, till it dropped dead beneath me. That's where I buried it.

Tyro, the Mukhtar, searched for the stone, but thankfully did not put too much effort into it. After all, the stone was a symbol of the kingship, and Tyro preached a brand new method of government. Good think that thumb sucker is rotting in his grave now, otherwise we'd get Tyro junior, who is as misanthropic as his father, if not more so, but ten times as smarter. Do you know what a misanthrope is, child? Do you even understand what I'm talking about?"

Avis thought he understood the general gist of Levetin's words, but not much beyond it. Even if he could comprehend the fancy vocabulary involved, he couldn't keep up with the flow of words. The sovereign seemed in a hurry to get rid of as many sentences as possible before the next wave came along.

"Yes, Sovereign", he nodded.

"Fantastic. You don't fool me for a moment, but fantastic."

Apparently, Levetin is experiencing the torment of some fellow in Kadia by proxy. Though he only knows the sort of Kadian words that can't be repeated in decent company, he finally figures out the object of the torment is the recovery of the stone. Sadly, the Kadians can't hear his confessions.

Sudden diversion for an atheism rant:

quote:

For me, Zaman was always the same little slut she was the day she had died., No man becomes a god, and none watch over us. To think otherwise is cowardliness, and cowards end their lives as junior cooks. Always remember that. On the other hand, I've seen junior cooks become, kings, so maybe I don't know much. But if Zaman truly exists... if she exists, I honestly wish that she would get...

The fit strikes at Levetin like punishment from blashpemy. Avis recalls that "Zaman is not only loving, but also just". When it's over, Gaspar asks Avis whether he enjoys seeing his father suffer. Avis takes it as a threat, but I think no one else is particularly shocked by the revelation (and let's hand it to the book, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to)

quote:

"Her mother begged me to wait for a safe day, but that child had a beauty the likes of which I've never seen. Believe me, this shire is populated by ugly slatterns, but your mother... haha, I don't even remember her name! Your mother was pure. White. I couldn't restrain myself to the pleasure of safe days, and would you look at that - eight diurnal courses later, you came to life. If that isn't a miracle straight from Zaman's rectum, then what is? Your father was married in a hurry, before she swelled up. That idiot probably never knew she's carrying a little Gaspar inside of her." Levetin's dreamlike smile suddenly disappeared "In the morning, I had her thrown out before her ugliness drove me insane. You don't understand it yet, kid, but you'll see. Things we've touched disgust us. Nothing in this world is filthier than a man."

Avis chants "I don't believe any of this" as though it maters. Levetin waves the whole story aside, and tells him about the burial place of the stone - a well in the ruins of an ancient city from the days before Glorian, when the locals would offer human sacrifice to the God Krof. Avis thinks it sounds like a ~~Saturday morning cartoon~~ fairy-tale, only missing an evil band of Zefirian pirates.

Levetin claims he's only mildly curious about Avis' chances in life. Were he to declare him as his heir, the proclamation would be overruled on the basis of insanity, and also on the basis of Hovo's knife cutting out Avis' throat - which is likely to happen regardless. If Avis is Levetin's son, the stone is a chance for something more than a blacksmith's life. If he is Rako's son, he's too stupid to do anything but take a beating for others.

That's enough for Avis to finally snap and try to strangle the Sovereign. But knife-skills apparently run in the family, and Avis backs away as a blade is pressed against his throat. The only reason Levetin hasn't killed himself yet, is because that would leave Hovo free to execute his son. He's giving him 24 hours to get a move on, at which point he will finally end his own suffering. Avis notes that Hovo listened in on the whole conversation, and pretends that Levetin whispers something to him (even though, again, the whole conversation includes an explicit explanation of the stone's location). Levetin, in turn, calls Hovo in and asks him to give Avis a whipping for his lack of respect - to throw him off, and make him doubt what he had just heard, apparently. Or just to get rid of his violent urges and put off Avis' death for later.

Avis is too angry, bewildered and humiliated to grab hold of the punishment post. He walks away instead, planning to steal a horse and ride north, regardless of any opposition. Hovo really should call the taskmasters to have him tied up in the sun and tortured for a few days, but he plans on a private meeting in a remote location, to get any missing info revealed with the help of his knives instead.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 21:48

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Guess what? This is way too boring even for me, so I'm ~~giving up~~ taking a hiatus on this particular book in favor of something else!

(And there was much rejoicing)

It's a different translation project!

(Boo!)

"The Young Athletes" series, starting with "Kick, Alon, kick!"

Wait, does this mean I'm going to abandon the whole premise of this thread? Err... kinda, sorta, but maybe not really. It's not a sci-fi book, but it is a unique and obscure take on a genre.

I initially wanted to go with The Israeli Hardy boys but I thought that wasn't quite obscure and weird enough. Also, the ideological overtones were a bit too blatant. When your characters start out by ~~blowing up the King David hotel~~ spying on the British mandate, hijacking Russian subs isn't that big a deal. When they start out as junior high ball players, on the other hand... things get kinda insane in new and exciting ways.

Quick introduction to our heroes, right after the table of contents:

They're all ~~high as balls~~ really goddamn generically handsome and patriotic. Rafi, (topmost) is the goalkeeper, and Shoa's (!) boyfriend. Alon is the center-forward. By the way, he's Ranana's boyfriend. Ranana: One look at her face is enough to let you know who and what she is (I literally burst out laughing. Was that expression a lot more positive / neutral back in 1962?). Finally, Shoa. Don't be confused by her unique (!) name, like a certain Yoni.

(As you might imagine, these are all very well developed, multifaceted characters with rich inner lives)

Chapter 1.
Lively debate, and great tension.
1963
(As a major aside - because what better way to start the actual translation than by blathering on about barely relevant real life circumstances - this book came out in 1962, inspired by the minimally competent performance put on by the Israeli team in the previous season. As you might imagine, it was quite undeservedly optimistic about the near future. Israeli football was terrible throughout the 1960's and - let's not kid around - is still terrible to this very day. Israel kinda managed to put together a decent basketball tradition somehow, but our football is still absolutely terrible, mostly due to lack of funds and interest in training junior teams. Time for these books to make a comeback and inspire trainers everywhere, I guess [clever segue to the actual subject at hand])
As the pre-Olympic encounter between the Greek and Israeli football teams approaches, the preparations intensify. The Israeli team is isolated in their training camp near Netanya, driving themselves to excel at the upcoming battle, under the leadership of the excellent coach Mr Bundy.

