Hungarian Cover of The Human Division
Posted on April 17, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 14 Comments
Keeping once again in the basic template established for the OMW books by the publisher. I am assuming that these two gentlemen are Harry Wilson and Hart Schmidt. In which case, they’re kinda more dreamy than I imagined them. Which is fine!
This is a general question and not just to john. Do the publishers own the cover art? So you can’t use the same cover you had in the US in another market? Looks like covers are different in every market.
Guess:
The publisher almost always commissions the art, yes, and at the very least licenses the artwork for their own purposes. I don’t know whether if my foreign language publishers want to use the same art, they have to secure it from Tor or from the artist. It may depend. But I know I don’t own the commercial rights to the work (although I do own at least a couple of the original paintings).
I want to know if there will be a cover for this version – in olde English!
http://www.michaellivingston.com/scalzi-chaucerd-listen/
It made my head hurt trying to keep up.
In 1886 I visited a train station in Germany and and saw a couple of books with familiar covers, but I think they turned out to be completely different books by other authors. It appeared to me that either the painters had only originally sold North American rights for commericial use of the paintings or the original publishers had resold the rights to German publishers.
BTW:
Can CDF soldiers grow facial hair? It seems like suppressing the whiskers would be a handy modification given everything else that is done to them.
If you aren’t imagining Harry and Hart as dreamy, you’re doing it wrong. ;-)
I think my brain is going – I swore that cover said, in English, “The Lizard’s Hangnail.”
I want to know why their beards and all their other hair is also green?? (but not the hair on the top of the head)
Literal translation or the Hungarian title: The Sounds of Rebellion.
I always get nervous when Hungarian translators take a bit too much license.
I don’t think I imagined Hart as having such an effective smolder.
Is it me, or does Harry look like Joel McHale from “Community”?
Is Harry supposed to have cat eyes? Other than that, the cover is perfect! :-)
I would translate it as “The Voices of Rebellion”. (“hang” means both sound and voice, and I think the latter meaning is surely what’s intended.) Given that it’s impossible to contain all the meanings of the English word “division” within a single Hungarian word, I’m inclined to cut the translator a little slack.
Having read 2/3 of the Old Man’s War books, I get the green skin significance.
@Steven:
That is indeed a better translation of the Hungarian translation, errr, interpretation of the title. Too many layers to this onion!
It does make me wonder, however, whether authors have any control over the titles of foreign-language translations. If a literal translation is impossible or unwieldy do the translators just do whatever the hell they want, does the publisher come up with something,and does the author ever weigh in?
Imma curious. John? Anyone?