December 20, 2021
Our website has moved
The founder of 26to50, Takashi Ogawa, passed away in June 2019. The 26to50 website has been relaunched at https://26to50.wixsite.com/ensite/ to share some of his many translations and other writing in memoriam. He worked tirelessly to bring overseas science fiction and fantasy and fresh trends in the literary scene to Japanese readers, as well as always dedicating himself to cross-cultural conversations. We sincerely hope his works, thoughts, and passions will reach you.
December 25, 2014
December 17, 2014
Dying job of the Translators
The book publishing in Japan is declining fast and especially that of the translated fiction is in terrible state now. What we usually do takes a day for 5 pages, which means it takes ten full weeks working on a 350 page long novel plus two weeks for proofreading and a week for corrected proof reading. Three full months’ work and still most of us get just two or three titles a year. If the assigned works are no too demanding we can do a title in two months, but nobody now gets six titles a year. There is not enough market in book publishing alone to support us.
OK, then comes severe economy. Most of us are paid royalty, thanks to our long history of learning things from foreign cultures, which used to be 8 % and on the basis of printing numbers. But these days, it varies from 3 to 8 %, if royalty at all, and average is 6. Mass market bunko paperbacks usually priced at $8 for translated fiction, and the initial printing number is also diminished to 10,000 copies. Well, the original authors would get average advance of $3,000 to 5,000 against 7% royalty these days which looks terrible comparing with the past $8,000 against 7 to 9 % but it’d be the author’s secondary income. The problem is the sales figure, and it looks terrible, too. Most of the paperback originals would sell about 3,000 copies and be gone from the bookstore shelves in a month. Yes, there’re stronger ones that would sell 6,000 to 8,000 and stay at the shelves, but only very lucky ones would go back in print again. So the publishers are demanding bigger titles, with less demanding contents for broader audience. Well, there come smaller indie publishers for hardback edition. Small publishers would publish hardcovers priced at $29.50 with 1,500 copies. Most of them sell only 300 copies or so, but they try very hard to keep them on the shelves. The economy looks the same in any other countries, including USA.
Here comes our job. 6% royalty of $8 edition with 10,000 copies would earn us about $5,000 which is a full three months’ job. Most of our apartment rent in Tokyo is $1,000 a month. We could still spend $2,000 for three months’ food and bills. But if only we have the titles to work on every month. If we get three titles a year, we can spend $3,000 to live for a year. $8 a day, including tax and utilities. Can we manage it? NO! OK, we still can go to the Indies. There are few Indies who are willing to pay royalty but the model should be that way if we should keep our future income. The hardback edition would guarantee about $2,700 for, again, three full months’ work. Which won’t pay the rent! How can I recommend that kind of job to the talented ambitious young people who love foreign fiction?
Well, I actually teach at a school for translators with fewer students every year. There used to bright young students there, but now they only attract middle-aged housewives who are willing to do the demanding works as one of their hobbies. It doesn’t look as a job even to the lay people.
My ex-students would complain that they can’t go on like this. I know. But severe economy aside, it’s a great and rewarding job. Through translation, we could enrich the readers, supplying them with alternate landscapes, alternate views, diverse way of looking at things, while we still could declare that we do it for love, not just for money. And it is. Translating process is something like a dance with the authors. If we’re not in love, we could step on each other’s foot and eventually start kicking each other. But if in love, we could dance perfectly, attracting audience, and find more love. Reward? If we could be allowed to work on the titles we really love, it could stay in those few readers’ mind, if only not in the shelves, and that experience would eventually be revealed and expressed, making the works go back in print. And then we could say we’re changing the people’s lives, changing the world and making it rich. And we do it for love.
Love for trade? Yes, why not? It looks like well-practiced one in human history. And it includes the magic word, love. We don’t get fooled with numbers and capitalist economy. We’re building a new way of life based on love. So the authors in the world, please give us the works we really can love!