(Yeah, why not)

quote:

Meanwhile, the sports journalists were full useful advice, as is their habit. For instance....:

"We still have time to correct these mistakes! First of all, we must eliminate those players who are only on the team for reasons of pr�stige (alliterated into Hebrew from filthy foreign-speak. One of the writers for this book is a former player for the Israeli team, and isn't fond of sports reporters), and replace them with players who actually know how to kick a ball. No need to mention any names, everyone knows who I'm talking about.

The next urgent step is a transfusion of new YOUNG blood (?) into the team. Without these two essential steps, our chances of beating the wonderful and dangerous Greek team are minimal."

Other journalists wrote along the same lines, "The Israeli Athlete" even outright specified the necessary team roster, which we will fully transcribe here:

(I won't, since it's just a random list of position - name - team A, city B. But I will note that every goddamn single name is Lapidus, or Hason, or Peretz, or Galili - proper Biblical Hebrew Zionist names for Israeli athletes to have. The sort of name an immigrant from Europe or the Middle East was supposed to change his name to so as to show his fresh start when he came to the Holy Land. Variations of Speed (Jews) Joy (Jew) and Tzion-Ben-Judah. I couldn't quite be arsed to google the actual composition of the 1962 Israeli football team, but the 1972 one has plenty of Baum's, Stein's and Rabinovich's, and I can't imagine the team fielded a decade before that was all too different.)

The list was suggested by Haim Craiot, who was quite the expert reporter, and everyone considered his revolutionary suggestions carefully (we'll get a bit of information as to who the poo poo all these people are at the end of this chapter (or in paragraph from now), which would have been a good time to explain what's so revolutionary about these suggestions). Under the pressure of public opinion, coach Bundy

was forced to accept those players not currently on the team into the training camp. After three weeks of harsh training (which could have been solved with a single montage, but the struggling sports team lacked the necessary technology) and a week before the decisive encounter with Greece, the final team roster faced its first real trial - a friendly game against a random Israeli team.
Here is their composition: (Omitted because we�re going to go over it in detail shortly)
There was a great deal of lively debate between acclaimed professionals around these surprising changes to the team roster, but the public as a whole trusted the genius coach Bundy

(Still funny)
And his ability to place the right man in the right spot, as evidenced by the many letters to various editors on the subject (Home and Garden proved consistently disinterested). Let us quote one: (Finally, hot full team composition action!)

Dear editor posted:

As a longtime fan of Israeli football, one who has been carefully and consistently ~~stalking~~ following the development of every player on every team in every league (!) to compete in Israel, I do declare that the roster composed for the test game (what�s a better translation for this?) without a doubt reflects our best possible force distribution. Let me make a number of points to confirm my hypothesis:

� The goalkeeper Barkai didn�t suffer a single goal to enter his net in the last six months!
� The right-back Hashavia�s aggressive play and his tendency to fight it out for every ball (that comes flying at his mouth) had earned him an opportunity unique to footbalists in Israel � the Rome team �Lacio� is ready and willing to pay 100.000$ for him. He naturally rejected that amazing offer, out of pure patriotism.
� The left-back Levi is a master of stopping balls being kicked towards the goal. Everyone should keep in mind his historic defense during the last championship match � during which the rival team didn�t manage to kick even once into Hapoel Haifa�s goal.
� The center-back, Shashon, rose from an obscure team at the bottom of the third league to a team on the national league in two years!
� The right midfield (?) Kahana, has the rare ability to always be at the right place in the right time. Who can forget his appearance during the friendly match between the Scottish and Israeli teams last year? The Scots placed Mac�Dougal and Steamson both to guard him, yet Kahana kept slipping away and passing wonderful balls to the offense.
� The left midfield, Lapidot, doesn�t require any introduction. Let us just say that he has made seven appearances wearing the Israeli National Team uniform, and never ~~pissed himself~~ shamed same uniform by his actions. (Some of the praise in the team compositions is suspiciously faint)
� The right forward, Hason, is the most valuable rookie for this season. Anyone following the quick and surprising development of this talented player would enthusiastically agree he should be placed on the national team.
� The right striker, Perez, scored eight goals in the game between his team and �Da Labourer� from Cyprus five weeks ago, is at his peak right now, and his inclusion on the national team is obvious.
� The center striker, Golani, is Israel�s great (Jewish) hope, and our champion scorer � he made 97 (I repeat, ninety seven) (For once, the parenthetic remarks are in the original) goals in the last sixteen national championship games. If I am not mistaken, that is an international record.
� The left striker, Yefet, scored 82 (I repeat, less there be a mistake � eighty two!) (somehow this is more impressive than 97?) goals in the last seventeen national league games. He uses his head � literally, as he scored twenty four of those goals by heading the ball into the goal.
� The left midfielder (If this book isn�t quite as lacking in proofreading as Heresy, I�m still fairly sure the series as a whole was a quick cash-in that didn�t get a lot of editorial oversight, and I do believe this singular doubling is an error that points to that), Galili, is the best midfielder in the Middle East, if not the world as a whole. This is not just my opinion, but the opinion of various international football experts, who have watched the last friendly match between Scotland and Israel. Rowlins, the Scottish coach, was quoted as saying �I do not envy the goalkeeper who must stop Galili meteor kick, not matter the distance�.
Allow me to summarize, dear editor: the Israeli team has never been as strong as it is today, on the eve of its final test game.�
The fanatic fan

Chapter B
The School team.
As usual, Bundy decided to play the test game against a particularly weak team, for reasons of propaganda and publicity, trying to run up the score as much as possible in favor of the national team � 10:0 or 8:1, for instance; in other words, a score that would indicate that the team is in great shape and ready to take on the challenge of an international matchup.
(That actually sounds like a Bundy thing to do)

(Never gonna give that up. At least until the end of this update)

quote:

For these reasons, the team chosen for the faceoff wasn�t from the national league, nor from the A league, nor the B league, nor even the C league, but composed of players from the weak school league. This team, as we�ll shortly find out, was made up from the very best youngling student footballers, with the average age of the players being 15. Only one newspaper bothered to publish the team roster (which we�re also going to skip here, since we�re ALSO going to get an in-depth praise session for each player slightly later), with the other papers merely noting that the team was composed of different players from various schools. Mocking opinions bloviated that it might be better to test the team against the worst of the C league, rather than a team whose goal is going to feel the touch of the ball at least twenty or thirty times.
Compared to the apathetic mainstream journalists, the student youth paid a great deal of attention to the upcoming game, and the school papers opinionated carefully on the issue of how to minimize the number of goals their team was going to suffer. Here�s what the young sports reporter Ben-Zioni (!) wrote on the subject:
�
Blah blah blah
�Total bunker play (this was actually the playstyle for the National team IRL at the time), shut down the access to the goal, let every player hang out in the goal area, and I�m sure that we won�t get scored on more than 10 or 15 times�.
Meanwhile, the young sports reporter ~~Benoit~~ Hananiah Balls wrote �Our chances to suffer anything less than 13 goals per halftime are minimal. Therefore, we have nothing to lose. Let us give up on defense completely, and focus all our forces on offense. If every player, including the goalkeeper, attacks continuously for all 90 minutes, we may score at least one goal! A score of 20:1 would be completely acceptable.

