Posted on April 23, 2012 Posted by John Scalzi 22 Comments
Regarding the upcoming publication of Old Man’s War in the country of Norwegia, or “Norway,” as it is more commonly known, among the vulgar. It’s here. And in Norwegian, suitably enough.
Taunting the tauntable since 1998
John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, contributor – AMS
About the site
What's the Big Idea? Authors explaining the the big ideas behind their latest works, in their own words. See the latest Big Ideas!
Authors/Editors/Publicists: for information on how to participate, click here.
As a person of 100% Norwegian descent, I approve!
“So far we have gone out with fabulous names such as Joe Haldeman, Orson Scott Card and Neal Stephenson.
But when it was time for a title of some recent, namely John Scalzis The old war (Old Man’s War). This is an extremely entertaining and wise novel about old age, war, politics, history, colonization and alien cultures.”
Either norse is really easy to translate or google translate is getting better.
Cool. I’ve already read it, but it will be cool to read it in Norwegian too.
Also the country is called Norge or Noreg (we can’t agree) in Norwegian :-)
What, no cover picture? We hope to see one soon.
Given Scandinavia is home to many of the world’s death metal bands–and that Old Man’s War is pretty damn metal–I think someone should write and perform a death metal song called “Old Man’s War” to celebrate this momentous occasion. I’m reminded of the death metal band Ghost Brigade, of course, given Scalzi’s book The Ghost Brigades, but they are Finnish, not Norwegian. There is a black metal band called Old Man’s CHILD, however, that IS from Norway. That’s almost Old Man’s War, as raising a child can be much like waging a war from what I hear. Perhaps they should collaborate to pay tribute to the Scalzi.
I thought everyone in Norwegia already spoke English.
Norway? You have a lot of Viking fans?
I married a Norwegian – doesn’t mean I am willing to read Old Man’s War (great book!) in Norwegian, that’s for sure.
Part Norwegian, even though the USMC thinks that part of me (Grandma W’s great-grandfather was Norwegian) is Swedish (we weren’t allowed to put “American” as our ancestory then; the other ancestors in that generation were all born here — or claimed to be!)
Is it in Nynorsk or Bokmål?
I hope that the translation of the book itself does not contain the same ratio of errors as the blurb on the website. I guess it can be difficult to translate the style of english to norwegian (bokmål), so some allowances must be made. But there are some real errors in that translated blurb too, if I am not very mistaken. I guess I will have to buy the book and read it to see.
Not to rain on your parade, but the language of the blurb was very stilted… did they use auto translate…?
“John Perry gjorde to ting på sin syttifem års dag. Først besøkte han graven til sin kone. Så meldte han seg frivillig inn i hæren.”
Offhand I would have formulated it something like this:
“På 75-årsdagen sin gjorde John Perry to ting: Først besøkte han sin kones grav. Så vervet han seg til hæren.”
Oh well! I read it in English a couple of years back. Loved it! It is on my reread list, and so are its sequels.
To those concerned: There’s a huge difference between a blog post, and a translation. Vendetta publishing will take great care of Old Man’s War. A blog post is not really subject to great scrutinizing from our side. It’s a blog. Not a book. It’s a blog. Not a press release.
Thank you.
We’re extremely excited to be the publisher of The Old Man’s War!
The Norwegian publisher.
I wonder if/when there will be a swedish translation. Reading norwegian is headache inducing.
Pretty surprised and impressed that we get a norwegian translation before a swedish one, as the swedish marked is about twice the size of the norwegian. Congrats to Mr.Scalzi and good luck to Vendetta, the publisher.
Anyone else see this and immediately hear Robert Plant belting out the opening line to Immigrant Song?
I’m still waiting to read it in the original Klingon.
Will the Norwegian “Old Man’s War” explain what happened to Norway in “Old Man’s War”?
I am a little bit surprised that there is a demand for a translation. In my experience, Norwegians are very good at reading and speaking english.
But anyway, good news averyone!
No pretty new cover? *sadface*
Norsk is a very good compromise between the Dansk and the Svensk I think.
I think Norwegians are cool…Especially Norwegian Black Metal Bands…I’m a metal head and really love black metal music from Norway..\m/