November 21, 2014
Why I Used to Love Slipstream Fiction
Do you remember there once was a secret boom of slipstream fiction? The term was coined by Bruce Sterling in 1989 to explain there were hidden treasures in literary fiction that could appeal to science fiction fans almost in the same way our genre hooked them. But the real treasures rushed out at the turn of the millennium when newcomers to our genre, Kelly Link, Jay Lake, Christopher Rowe, Benjamin Rosenberg, Christopher Barzak, and Jeff VanderMeer, started to explore their imaginations outside of our genre boundary. At the same time, coincidently or not, a lot of new literary newcomers also started to write with a lot more fantastic elements, borrowing ideas from science fiction and fantasy, and broke the genre barriers. Kevin Brockmeier, Amy Bender, George Saunders, Charles Yu, Adam Johnson, Arthur Bradford and many more tried to break out of the literary convention, enjoying the fresh weirdness which has been the tradition of our genre. It was a great time. Many tried chapbook zines, webzines, hypertext fiction, and original anthologies. Interstitial art movement and Literature's icons like Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, even Bradford Morrow encouraged them. It reminded me of the sixties, when the new wave and absurdist movement tried to go out of the conventions and ventured into new style of fiction. Its "Try Something New" spirit revived then again, seeking a new frontier of fiction. "Tear down the walls, Motherfuckers" we used to say, and the new writers actually tore down the walls and barriers of the literary genres.
But then what happened? There came the mashup novels. Imaginative freedom and whimsy look very alike and often come together. So when lazy writers learned they could do anything, they just played with their favorite characters and plots, mashing up different genres. In the spirit of entertainment, making fun, retrofit, exploiting our past literary resources. It's in the same contemporary capitalist greediness they do that. They don't explore the past to find something new, or forgotten treasures, they just have fun. Most of the steampunk novels are like that, too. No, that isn't wrong per se, fun and whimsiness, those elements belong to the pleasures of reading, too. But they did absorb the new movement of slipstream. Suddenly those new writers found that there were good market for the cross-genre fiction, and started to write mashup, or steampunk novels. Even some wandered off to game novelization. Lost was the spirit of "Try Something New" or weirdness, inherent trope of our genre. On the other side, those literary fiction's newcomers learned our genre and started to write the genre novels, post apocalypse, epic fantasy, or YA. Or they simply went back to the mainstream literature, being disappointed that there wasn't a market for their type of fiction.
Again it reminds me of the fact that there's no "us" anymore. Only a small community of the kin spirit can't support those writers. Nobody is looking for future, or newness, and we have to be content with what we already have. Even our genre readers have lost the appetites for new things, and go to pulp, military, comic, space opera, and more and more into traditional fantasy. I do miss those days of the new slipstream or "New Weird" days. Sigh.
But then what happened? There came the mashup novels. Imaginative freedom and whimsy look very alike and often come together. So when lazy writers learned they could do anything, they just played with their favorite characters and plots, mashing up different genres. In the spirit of entertainment, making fun, retrofit, exploiting our past literary resources. It's in the same contemporary capitalist greediness they do that. They don't explore the past to find something new, or forgotten treasures, they just have fun. Most of the steampunk novels are like that, too. No, that isn't wrong per se, fun and whimsiness, those elements belong to the pleasures of reading, too. But they did absorb the new movement of slipstream. Suddenly those new writers found that there were good market for the cross-genre fiction, and started to write mashup, or steampunk novels. Even some wandered off to game novelization. Lost was the spirit of "Try Something New" or weirdness, inherent trope of our genre. On the other side, those literary fiction's newcomers learned our genre and started to write the genre novels, post apocalypse, epic fantasy, or YA. Or they simply went back to the mainstream literature, being disappointed that there wasn't a market for their type of fiction.
Again it reminds me of the fact that there's no "us" anymore. Only a small community of the kin spirit can't support those writers. Nobody is looking for future, or newness, and we have to be content with what we already have. Even our genre readers have lost the appetites for new things, and go to pulp, military, comic, space opera, and more and more into traditional fantasy. I do miss those days of the new slipstream or "New Weird" days. Sigh.
Decline of Our Future
The decline of science fiction, or fiction in general, or even that of music, films, our culture in general, is eminent and depressing. The reason is apparent to me. We don't believe in future anymore. Without future, we only have to maintain (sustain?), making do with what we already have. We don't need any imagination. The future has already come and we've started to consume it. As Bill Gibson once suggested, without the imagination and innovation in the street, all technology brings no real joy, just commodities to consume. They're just convenient tools. We have cell phones, e-book readers, tablets, and all those networks to bring the whole world to ourselves, which we just consume, its information, entertainments, wisdoms, and demagogues. We can choose whatever there is and we're still not satisfied, yet we think that's all there is to avail. We're now losing our imagination. The reason again is apparent. We don't have "us" any more.