These opinions were typical among the student youth, so we won�t bother to write any others.
Meanwhile, for some correct opinions from the young sports reporter (was cut and paste invented back in the day? Guess you rely on the same expressions when writing quickly and trying to get to the freaking match already, because you decided to start the book with a bunch of young sports repotererererererers for some reason) Helpful:

quote:

�We know the actual roster won�t matter much � the difference between 29 goals or 30 goals which might result from replacing a single player is minimal. Let�s keep the current roster, and stop unnerving our already nervous players. Besides, this is the best roster we could possibly have, and I�m going to prove that point at length:

� The goalkeeper Rafi won the first place in the goalkeeper test during the team tryouts. He managed to stop all ten balls kicked towards his goal from various positions and distances (!) (Some of you might be American, but� you should be aware that that�s kind of insane. Like� I don�t know, ten field goals in American football or ten homeruns in baseball, only more so? Like, that's not a thing a goalkeeper can actually do, physically speaking.). The next best goalkeeper only managed to stop six balls.
� The right back, Dani, whom so many want to replace with Gershon from �Yavne� is the brother of the national teams right back Hashavia. He must have learned all the professional secrets of a good back from his brother. We can certainly rely on him
� The center back, Amos, is the foundation of our defense. Those who blame him for inflicting a self-goal during the last training game between the school league team and �Geula� / �Redemption� (should I go with a translation with these things, or leave them be?) aren�t keeping up with sportsman traditions. A self-goal can happen to anyone � mere happenstance that should be discounted.
� The left back, Beni, is known as a great trickster, and all those who blame him for tripping or tackling his opponent s merely cannot appreciate proper defender tricks.
� The right midfield, Zvika, is an expert at making great passes to the forwards
� The right midfield, Dudik, is Zvika�s twin brother. There�s no need to point out that means they have a (weirdly incestuous telepathic) bond on the field. More than that � thanks to their similarity, they can easily confuse the enemy team and change places without their opponents noticing. Everyone recalls the game with (some team) which kept a close guard on Zvika, because they were worried about his excellent passes. Only after their defeat, they realized they were guarding Dudik the whole time (which was a waste of time, because Dudik sucks and should be replaced by a better player. Also, no number on their shirts?)
� The right forward, Zerah, is the fastest forward in the school league. He has scored six times at distances of over 30 meters, from very tough angles.
� The right striker, Rahamim, is the head-scorer among school league players.
� The center-forward, Alon, is a well known figure in the school league (also on the cover and the title, so we know he�s going to rock that poo poo) and anyone who�s seen him play knows him as a rising �star�. We put our trust in his meteor kick (if we ever manage to get our ball within kicking distance of their goal).
� The left striker, Arie, kicks just as well with his left foot as with his right, and is therefore great as deceiving the enemy players as to his intentions.
� The left forward (you might have noticed that the position list is copy pasted, except the double left-midfielder mistake was fixed) Petahiya, is well known for his exceptional skill with precise corner kicks.
I do not intend to entertain false hopes when I say that this combination of unique talents just may grant us the solitary goal needed to emerge from this competition with our honor intact!

Chapter C
The teams take the field.
(Though the public at large does not care, the students fill the stadium, Ranana and Shoa � Rafi and Alon�s girlfriends � among them).

quote:

�I dare not imagine what�s going to happen on this field shortly�, said Shoa.
�Let�s not kid ourselves�, said Ranana. �20:0 is an almost certain score. Let�s pray it won�t be any higher than that.�
�Don�t you think we�ll score at least one solitary goal? I talked to Alon yesterday, and he told me dreamed of kicking a ball straight into the net of the national teams goal!� whispered Shoa, and closed her eyes in prayer.
�Probably just the nerves�, explained Ranana. �I greatly fear his dream won�t be coming true�.
(Both teams take the field, and start warming up. Rafi seems relaxed and easily stops every ball kicked his way.

Mr Bundy

Asks referee Elhanani to get poo poo going. The die is cast, the center-forward of the National team gets the ball, and the game starts.

Chapter D
The first goal.

quote:

Football is the most fascinating game in the world, for there is no other game capable of attracting so many viewers and holding them in place for 90 tension-filled minutes, their mouth wide opens, eyes bulging, nails bitten, throats closing with excitement (and other signs of a stroke). In this case, the tension and excitement were multiplied by a thousand fold, because Golani kicked the ball lightly towards the right forward, Hason. He only meant to pass the ball to Hason and move forward to a kicking position. However, since Hason was so close, Golani kicked quite lightly and before the ball could make it to Hason, an event no one could predict took place. Alon, the center forward of the school team, standing opposite of Golani, leaped towards the ball and intercepted it before it passed halfway between Golani and Hason.
The audience could not believe their eyes as Alon started dribbling the ball towards the national teams goal, with the entire school forward line by his side. Levi, the left defender for the national team charged Alon as he was 40 meters away from the goal. Alon was facing a tough choice � try to advance a bit to narrow the distance, and risk having Levi catch up and take his ball away (ouch) or trust his luck and kick right away. He chose to kick on the spot � and you should know that he put everything he had into that kick. The ball passed right by Levi�s foot, and made its way into the upper right corner of the goal in a ruler-straight line. The national teams much praised goalkeeper, Barkai, flew into one of his finest leaps yet� but the ball merely brushed his fingertips before embedding into the net.
�G-g-~~ghost~~goal?�
The astounded audience merely whispered the word at first, but soon the word turned into a thundering shout echoed throughout the stadium: �Goal, goal, GOAL!�
The applause sounded like a thousand canons shooting broadsides at once. Unbelievable, yet true:
On the very first minute of the test game between the Israeli National team and the School league team, a goal into the national team�s goal was scored by Alon, the center forward of the school team. Those who could not believe their eyes at first were forced to do so when they saw the ball placed back at Golani's feet.

Here lies the school team. They scored.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Oct 5, 2015

# ? Oct 5, 2015 02:05

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Chapter E: A corner kick and - goal!

quote:

"I thought I was going to faint!" sighed Shoa, her hand clasped to her heart, at a loss for further words.

