Hungarian Ghost Brigades Cover
Posted on February 18, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 16 Comments
Actually one of the first photorealistic representations of a CDF/Special Forces soldier I’ve seen on an actual book cover, so that’s cool (although I would note the lipstick is not standard CDF issue).
Incidentally, if you read Hungarian and/or want to see whether Google Translate handles Hungarian at all well, here’s a link to an interview I did on a Hungarian-language SF site.
Wow, I love that cover.
That is an awesome cover. It may be my favorite of all the covers you’ve posted here.
Huh, looks like a Hollywood movie poster. But, um, aren’t all the main protagonists in that novel green? Or is that supposed to be Charles Boutin on the left? Or is my memory slacking off again?
Er, the other left. *heads for the Dayquil*
Google says that John’s hovercraft is full of eels.
I always pictured the CDF forces as a much darker “Orion slave girl” shade of green.
Rest assured, google will NOT handle the translation well. Hungarian can be a crazy bass-ackwards language to translate. And once again I get to be tickled that knowledge of Hungarian actually does come in handy once in a blue moon!
I enjoyed the interview and I’m now tempted to finagle a Hungarian copy of the book (and eventually the whole series) so I can add it to my small but growing collection of sci fi in Hungarian. (I’m lazy in my second language, so I only do long reads if I had read them in English first. Shameful, I know!)
Cool cover! I enjoyed the interview in Hungarian, and I encourage your readers to make a google translation. It will be far from perfect, but there will be so many badly translated, funny expressions that they will laugh their ass off.
John, I must be honest with you: I won’t buy the Hungarian version (though I am Hungarian). I already purchased the original book in audiobook format, ant it’s the next on my listening list. I prefer to read and listen in English, because even a very good translation cannot give back the music of the original.
Hey John your Hungarian is pretty good! Where did you find the time to learn? ;)
The cover looks very good. But why does she have little vertical cracks on her face like she is made of an oil painting?
But why does she have little vertical cracks on her face like she is made of an oil painting?
In the future, we will not moisturise.
Looking forward to buying this – thanks for the heads up. This will look nice next to my copies of Vének Háborúja and Egri csillagok. (My two Hungarian books.)
I wish Google Translate were better with Hungarian. As an American living in Budapest it would make my life a lot easier. Unfortunately at this point in time it’s not so helpful. I wish owning your books had been as motivating in my language studies as I had hoped. Ah well, if wishes were fishes and so on. Maybe this one will do it.
I have to say, that the Hungarian text is o.k. It was translated by someone with real military experience, unfortunately with MN, and not CDF ;-), and lots of discussions with a “triple-canopy” officer, so the book at least tries to sound authentic :-), even to the trained ears.
And for those, with proper clearance, there is a Kindle edition is also existing from the Hungarian version, currently stored at the publishing firm, for archival purposes. It would be so splendid, to have it on the market too. Even at Amazon.
Beautiful cover, but the green is wrong. Just really worng wrong. By which, of course, I mean “not like I pictured it.” I pictured it being a much more plant-like green color, and not nearly as attractive as this faint teal tinge, but of course the color wouldn’t be as pretty on the cover.
A friend of mine has the original art David Cherry painted for one of his sister C.J.’s books. It’s a forest scene with an Elf-woman wielding a sword, surrounded by (what else?) green. When he brought it in, the publisher (not sure who had the authority here) said “It’s lovely, David, but green doesn’t sell book covers.” In other words, books with a lot of green on the cover don’t sell as well as books with a lot of blue on the cover, at least in SF, which is why back in the late 70s you could find the SF section of the bookstore by looking for the blue.
So he did it again, with a blue forest (and no, it’s not set on another planet with blue chlorophyll), and that was the version used for the actual book. Which is why my friend could afford to buy the first (and in my view better) version.
Of course, that’s all cultural, so you might see real GREEN green people on a cover in some country, who knows? But don’t expect the dominant color on an SF book in the US to be green anytime soon…even if the title of the book is The Very Green People in an Entirely Green World, with Additional Green Stuff.
– Nice interview.
– Machine translation will always disappoint.
– OMW and The Stars of Egér. An unlikely pair but I like it! If you were to read one hungarian book I’d recommend The Stars of Egér. A true classic.
I just assumed those green “cracks” in her face were chlorophyll veins, near the surface so they could photosynthesize and such. Can’t remember if there was an explanation of the photosynthesis process in the book though.
OFF
:D
That is why Hungarian is so tricky. “Egér” means “mouse”, the besieged castle’s name is Eger. I also recommend Tim Willock’s The Religion, in the “last castle standing against the Ottomans”-genre.
ON