Our generation tends to talk a lot about the sixties, when there were futures. Science fiction was a pop and cool literature, and technology was slick and weird at the same time. The world was full of visionaries, even drugs were a means to take us to far out trips, not media of mere entertainments. Where have all those future gone? we tend to wonder. But gone were not the futures. They've come now. We've just lost "us." We're now divided, entrenched in our little cozy beliefs and causes, and only communicate with those who dwell in the same virtual reality. Red and Blue don't share the same reality, South and North, East and West, either. When adults read YA, it's because they need some different kind of entertainment. It isn't for the purpose to understand their youths, or to share their visions. By enjoying YA, adults steal the joy of such fiction from them, averting its trend and course to their liking. See how the characters of Twilight turn into sex maniacs in Fifty Shades of Grey. They don't share its romance with their kids. They just devour. And see how poorly they imagine their own adult sex lives. It's not imagination or visions they share. They just hold onto what they already have. We don't communicate, because we don't believe in any possibility that we can share something together except what we already do. Because we don't believe in "us."
In the sixties we could believe in us. Even in the communist countries, there were their own youth revolts. Even kids in the undeveloped countries enthused at the Beatles. We could relate to each other, we imagined, and we tried to share our visions and imaginations. We could venture into farthest alien worlds, because we knew we could always ask "Beam us home, Scotty" to return home, return to "us." We believed in our Spaceship Earth. We don't have that anymore, although there still remains only one earth for us. We don't want to share our future with aliens now, outsiders to our tiny separate groups of interests, because we don't share their values. We do occasionally care for them, I agree. But it's not sharing. It's not love. It brings no joy.
If you need a future, where you can liberate your imagination and vision and venture into a wonderful quest, you need some fellowship. People you can share your future with. When it comes to the future of our planet, or human race, we need to identify with it. In the sixties, the answer was love. But what do or can we have now? I still need the future, I still need love. Do you?
Our generation tends to talk a lot about the sixties, when there were futures. Science fiction was a pop and cool literature, and technology was slick and weird at the same time. The world was full of visionaries, even drugs were a means to take us to far out trips, not media of mere entertainments. Where have all those future gone? we tend to wonder. But gone were not the futures. They've come now. We've just lost "us." We're now divided, entrenched in our little cozy beliefs and causes, and only communicate with those who dwell in the same virtual reality. Red and Blue don't share the same reality, South and North, East and West, either. When adults read YA, it's because they need some different kind of entertainment. It isn't for the purpose to understand their youths, or to share their visions. By enjoying YA, adults steal the joy of such fiction from them, averting its trend and course to their liking. See how the characters of Twilight turn into sex maniacs in Fifty Shades of Grey. They don't share its romance with their kids. They just devour. And see how poorly they imagine their own adult sex lives. It's not imagination or visions they share. They just hold onto what they already have. We don't communicate, because we don't believe in any possibility that we can share something together except what we already do. Because we don't believe in "us."
In the sixties we could believe in us. Even in the communist countries, there were their own youth revolts. Even kids in the undeveloped countries enthused at the Beatles. We could relate to each other, we imagined, and we tried to share our visions and imaginations. We could venture into farthest alien worlds, because we knew we could always ask "Beam us home, Scotty" to return home, return to "us." We believed in our Spaceship Earth. We don't have that anymore, although there still remains only one earth for us. We don't want to share our future with aliens now, outsiders to our tiny separate groups of interests, because we don't share their values. We do occasionally care for them, I agree. But it's not sharing. It's not love. It brings no joy.
If you need a future, where you can liberate your imagination and vision and venture into a wonderful quest, you need some fellowship. People you can share your future with. When it comes to the future of our planet, or human race, we need to identify with it. In the sixties, the answer was love. But what do or can we have now? I still need the future, I still need love. Do you?
September 22, 2012
World SF Special
We'll be runnig a Word SF Special, featuring Questionnaire and articles on the subject. It's not about SF scene around the world. With Anglo-American SF being declining from its world dominance, many SF people around the world now begin to write not just to their own domestic audience, but also to the world. We'd like to share their views with all SF/F people, to build the genuine global SF/F community.