"Alon's dream came true! He scored our one goal! The worst is behind us!" twitted Ranana, madly hugging her friend.

"I'm afraid they'll have their revenge now. We're going to get at least a hundred goals scored on us for daring to do that", said Shoa.

"No more than thirty", firmly insisted Ranana.

"The game is starting. I'm can't bear to watch!" shouted Shoa, pressing her palms against her eyes.

quote:

The moment the ref blew his whistle, Golani charged forward, knocking Alon aside and to the ground. The other strikers charged by his side, fast as shooting arrows.

The student teams center-back fell down in front of the awful Golani, but as he fell, he managed to kick the ball out of the field.

The momentary pause drew a sight of relief from the student crowd. Though the danger was only momentarily delayed, even a moment mattered. To think, tomorrow's papers will note that two and half minutes after the game started, the student team was still leading 0-1.

Perez, the noted corner-kick expert gets ready to kick. Rafi, the student goalkeeper, is ready to spring forward.

quote:

Perez kicked. The ball flew in an elegant arc towards the players huddled around the field. Five of the national-team players raced forward to head the ball into the net.

But none of them managed to do so.

A thin figure sprang forth among the huddled mass, and caught the ball long before it reached head-level.

Rafi landed, the ball pressed against his heart.

More thundering applause, and girls getting really interested in the question of who the hell that is. (Because even girls who bothered to show up for a game don't actually know the team composition?)

Rafi immediately kicks the ball into the center of the field, and everyone rushes towards it.

quote:

Alon and Hashavia reached the ball at the same time - but no, not quite at the same time; Alon was a millisecond faster, and though they seemed to be both kicking the ball together (each in a different direction, naturally) the ball flew towards the national teams goal. Most of the players were still on the other side of the field, and only now started moving to defend their goal. Alon caught up to the ball, and kicked it forward; he saw the national team's goalkeeper, Barkai, rushing towards him, and fancied he could feel Hashavia's breath on the back of his neck. Three meters away from the goalkeeper, who was in mid-air, trying to grab the ball, Alon caught up and sent the ball forward with his explosive kick.

The ball "tore into" the center of the net.

Our audience, thinking they saw a mirage for a moment, shortly ejaculated like a volcano:

Goal!

Goal!!

Goal!!!

Everyone stands up and applauds like at the end of a stdh story. The other players rush forward to hug and kiss Alon (to the envy of the girls in the audience).

[quote]"Did we go insane, Ranana?" cried out Shoa. "Is this really happening?"

"I don't believe it, but it's true!" answered Ranana, as though waking from a pleasant dream to learn it is all too real. "We're leading 2-0, all thanks to our amicable Alon!"

"Pinch me, or I still won't believe it!"

"I'm going to kiss you instead, sweetheart" passionately replied Ranana, before doing just that.

On that

note, let's move on to

Chapter F: Alon! Alon! Alon!

Meanwhile, the national teams players are hella depressed. Golani has turned red with anger, which means we're at least in the second section this boss fight. He kicks forward, bypasses Alon, passes back and forth to Yefet and is now 20 meters away from Rafi's goal.

quote:

This time, nothing could stop Golani from using his awful kick to score on the school-team.

Wrong! There was something that would stop him! Something named Rafi!

Everyone could see Golani press the ball down, the sending it forward with a mighty kick, as though shot from a canon. Everyone on the field held their breath as the ball sliced through the air, heading for the left corner of the goal. But Rafi got to that corner just before the ball did, and received it with open arms.

We're tired of describing the applause, particularly since we could never come up with anything other than "thundering" and "canon like" so we'll leave this one to the readers imagination. Applause was had, isn't that enough.

Things are "happening quickly" on the field now. Rafi sends the ball towards someone other than Alon, which quickly leads to it being snatched away. The national team passes the ball for a bit, but then Alon "sticks his foot in" and sends it to another school team redshirt. Realizing he's not the hero of the story, he passes right back to Alon, who starts moving forward.

quote:

The entire audience stood up at once.

"Let us shout his name!" called out Shoa. The two of them used their hands to amplify their voices, and started calling out "Alon! Alon! Alon!"

The call went through the young audience like an electric shock. They all started repeating "Alon! Alon! Alon!"

Alon is confronted by two players at the 40 meter line

and sends the ball forward. Unfortunately, it hits the post. Fortunately, Barkai jumps for it, only to see the ball bounce back towards Alon's head (again, at a 40 meter distance). Alon heads the ball into the goal.

He falls to the ground, not seeing anything (an early warning about the concussion dangers of constantly having balls fly at your face) and only the thunderous applause and the fact his team starts to carry him around let him know he score once more.

Chapter F - Bundy bites into his cap

Only now, with 6 minutes on the clock and the score being 3-0, do both the teams and the audience realize that ~~the national team really sucks~~ ~~the school team is led by a couple of Garry-Stues~~ the school team is actually the better team and about to win.

quote:

Those who still doubted the above, were quickly proven wrong. The national team's strikers quickly launched a series of angry, wild assaults on Rafi's goal. They have skillfully passed through the thick defense of the school team, and often came within six or seven meters of the goal - but each of their kicks was caught by the young goalkeep. He made such extraordinary leaps! So fast! ~~Such~~ So daring! ~~Very wow~~

Bundy is now angrily chewing on the visor of his cap. By this point, we don't even bother to chronicle each goal Alon scores in detail. In fact, once Bundy orders every player to concentrate in front of the goal, it's offhandedly mentioned that the tactic succeeded, as Alon only managed to score once more. "Thank heavens", says Bundy, as he uses his chewed-up cap to wipe the sweat of his forehead.

quote:

"The score at halftime is 5-0!" gasped out the sole sports journalist covering the game to his editor, his voice choked with excitement, via the special stadium phone booth reserved for reporters. (Remember when those were a thing? Wait, were those ever a thing?)

"Did the national team only scored five goals so far?" wondered the editor. "I was certain they'd score at least twenty."

"The national team didn't score the goals - she took them!" shouted the reporter into the phone's mouthpiece.

"What?!!!" cried out the astonished editor. "Repeat what you just said!" he demanded.

"The score at halftime is 5-0 in favor of the school team", gasped the reporter, "and each goal was scored by the teams center-striker, Alon!"

The editor put down the phone (without saying goodbye, in the best movie fashion) and scratched his head (comically)

"Stop the press! Stop everything!" he roared like a madman. "Prepare to print a special edition! We have a major scoop!

Chapter H: The final whistle

(Come to think of it, "the final whistle" means the endgame in both languages, but whatever)

During the halftime, Bundy relays secret orders to his players.

He believes their young opponents will run out of stamina more quickly (because if there's one thing youth is well known for etc etc), and can finally be scored upon in the second half. At least six times, obviously.

The school team is a bit tired, but ready to prove the first half wasn't a fluke. Some kid passes the ball to Alon, who moves forward when...

quote:

The crowd rose as one. "Penalty kick!" cried out thousands of angry throats. Golani, who switched places with Galili (who switched places with Yehuda and Negevi), intentionally crashed into Alon, sending him to the ground. Alon is ~~DEAD~~ ~~just hiding~~ knocked out. Players and medical workers rush to help.

Alon is carried off the field, but when his replacement takes the penalty kick, Barkai easily catches it. The entire national team charges at the goal. Is this the beginning of an upset to upset the school teams upset? Stay tuned to find out.

In the next installment:

# ? Oct 31, 2015 22:47

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Right. Is there anything I can do to make either of these more interesting, or should I just close the thread?

# ? Nov 3, 2015 17:53

coyo7e: Aug 23, 2007; by zen death robot

I dunno man what are you looking for from the thread? That's an answer only you can give, since nobody else seems to know what you want. I kinda dig the translations and easy "no homo" insinuations from the bad translations and cultural differences. My only question is where the SF/F comes into this play by play picture book football match, I suppose.

Not every thread explodes with 20 posts a day, even when you make a good and fun one and work really hard on it - trust me I've made a few in my day and had them spin out of control, die a quiet and short death despite being something I thought was pretty interesting/important, or they just get trolled to death and then i closed them in disgust.

It happens man, your thread is good, you put a ton of effort into a weird niche and on the internet, this is what we live for. Just not sure what people ought to be responding about. If you want a huge thread full of countless posts, then find a thread you like and make a new OP for the new years, or just be the first to spend a half-dozen hours collecting gifs and useful links and tips for a new hot video game. No matter what you try though, it will always end up different than what you expected, hoped, or intended.

# ? Nov 3, 2015 21:28

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

Xander77 posted:

Right. Is there anything I can do to make either of these more interesting, or should I just close the thread?

Perhaps if you possessed a sense of humour, or any kind of interesting point, or were doing anything other than writing boring paragraphs on how lovely these obviously lovely books are.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:05

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

A human heart posted:

Perhaps if you possessed a sense of humour, or any kind of interesting point, or were doing anything other than writing boring paragraphs on how lovely these obviously lovely books are.

Huh. Sense of humor aside (if you don't think any of this is funny, there's not much I can do about it), if all you're getting out of this is "obviously lovely books", then I kinda failed to make my point.

The football book (for instance) is probably no more or less lovely than a random Hardy boys novel. Though mostly forgotten at the moment, it was a huge best seller at one point, and hit all the major selling points for Israeli youth in the 60's - an obsession with football (a legacy of the British occupation?) in a country that never fielded a decent national football team, hyper-competent young people (a common feature in Israeli youth novels at the time, and something in common with USSR youth literature), stupid 60's national stereotypes from an Israeli perspective (that's coming into play later on) and, of course, our young athletes defeating nefarious Muslim terrorists using their football skills and... umm, a spot of torture. That's kind of the insane part (compared to Dani the invisible lad and Monkeyo the Monkey doing the same with their respective skills) which was one reason I chose to do this this.

My other notion was to trace the evolution of Russian sci-fi starting with 1917 (compared and contrasted with the evolution of English-speaking sci-fi during the same period), which may have drawn a bit more interest, but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of places that have already done so, even if the individual books are obscure and untranslated.

Israel, on the other hand, is rather poo poo about maintaining a cultural memory tradition, much less documenting it online. There's so much stuff that forms the foundation of the local pop-culture, but isn't actively read or viewed anymore that I find tracing it to be an illuminating exercise in and of itself. Talking to recent immigrants and foreign students that have been her for a few years and mentioning where certain cultural signifiers hail from, and they're like "what? Finally some poo poo starts making a twisted sort of sense".

# ? Nov 4, 2015 14:20

mallamp: Nov 25, 2009

PrBacterio posted:

so ... everything that makes him great, then. Right.

Look at this thread, did you really expect him to like Lem

# ? Nov 4, 2015 17:58

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

Xander77 posted:

Huh. Sense of humor aside (if you don't think any of this is funny, there's not much I can do about it), if all you're getting out of this is "obviously lovely books", then I kinda failed to make my point.

The football book (for instance) is probably no more or less lovely than a random Hardy boys novel. Though mostly forgotten at the moment, it was a huge best seller at one point, and hit all the major selling points for Israeli youth in the 60's - an obsession with football (a legacy of the British occupation?) in a country that never fielded a decent national football team, hyper-competent young people (a common feature in Israeli youth novels at the time, and something in common with USSR youth literature), stupid 60's national stereotypes from an Israeli perspective (that's coming into play later on) and, of course, our young athletes defeating nefarious Muslim terrorists using their football skills and... umm, a spot of torture. That's kind of the insane part (compared to Dani the invisible lad and Monkeyo the Monkey doing the same with their respective skills) which was one reason I chose to do this this.

My other notion was to trace the evolution of Russian sci-fi starting with 1917 (compared and contrasted with the evolution of English-speaking sci-fi during the same period), which may have drawn a bit more interest, but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of places that have already done so, even if the individual books are obscure and untranslated.

Israel, on the other hand, is rather poo poo about maintaining a cultural memory tradition, much less documenting it online. There's so much stuff that forms the foundation of the local pop-culture, but isn't actively read or viewed anymore that I find tracing it to be an illuminating exercise in and of itself. Talking to recent immigrants and foreign students that have been her for a few years and mentioning where certain cultural signifiers hail from, and they're like "what? Finally some poo poo starts making a twisted sort of sense".

But you didn't write anything interesting about how Israel's stereotypes or cultural manifest in these books, instead you went through the books paragraph by excruciating paragraph putting comments like 'whoa i can't believe he said this, it's so bad' after every section. Like why not just write an essay about it and quote a few passages where relevant?

# ? Nov 5, 2015 04:01

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

A human heart posted:

But you didn't write anything interesting about how Israel's stereotypes or cultural manifest in these books, instead you went through the books paragraph by excruciating paragraph putting comments like 'whoa i can't believe he said this, it's so bad' after every section. Like why not just write an essay about it and quote a few passages where relevant?