August 23, 2012
Buddy's Birthday
It could have been 73rd birthday for Lewis Nordan today. Now I realize that he was anothre rabbit like me according to our Chinese-Japanese calendar cycle. I've just started his memorial at our site, and that's a little consolation for me, at least.
Well, happy birthday, my fellow rabbit, Buddy. Please enjoy your stay at your ownmemorial, here.
August 17, 2012
Lewis Nordan Memorial
Buddy Nordan Passed away on April 13 this year. I miss him so much, I have to do something about our ignorance of wonderful world of his fiction. So I'm now holding a big memorial to him. There will be original materials on him and his works. Please drop by and join our celebration of Lewis "Buddy" Nordan.
May 25, 2012
The Steampunk special issue of Hayakawa's SF Magazine is now released. It features
The Mad Scientist's Daughters by Theodora Goss;
Reluctance by Cherie Priest;
Silver Lining by Tim Pratt;
Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo;
The Stoker Memorandum by Lavie Tidhar;
The Age of Miracles, The Age of Wonder by Aliette de Bodard;
Atuhor interview: Cherie Priest, Gail Carriger;
Clockwork Dreams, Steampowered Films by Chise Soeno (film review);
What is Neo Steampunk? by yours truly (introduction)
I edited the special section and translated Pratt, Tidhar and de Bodard. Our members Hiro Takasato did Rambo and Junko Suzuki did Goss.
We'll feature more on our website, too.
June 5, 2010
The Loving Dead by Amelia Beamer (Nightshade, July 2010: $14.95)
Following Tim Pratt, another great editor of Locus Magazine makes a giant leap into a novelist career. Amelia Beamer is a staff writer of SF&F newszine, Locus. She’s also a critic and writer, writing for small magazines and Interfiction anthology. Now she’s a novelist, too. Her debut, The Loving Dead is a novel of zombie romance, but I can’t resist an old impulse to call it a novel of Love, Sex, and Death. Well, especially love. It’s the most poignant love story our genre has ever produced. Forget the terrible review of Publishers Weekly. The ending is beautiful. The story is rather simple. In the streets of Berkley, weird looking homeless guys start to attack the pedestrians. Our heroine Kate finds a strange behavior of her girl friend and it turns out she’s a zombie now. Zombies are lascivious, and her friends easily become their prey. Kate sees zombies everywhere and trying to escape, she and her boyfriend seek refugee in Alcatraz prison. OK, there’s a very useful cell phone app to tame zombies and that kind of modernity and hilarity are everywhere in the novel. It’s sensuous, with a lot of sex scenes, and it’s humorous. Entertaining and witty. But the last scene is very moving and memorable, despite dark and disconsolate. Wow, Amelia Beamer has a very bright future now.
April 16, 2010
Steampunk
Hayakawa's SF Magazine will run a steampunk specla issue this month. Here's TOC of the feature part:
Fixing Hanover by Jeff VanderMeer
Shattered Teacup by George Mann
Tanglefoot by Cherie Priest
Chain of Fools by Jay Lake
What's the Soundtrack of Steampunk? by Brian Slattery
The Corset Manifesto by Katie Casey
And a brief book list and an introduction by Takashi Ogawa.
We've done the translation. It'll be published in a week.
Fixing Hanover by Jeff VanderMeer
Shattered Teacup by George Mann
Tanglefoot by Cherie Priest
Chain of Fools by Jay Lake
What's the Soundtrack of Steampunk? by Brian Slattery
The Corset Manifesto by Katie Casey
And a brief book list and an introduction by Takashi Ogawa.
We've done the translation. It'll be published in a week.
Clifford's Love of Books
Clifford has a serious taste for books. He first found love for Hardcovers.
And then he found a very handsome tradepaperback.
But now he finds a new thing. E-books. He loves a Kindle.
Except he's a biting kind. Look at the corners. He left his marks.
He's my lovely dog.
And then he found a very handsome tradepaperback.
But now he finds a new thing. E-books. He loves a Kindle.
Except he's a biting kind. Look at the corners. He left his marks.
He's my lovely dog.
March 12, 2010
Best of 2009 International
Locus Online features the best of 2009 international version which includes my take. Please note that I have to exclude HARMONY/ by Keikaku Ito because it was published at the end of 2008.
February 11, 2010
Rock Novels
Recently I've read a bunch of Japanese rock novels. Yes, we have now a good tradition of rock novels. I've just posted a review on some. See how we treat the music differently from US/British model. Check it here.