Partially because other readthroughs do it paragraph by paragraph, and I need to practice my translation skills. But also:

1. I find a bunch of 15 year olds dunking on a national team kinda funny in its own right.

2. The "golly shucks, we sure do love us some sports" attitude makes for a decent contrast / juxtaposition with terrorist torture later on (spoiler alert).

# ? Nov 5, 2015 05:41

coyo7e: Aug 23, 2007; by zen death robot

yeah that's the thing you should be foreshadowing that in your earlier posts instead of just outright saying it. Now it feels like a slog we'll have to wait through for 6 months of tom swift without the cool lasers and poo poo

# ? Nov 7, 2015 17:32

A Tin Of Beans: Nov 25, 2013

Xander77 posted:

Right. Is there anything I can do to make either of these more interesting, or should I just close the thread?

Honestly I think the biggest/only problem is the thread title. I came in expecting something totally different from what I got.

It's a fun thread; I think the soccer book is probably funnier since it's shorter and full of OTT patriotism and teens being the best ever at soccer.

The fantasy one just felt like a huge slog though. Paragraph by paragraph of a lovely book just forces people to read a ahitty book where a funny summary would do far better. And I'd love some more cultural information or whatever thrown in.

A Tin Of Beans fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Nov 9, 2015

# ? Nov 9, 2015 22:55

Fallorn: Apr 14, 2005

I thought it was discussion for non-us based or non-english based SF&F and was going to be talks about weird rear end Russian scifi and other works.

# ? Nov 23, 2015 00:19

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Sorry, my writing and translation time is kind of occupied with paid work, as the alternative is bankruptcy. Gonna finish the bloody football book at the very least (at some point), then maybe ask what people would be more interested in.

A Tin Of Beans posted:

Honestly I think the biggest/only problem is the thread title. I came in expecting something totally different from what I got.

If you suggest a better title, I can probably bug a mod to change it.

Fallorn posted:

I thought it was discussion for non-us based or non-english based SF&F and was going to be talks about weird rear end Russian scifi and other works.

That is what this thread is ostensibly about - only as a combination with a readthrough of specific obscure non-English stuff.

# ? Nov 23, 2015 14:49

Cobweb Heart: Mar 31, 2010; I need you to wear this. I need you to wear this all the time. It's office policy.

Xander77 posted:

If you suggest a better title, I can probably bug a mod to change it.

The first part of the thread is fine and the title grabs my attention. It makes me think "there's so much freakish, bizarre, balls-out stupid ugly poo poo written in English that I bet there has to be loads of lunacy written by members of a culture that had a totally different way of experiencing all of the major sf/f touchpoints". Right? It sets up that you are going to be showing me some really crazy poo poo. Well, I read a couple of pages and decided okay, it takes a little bit to have something happen. I scroll down through page after page of worthless poo poo, looking desperately for something sordid I missed, like maybe some weird sex scene, or a retarded monster, or a wizard. AUTHOR'S DEDICATION TO HIS SON. GENERIC INTRO. GENERIC NOTHING. It turns out I did miss some child rape and torture but it was so tedious it didn't warrant any comment from you besides "yup, here it is". I thought maybe you'd present some cool dissonance where the author's attitudes towards society stand out from or are compared with the genre frameworks and tropes that are his medium, and you sort of did (???), but all I learned here was that he thinks hot young girls get spoiled when they have sex with anyone who's not him, and I was the under the impression that that's a fairly common attitude in a lot of places, so I would really be more surprised if the Israeli fantasy novel had a girl not getting "taken" or whatever. I was really disappointed and kept scrolling, saw you getting resentful that nobody had anything to say (never a good sign for threads), was pleasantly surprised to see you drop the Boring rear end poo poo and pick up something else, then was disappointed again when it's a soccer book and you evidently haven't understood why nobody was contributing anything, because you promise some terrorist-child poo poo... sometime in the... far flung future... well I'm not gonna bookmark this page and check back for it, you know? That's why there are no comments. Just elide EVERYTHING until you find something you think would be JAW DROPPING. You could have a couple of pictures, like the cool one with all four of our young nationalist heroes like profiles on a vidgame's character-choice menu, maybe a few pages of boring soccer poo poo to establish the tone, then skip STRAIGHT TO THE hosed UP PARTS. I'm really sorry to grill you in this big stupid post, and I wish I and everyone else could be more interested in this because you've clearly spent some time doing it and I sure do love what I thought this thread was about, but maybe, if you want to practice your translation skills, maybe you could pick literally any work of media that someone might like reading about, instead of something bad AND boring? Do you guys even have any good books? Would a good Israeli sci-fi

Can you put down, like, what you actually say for "terrible nerd poo poo"? Do you guys really have a word that translates to nerd in the way it's used in that phrase? How would you describe the "goon" stereotype to people your age who didn't know anything about it?

# ? Jan 2, 2016 06:24

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I was hoping this would be a place to discuss the Strugatsky brothers' books.

# ? Jan 4, 2016 10:32

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Cobweb Heart posted:

. Just elide EVERYTHING until you find something you think would be JAW DROPPING. You could have a couple of pictures, like the cool one with all four of our young nationalist heroes like profiles on a vidgame's character-choice menu, maybe a few pages of boring soccer poo poo to establish the tone, then skip STRAIGHT TO THE hosed UP PARTS.

Hmm. I might have time to write again soon, and I may go with that.

Looking over the thread, it feels like I was cargo-culting more detailed readthroughs that found something to object to in every paragraph.

Nessus posted:

I was hoping this would be a place to discuss the Strugatsky brothers' books.

But those were all translated into English? Translated rather poorly, but still. Not relative unknowns like Aelita or The Garin Death Ray (now those might be both a fun read and properly messed up. Or maybe the wizard of Oz meets alien class struggle?)

# ? Jan 4, 2016 18:49

PITTSBURGH GLUE FORTUNE: Sep 24, 2002

Nessus posted:

I was hoping this would be a place to discuss the Strugatsky brothers' books.

Neverfear fellow book nerd!

I just started Roadside Picnic in the New Year, I got the newish Chicago Review Press edition for Christmas. I've been wanting to read it for a long time, and so far (about 80 pages in) I'm not disappointed. The translation is supposedly "new and improved", though I have no basis to compare it to, and it's not bad. Everything seems to make sense so far, once in a while you'll get a passage that is somewhat awkward but I just re-read it in a russian accent and pretend it didn't bother me.

This is my first Strugatsky read and like most classic sci-fi it has a lot of the same pitfalls you see with American sci-fi. Hyper masculine men with lovely attitudes, paper thin female characters. I do really like the way the narrative is put together; the chapters are fairly long with big gaps of time in between that really underscore the effect that being a stalker has on the main character. The allure of the zone, the seductiveness of going back and risking everything.

That's about all I have to say so far...I haven't posted in like a million years and I specifically logged in this morning to see if there was any discussion of Soviet Sci-Fi/The Strugatsky brothers. Imagine my surprise!!

# ? Jan 6, 2016 16:07

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Last time on the Young Athletes � after a thrilling time and a half in which a bunch of teens (or two teens in particular, the ones featuring on the cover) scored ~~like a hundred~~ 5 goals on the national team, the school team's center-forward (and one half of the protagonist duo) was cruelly fouled. Is it possible that the ~~protagonists~~ school team may actually lose this match? As his replacement takes the penalty shot�

quote:

Everyone felt the balance shift in favor of the national team. Indeed, when Gavi took the penalty kick, the goalkeeper easily caught it, and swiftly kicked the ball over to Golani, who stormed off towards the school team's goal. He easily overcame the defense, and sent the ball towards the upper right corner of the goal, with an incredibly forceful, yet accurate kick, at a mere 11 meters.

Did we just say he kicked the ball into the upper right corner? WRONG! He kicked it straight into Rafi's arms, as he leaped into the right corner just in time. Alon, the wonderful center-forward was off the field, but ~~we still have one protagonist left~~ Rafi, the exceptional goalkeeper, just proved he still exists (I don't think that's even a Hebrew phrase, just� a very weird way to phrase things) and intends to keep the score right where it is.

So he keeps catching (not just stopping or deflecting, but catching) balls over and over against, including point blank kicks from a forward twice his size. None of the other school team players are worth a mention, but Rafi is capable of holding off dozens of kicks on his own.

Which, again, is quite literally impossible even without the stupid difference in competence between a teenager and a professional national team. Anyways, the game ends, everyone stands up and claps, back to the thunderous applause canons� the entire teenage audience carries the team from the Ramat Gan stadium and into the streets of Tel Aviv, where the crowds ~~join the procession for an impromptu song and dance number~~ are already holding a special edition of all the papers, carrying headlines about game(!) They applaud the school team and (obviously) jeer the national team. Finally, the procession makes it to Dizingoff St, which, to be fair, is only 6 kilometers away. The fans finally drop Alon and Rafi (after an hour) and just as Shoa and Ranan rush forward in anticipation of a make out session� Alon collapses with a terrible headache, and is rushed to the hospital.
Israeli youth literature was promoting awareness of football concussions decades ahead of its time.

Chapter 9 � New blood for the national team
This one is well worth abridging. Obviously, Rafi and Alon are going to join the national team now (we'll never hear from any of the other school players again, so I hope the time spent debating that teams composition was well spent) but *now* the book decides to have a relaistic press discussion about whether pair of teenage ~~supermen~~ players should join the national team. After all, if the Argentinean team fields 17 year old players why wouldn't the Israeli team field fifteen year olds?

Gabriel Goalee, a famous sports reporter posted:

Alon's general appearance is wondrous. He plays not only with his feet, but also with his head. That is � he thinks. The proper calculation regarding the timing and direction of the kick towards the goal, and his foot's ability to translate his calculations into goals � make him the wonder boy of Israeli football.
�
I have never seen as fantastic a goalkeeper as Rafi. When you see him play, you feel as though his body is made of springs, and his hands have magnets to draw the ball towards them

Chapter 10 � Echoes from Greece
Grigoriy Alcibiades (!), a Geek reporter monitoring the state of Israeli football before the big game, earnestly hopes Rafi and Alon won't join the Israeli team, as that would greatly harm the Greek chances in the upcoming match. Naturally, this is translated into Hebrew and used as further evidence of the need for the two to do just that. Barakai and Golani (the current goalkeeper and center-forward / Alon-maimer) threaten to quit if that happens.
Meanwhile, Greece defeats Poland 4-0. It's no victory over a bunch of teenagers, but still.

Chapter 11: An angry quiet voice
Alon keeps getting better after his non-specific injury. Rafi visits him at the hospital, and they take a walk through the garden.

quote:

"Do you think Bundy will let us join the national team?"
"Why not? I think we've proven ourselves quite well."
"If so, will you be fit to play this Sunday, when the Greeks arrive?"
"I'm fully recovered", promised Alon. "Golani knocked me upside the head intending to put me out of commission, but that only lasted a day or two. I can repeat and surpass my achievements during the test game. I hope Bundy will give me that chance".
"I wish", sighed Rafi. "After all, that's what we trained for in my backyard, you kicking the ball and me stopping it."
Alon suddenly stopped.
"Is it just me, or did I hear a gun being cocked?" he asked.
"It's not just you!" said an angry, quiet voice behind them, and before they could turn their heads it added, "Hands up! Any looking back will be slain on the spot!"
Alon and Rafi felt gun barrels pressed against their backs. They could do nothing to defend themselves, and merely raised their hands up as ordered. Soon, they were blindfolded.

"Forward!", whispered the venomous voice.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Mar 8, 2016

# ? Feb 24, 2016 03:29

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Last time on the Young Athletes - Rafi and Alon were kidnapped by some whispering rear end in a top hat! ~~Oh No!~~ Took us long enough to get there. (Though its kinda odd it happened before they ever played with the national team). And now:

Chapter 12: Ranana and Shoa go into action

Shoa calls Ranana "with great excitement" to let her know Rafi and Alon were kidnapped by... someone. Who oh who could that someone be?

Palestinian terrorists? Greek football fanatics? Aliens?

Obviously it's Golani and Baraki, or some of their friends acting for them! It's time for all the school football players (at least those who have a phone at their house - the 1960's were a different time) to gather a Ranana's house, and come up with a plan of action.

Chapter 13: A quarter million students!
Correction - the rest of the school team players are still borderline relevant (for a few chapters). They've all gathered at Ranana's place, and Aryeh (you all remember Aryeh, right? He's "red of hair, red of temper") is already suggesting a counter kidnapping. Jump Golani and Barkai outside the training camp, place a sack over their heads, ~~bring out the paddles~~... that sort of thing.

Ranana is against any sort of kidnapping, and in favor of just finding their missing heroes. They can search all across Israel to find the two. ~~It's just two hours across and 10 hours by length~~

After all, they don't just have 11 kids - they have a quarter million students ready and willing to enlist for a great cause. They're going to divide the country by quadrants, assigned to local schools.

quote:

They all quickly fell to planning. Soon enough, there wouldn't be a single house, hotel, warehouse, hole, cave ~~outhouse, doghouse, henhouse~~ that an organized group of students wouldn't rifle through, in an effort to find Alon and Rafi before the big game!