January 17, 2010
Takumi Shibano
The godfather of Japanese fandom, Takumi Shibano, has passed away on Jan 16 from pneumonia. Very sad.
November 23, 2009
Pirate Rock
Originally released under the title The Boat That Rocked a couple of years ago in UK, and a bit longer, I heard, but recently significantly edited for US release, which should be the version I saw in Tokyo. The director, Richard Curtis, is known for Four Weddings and Funerals, Notting Hill and Love Actually, seven years younger than me, but was growing up in the 60s listening to those happy British tunes. Those innocent pop tunes in the 60s should have influenced him much, as shown in his depiction of those characters of his famous romantic comedies. So I had a pretty high expectation for this film, as a fan of those music and music scene.
It’s about the pirate music station which aired rock and pops 24/7 from a boat on the public sea because BBC wouldn’t air the vulgar music by those longhairs, not longer than 30 minutes a day. Yes, the story is simple and predictable (of course, we know its history), the humor is on the level of The Animal House, caricaturized politicians and bureaucrats are very British, like in a Monty Python episode, shallow but fine with the simple story line. The actors are great and so are their performances. The main feature is the music as it is its major theme.
The Pirate Radio is vaguely based on the actual Radio Caroline, which is alive and well today, but our station in the film has a brief life from 1966 to 1969. The ship is filled with odd casting of DJs and crew, with a single lady cook who is lesbian. One DJ is an American but his rival is coming on board. And another enigmatic hermitlike DJ has a key role. The tone is very happy, it says like music is a joy of life, nobody can kill the music, everybody loves dancing, you know what I mean? Well, it really was like that in the 60s. Girls loved dancing or loved to imitate. We boys bought tons of vinyl records eagerly and tried to learn their lyrics, guitar chords and riffs. And those were the golden days of the radio, too. I used to listen to top 20 kinda programs of British charts, New Musical Express and Melody Maker, where DJs urged us listeners to vote for their favorite bands, asking us which band we’d support, Beatles or Rolling Stones? Every week, there was a battle of the bands, Kinks vs. Troggs, Herman’s Hermits vs. Hollies, etc. We boys discussed how our favorite bands lost by those girl fans who didn’t realize the meaning of the new music of rock and how they always preferred the good looks, with jealousy, after that. And I can still clearly recall when I heard for the first time “Gold and Silver” by Quicksilver Messenger Service and “Section 43” by Country Joe & Fish on US Army radio FEN. Though it was way past midnight, those golden guitar licks and colorful organ opened the night sky and let the California sunshine in. So this film is just for me, for us, who were there, no, around then, I mean.
I did enjoy it untill its climax. It’s not a great movie, but a lovable one. Like an old friend, it sent me back to my youth, and reminded me of those happy days of singalong and street dancing. Since coming home, I’ve been listening to internet Pirate Radio station most of the time. Yet I do have some quibbles, maybe not minor ones.
In the middle of the climax, I suddenly felt like thrown back from that time in the screen and shoved into my seat in the theater. Why? The background music was "Won’t Get Fooled Again" by the Who. Yeah, great tune, from their Who’s Next album in 1971. Right. Way past 1966-69 time frame, and that was the milestone for the band to really break into the American market. There was no echo of the early R&B or pseudo psychedelic reference in that tune. It was a genuine 70s hit. Yes, the director admits that he even added Cat Stevens’ “Fathers and Sons,” a 1970 song, and he knew that the singer/songwriter scene was after those days of the pirate stations. Well, I don’t give a damn about using that song because the lyrics perfectly fit the scene. Yet, I do care about the Who. Besides, the basic message of that film is that music matters. If it matters, then they should care about the use of the tunes. Plus, I wish he used more British flavored hits, instrumental music like “Albatross” by Fleetwood Mac, or British oddities like Whistling Jack’s. But they have to use more international hits in order to sell it to the world, which I do understand.
Another quibble is about the underdevelopment of the Bob character. That quiet hermitlike DJ, who spends a lot of time studying seriously about the new albums and new music. I can relate to him, because I knew there was a new generation of DJs, who were serious about the music. People like Tom Donahue. Of course, there were a bunch of crazy ones like Wolfman Jack, or later Dr. Demento. But that guy in the film always hides from the scene and we’re never informed about his DJing style. Only at the very last climatic disaster, we understand he really cares about the music, probably more than about people. Maybe somebody should have explained his attitude and philosophy to our protagonist earlier, so we can relate to the boy’s feeling toward this guy.