Chapter 14: A special role for Shoa.

quote:

"Go the national teams training camp in Natania, address Golani and Barkai, and tell them that if their friends, who have kidnapped Alon and Rafi don't release them at once - Golani and Barkai will suffer a far greater punishment once we release Alon and Rafi on our own", said Ranana.

So Shoa borrows a sum from the school team's fund for the express purpose of blackmail / intimidation, and takes a taxi to Natania. Cops stop her at the gates of the training camp. Since flirting with a teenager is obviously the thing to do, they tell her that Golani and Barkai are being investigated right now. They have an alibi, and deny getting anyone else to kidnap their rivals.

A van full of senior police officers rolls past shortly thereafter, their faces "full of despair". All hopes now rest on a country-wide search by the students.

Shoa manages to flirt her way into the camp. Golan and Barkai don't have time for fans - "well, good thing I'm not a fan", and she gives the dire warning to the two suspected kidnappers. They categorically deny everything.

quote:

"We'll see", said Shoa, and slammed the door as she left.

Scary.

Chapter 15: Bundy.
Bundy speaks Hungarian, so he uses an interpreter. He doesn't have time for fans either. Shoa would be happy to get an autograph, later, but right she's here to tell him about the efforts being made to locate Rafi and Alon.,

quote:

"On my part, I will make every effort to get the Greek permission to switch two players at least until the end of the first half. If you can bring Alon and Rafi to the field even at the very last moment of the first half, I will replace Golani and Barkai, and our victory over the Greek team will be assured."
His voice trembled with concern for the fate of Israel.

But wait, they don't have the Greek permission just yet. Shoa should come along to get it. All three - Shoa, Bundy and the nameless interpreter - jump into Bundy's car and roar off.

Chapter 16: A meeting with the Greek team.

The Greek team and the international referee Messier Funkara, from France, all stay at the Susita hotel in Tel Aviv. (If such a hotel every existed, the internet has absolutely no memory of it. It does remember Susita cars, kinda, because they were exceptionally adorable). Bundy arrives with a minor in tow, as he and Shoa try to convince the Greeks to allow for the substitution in the interests of sportsmanship.

The Greek team - Oziris Pantheaclus, Stefan Necreus, Siron Thucydides and Socrates Spartacus Athenes Zeus Titanomachia Aristotle Plato (only one of these is not an actual name) laugh at the very notion that any teenager could defeat them. Replace the entire Israeli team with Young Athletes (title drop) for all they care.

The Greek team whispers back and forth, and allows the substitution to take place until the very end of the game, and not just the first half of it. Bundy is overwhelmed.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 02:03

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# ? May 5, 2024 08:18

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Chapter 17: A race against the clock
Ranana's house is now the headquarters of the missing person search. Maps everywhere, little flags and pins with school and squads on them, the phone constantly ringing. Shoa bursts in with the welcome news that the Greeks have kindly agreed to a last minute substitution. Finding Rafi and Alon is now more important than ever.
Students form man-chains, police-helicopters fly overhead, special editions come out with very important "we ain't found poo poo" news. Everyone's trying to pressure Barkai and Golani into confessing, because gently caress those guys. They finally find a Monogrammed handkerchief with Rafi's name halfway between Tel-Aviv and Lod, which narrows things down. Shoa gets the news by phone, and rushes to encourage Bundi as the teams takje the field.

Chapter 18:Troubling times on the field � and off it.

Tens of thousands pack together to watch the match, millions have their ears pressed against their radios.

Golani is trying to clear his name, so he rushes Oziris and makes a wonderful kick towards the upper corner � and right into Necroses hands. The Israeli team presses the offense, but just as Golani is about to kick, Zeus Pallas (!) takes the ball. If only Alon was here, this wouldn't happen. Darrius Lacademonus scores, despite Barkai's best attempts to stop him.

quote:

'Bundi asks about any results so far', Shoa asked desperately.
Tell him we managed to send five thousand students into the Lod area in military trucks, and we'll transfer another ten thousand over the next half hour. The search is desperate, yet thorough, and Alon and Rafi may be found at any moment.. The airforce has provided us with a helicopter that will bring the two right to the stadium. Shoa, can you hear me?
'I can't, because the Greeks just scored another goal!'

Chapter 19: Israel on the defense
The national team goes into total defense mode, which is like the most realistic thing in this book thus far. Btw, the Israeli term for a total focus on the defense on the football field is "bunker" � as always, political and sport psychology are one and the same.
Since the entire team is concentrating on defense, the entire Greek team takes the offense, including the defenders. Syrius Garchus scores the fourth goal at the last moment of the first half.

There are now 50,000 people searching the Lod area � many of them equipped with portable transistors, each goal just encouraging them to search that much harder.

Chapter 20: A day of infamy.
Now the national team switches to total offense, hoping to score at least one goal, but Necroses manages to stop each attempt. Every Israeli player and fan periodically scan the sky for the helicopter carrying the two young player � yet its nowhere to be seen.
The resulting depression is enough for the Greeks to score twice more. And again at the very last minute. The game ends, 7:0 to the Greeks.

Chapter 21: Where are Alon and Rafi?
Shoa gets back to the headquarters, to join Ranana in crying over the map. The handkerchiefs (there are two now, for some reason) must have been just a bit of misdirection. Golani and Barkai's mysterious friends seem determined to hold the young athletes during the second match with Greece as well. Oh, did we forget to note that there's still a second match to played?

Chapter 22: Bandy despairs
Everything sucks. Ranana drops by just as Bundy's interpreter translates his speech to the team:

quote:

The Greeks are our superior in every way, both offensively and defensively. We must not expect our next match to take a miraculous course of some sort. Only with sheer stubborn persistence can we expect to achieve anything like an honorable score. My belief is that as far as dedication, fighting-spirit and grit are concerned, there's not a single team in the world that surpasses the Israelis. Let us place our trust in these great Israeli qualities, and do nothing to make our country ashamed" said Bundy, but notes of hidden despair echoed in his voice.

Chapter 23: Ranana suspects�

In which Ranana finally figures out that based on the book's retarded logic (and the fact that Greek team's plane left from the Lod airport after the kidnapping), the Greek team should be the obvious suspects. She re-reads Grigoriy Alcibiades' "we're so hosed if those two teenagers join the Israeli team" magnum opus to convince Bundy.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Apr 7, 2016

# ? Apr 6, 2016 22:32

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Our people call this "terrible nerd shit". Let's Read Foreign SF&F

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