But those quibbles aside, it was a fun movie, reminding me of Richard Lester films, or the long forgotten Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, even. And it is about growing up/sexing the cherry, which should be boring but ok for me. Because it was actually like that. We boys were always chicken about girls, just dreaming of simply holding hands with girls, just like that Beatles song. So three hoorays for the brave girls without whom we’d never have known love!
It’s about the pirate music station which aired rock and pops 24/7 from a boat on the public sea because BBC wouldn’t air the vulgar music by those longhairs, not longer than 30 minutes a day. Yes, the story is simple and predictable (of course, we know its history), the humor is on the level of The Animal House, caricaturized politicians and bureaucrats are very British, like in a Monty Python episode, shallow but fine with the simple story line. The actors are great and so are their performances. The main feature is the music as it is its major theme.
The Pirate Radio is vaguely based on the actual Radio Caroline, which is alive and well today, but our station in the film has a brief life from 1966 to 1969. The ship is filled with odd casting of DJs and crew, with a single lady cook who is lesbian. One DJ is an American but his rival is coming on board. And another enigmatic hermitlike DJ has a key role. The tone is very happy, it says like music is a joy of life, nobody can kill the music, everybody loves dancing, you know what I mean? Well, it really was like that in the 60s. Girls loved dancing or loved to imitate. We boys bought tons of vinyl records eagerly and tried to learn their lyrics, guitar chords and riffs. And those were the golden days of the radio, too. I used to listen to top 20 kinda programs of British charts, New Musical Express and Melody Maker, where DJs urged us listeners to vote for their favorite bands, asking us which band we’d support, Beatles or Rolling Stones? Every week, there was a battle of the bands, Kinks vs. Troggs, Herman’s Hermits vs. Hollies, etc. We boys discussed how our favorite bands lost by those girl fans who didn’t realize the meaning of the new music of rock and how they always preferred the good looks, with jealousy, after that. And I can still clearly recall when I heard for the first time “Gold and Silver” by Quicksilver Messenger Service and “Section 43” by Country Joe & Fish on US Army radio FEN. Though it was way past midnight, those golden guitar licks and colorful organ opened the night sky and let the California sunshine in. So this film is just for me, for us, who were there, no, around then, I mean.
I did enjoy it untill its climax. It’s not a great movie, but a lovable one. Like an old friend, it sent me back to my youth, and reminded me of those happy days of singalong and street dancing. Since coming home, I’ve been listening to internet Pirate Radio station most of the time. Yet I do have some quibbles, maybe not minor ones.
In the middle of the climax, I suddenly felt like thrown back from that time in the screen and shoved into my seat in the theater. Why? The background music was "Won’t Get Fooled Again" by the Who. Yeah, great tune, from their Who’s Next album in 1971. Right. Way past 1966-69 time frame, and that was the milestone for the band to really break into the American market. There was no echo of the early R&B or pseudo psychedelic reference in that tune. It was a genuine 70s hit. Yes, the director admits that he even added Cat Stevens’ “Fathers and Sons,” a 1970 song, and he knew that the singer/songwriter scene was after those days of the pirate stations. Well, I don’t give a damn about using that song because the lyrics perfectly fit the scene. Yet, I do care about the Who. Besides, the basic message of that film is that music matters. If it matters, then they should care about the use of the tunes. Plus, I wish he used more British flavored hits, instrumental music like “Albatross” by Fleetwood Mac, or British oddities like Whistling Jack’s. But they have to use more international hits in order to sell it to the world, which I do understand.
Another quibble is about the underdevelopment of the Bob character. That quiet hermitlike DJ, who spends a lot of time studying seriously about the new albums and new music. I can relate to him, because I knew there was a new generation of DJs, who were serious about the music. People like Tom Donahue. Of course, there were a bunch of crazy ones like Wolfman Jack, or later Dr. Demento. But that guy in the film always hides from the scene and we’re never informed about his DJing style. Only at the very last climatic disaster, we understand he really cares about the music, probably more than about people. Maybe somebody should have explained his attitude and philosophy to our protagonist earlier, so we can relate to the boy’s feeling toward this guy.
But those quibbles aside, it was a fun movie, reminding me of Richard Lester films, or the long forgotten Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, even. And it is about growing up/sexing the cherry, which should be boring but ok for me. Because it was actually like that. We boys were always chicken about girls, just dreaming of simply holding hands with girls, just like that Beatles song. So three hoorays for the brave girls without whom we’d never have known love!
November 21, 2009
50th Anniversary Issue of Hayakawa's SF
Hayakawa’s SF Magazine published its 50th anniversary issue. TOC is:
Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Crystal Nights by Greg Egan
Scout’s Honor by Terry Bisson
The Waif by Gene Wolfe
Cactus dance by Theodore Sturgeon
Esoteric City by Bruce Sterling
Nonstop to Portales by Connie Willis
The Draco tavern by Larry Niven (r: from Uchujin)
Frozen Journey by Philip K. Dick (r)
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Kurt Vonnegut (r)
You Can’t Get Back by R. A. Lafferty (r)
Come Live with Me by James Tiptree, Jr. (r)
Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson (r)
Fury by Alastair Reynolds
The Tale of the Wicked by John Scalzi
Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi
Muse of Fire by Dan Simmons
Makyo (roughly translated as Magic City) (last part of the serial) by Ken Asamatsu
It’s a big translation special, roughly double sized issue, priced at 2500 yen. A lot of recollection essays and regular columns of reviews, news, science, reader’s story, etc.
Congratulations to its long and honored history.
Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Crystal Nights by Greg Egan
Scout’s Honor by Terry Bisson
The Waif by Gene Wolfe
Cactus dance by Theodore Sturgeon
Esoteric City by Bruce Sterling
Nonstop to Portales by Connie Willis
The Draco tavern by Larry Niven (r: from Uchujin)
Frozen Journey by Philip K. Dick (r)
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Kurt Vonnegut (r)
You Can’t Get Back by R. A. Lafferty (r)
Come Live with Me by James Tiptree, Jr. (r)
Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson (r)
Fury by Alastair Reynolds
The Tale of the Wicked by John Scalzi
Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi
Muse of Fire by Dan Simmons
Makyo (roughly translated as Magic City) (last part of the serial) by Ken Asamatsu
It’s a big translation special, roughly double sized issue, priced at 2500 yen. A lot of recollection essays and regular columns of reviews, news, science, reader’s story, etc.
Congratulations to its long and honored history.
November 20, 2009
2010 Books
Wow, io9 has a list of books to look for in 2010. Has Amelia Beamer written a zombie romance? Incredible. I'm looking forward to it.
September 6, 2009
Cat Rambo
We've uploaded the translation of "The Dead Girl's Wedding March" by Cat Rambo, translated by Takashi Ogawa (Yoshio Kobayashi) at our Japanese language site.
August 31, 2009
Cover stories?
My favorite album of this summer is Under the Cover Vol. 2 by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs (yes, of the Bangles fame) . So pop, refreshing, and cute. They cover tastefully nearly-forgotten smash hits of the 70s and 80s. And I have to think about the other cover songs of our media: fiction.
Yes, there’re a lot of stories and novels that are inspired by music. Howard Waldrop, George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, and even James Tiptree, Jr. used to write such homage to music. And there are a lot of anthologies of stories that are inspired by particular musicians, such as Bruce Springsteen, Sonic Youth, the Fall, and Janice Ian. But although there’re occasional amusing pieces, I haven’t read an anthology entirely satisfying as a book. Are we no good in interpreting music into fiction?
Well, no, anthologies are not like cover albums, more like compilations. Ah, that must be the case. I’ve also never liked compilation albums, except handful songs in them. So why has any writer never tried a single author’s collection of music-inspired stories? I bet all the above-mentioned writers can. Music and fiction are so alienated?
Still, on the other hand, we have a lot of anthologies of stories which are inspired by other stories. Like this year’s Poe’s, or Jack Vance’s. They seem to be good, although again I find the stories are good, I don’t think I can sincerely say I like an entire anthology in this tradition as a book. They’re not copies (I mean duplicated copies) in the sense of cover songs, but too aspiring to be original. They are not pop enough, and never cute. And in those cases of Poe and Vance, they cover stories of classic, not those of the 70s and 80s, not ones of our youth. They’re more like Rod Stewart or Boz Scaggs covering standard pops, or Eric Clapton’s Robert Johnson tribute. They don’t have the same effect and loveliness. Why don’t writers write pastiche of the works of their influential peers or immediate antecessors? I remember a lot of young writers wrote good homage to Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and J. G. Ballard in the 70s. John Varley, Ed Bryant, Alexei Panshin, Tom Reamy, and many more! They were pop and cute! So why don’t I see any good fictional covers of Bill Gibson, Greg Benford, Lucius Shepard or Harlan Ellison by younger authors?
Yes, I know Ben Rosenbaum has written a chapbook of Calvino/Borges/Bradbury pastiche. Yes, it was pop and cute, but is it a sole exception? Is the current steampunk revival like that? Do they write the stories of their youths, reviving James Blaylock, or Tim Powers? No, I don’t think so.
Also I do know we have a bunch of good fictional homage to comics and movies. Even writers of mainstream literature and mystery as well as horror write that kind of works. Although they are pop, cute, and sometimes tasteful enough, I don’t think they’re refreshing rendition of their originals. Am I demanding too much?
SF is known to be good at sharing. Shared-world Universe stories and collaboration are popular. And we do adapt other people’s ideas into our own works, even if they’re fictitious. So there should be no problem in covering the favorite works of our youths, but I don’t find any equivalent of cover songs in our fiction.
Oh I’d really like to see either tasteful retelling of the stories of my youth, or good interpretation of songs of my youth into fiction. But maybe that should be our jobs as translators, pop, refreshing, and cute rendition of original foreign language fiction into our own language, vice versa.
Yes, there’re a lot of stories and novels that are inspired by music. Howard Waldrop, George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, and even James Tiptree, Jr. used to write such homage to music. And there are a lot of anthologies of stories that are inspired by particular musicians, such as Bruce Springsteen, Sonic Youth, the Fall, and Janice Ian. But although there’re occasional amusing pieces, I haven’t read an anthology entirely satisfying as a book. Are we no good in interpreting music into fiction?
Well, no, anthologies are not like cover albums, more like compilations. Ah, that must be the case. I’ve also never liked compilation albums, except handful songs in them. So why has any writer never tried a single author’s collection of music-inspired stories? I bet all the above-mentioned writers can. Music and fiction are so alienated?
Still, on the other hand, we have a lot of anthologies of stories which are inspired by other stories. Like this year’s Poe’s, or Jack Vance’s. They seem to be good, although again I find the stories are good, I don’t think I can sincerely say I like an entire anthology in this tradition as a book. They’re not copies (I mean duplicated copies) in the sense of cover songs, but too aspiring to be original. They are not pop enough, and never cute. And in those cases of Poe and Vance, they cover stories of classic, not those of the 70s and 80s, not ones of our youth. They’re more like Rod Stewart or Boz Scaggs covering standard pops, or Eric Clapton’s Robert Johnson tribute. They don’t have the same effect and loveliness. Why don’t writers write pastiche of the works of their influential peers or immediate antecessors? I remember a lot of young writers wrote good homage to Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and J. G. Ballard in the 70s. John Varley, Ed Bryant, Alexei Panshin, Tom Reamy, and many more! They were pop and cute! So why don’t I see any good fictional covers of Bill Gibson, Greg Benford, Lucius Shepard or Harlan Ellison by younger authors?
Yes, I know Ben Rosenbaum has written a chapbook of Calvino/Borges/Bradbury pastiche. Yes, it was pop and cute, but is it a sole exception? Is the current steampunk revival like that? Do they write the stories of their youths, reviving James Blaylock, or Tim Powers? No, I don’t think so.
Also I do know we have a bunch of good fictional homage to comics and movies. Even writers of mainstream literature and mystery as well as horror write that kind of works. Although they are pop, cute, and sometimes tasteful enough, I don’t think they’re refreshing rendition of their originals. Am I demanding too much?
SF is known to be good at sharing. Shared-world Universe stories and collaboration are popular. And we do adapt other people’s ideas into our own works, even if they’re fictitious. So there should be no problem in covering the favorite works of our youths, but I don’t find any equivalent of cover songs in our fiction.
Oh I’d really like to see either tasteful retelling of the stories of my youth, or good interpretation of songs of my youth into fiction. But maybe that should be our jobs as translators, pop, refreshing, and cute rendition of original foreign language fiction into our own language, vice versa.
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