Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: Peter Ahlstrom on June 14, 2004, 08:41:44 PM
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Eh heh heh...
I just finished my first professional copyedit of a fantasy novel!
Funny that after spending a year in New York trying to get a job in the SF/F publishing field, my first fantasy novel to work on is one translated from Japanese, at a manga company.
Slayers is originally a set of novels. The mangas and animes came later. Book one of the novels covers up through the end of the Shabranigdu stuff in the first season of the Slayers anime. There are 15 novels total in the Slayers series, and over 20 in the Slayers Special novel series.
Ah, gotta go. Will write more later.
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The firts season of the Slayers anime was pretty dang funny but I never saw anymore since there became a flood of Slayers series. I'm acutaly surpriesed it took this long for the manga to get translated.
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But isn't Ookla saying that there are actual novels (all words, no picutres) of of Slayers? Or is he referring to the manga?
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heh, that's one series I *have* seen. I chortled all the while.
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Yeah, I'm talking about the novels. Not the manga. There have been various manga versions brought over already. I think one may have even originated in the US, but I'm not sure about that.
All text...well, there are some manga-style pictures, but less than 10 in the book. This is pretty typical for mass-market serial novels in Japan.
The TOKYOPOP version is scheduled to hit the streets in September. Pretty quick for a novel compared to other publishers...
I didn't watch the whole first series but I do remember cracking up the times we watched it at Brandon's place.
About the books, they're not earthshaking great literature or anything. If you laughed at the anime you'll probably laugh at the books. They're short. Very short, actually--around 40,000 words.
The slayers world has some interesting cosmology, but not much comes through in the first book. It barely hints at future events. It also has an interesting magic system which isn't explained much at all in this one either. The rest of the world is fairly standard role-playing fantasy fare.
It's got some funny characters though. Oh, and the books are all written in first person from Lina's point of view. And there's a fair amount of "talking to the reader"...something to be aware of if you don't like that sort of thing. But the reader she's talking to seems to be someone from her universe rather than ours.
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How are the books? Any good?
And, congratulations! I think we can officially put the sub-score of our little contest at:
Professional Fantasy Book Writers: 1
Professional Fantasy Book Editors: 1
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I still win.
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Hum, I didn't know Slayers was first a novel that's pretty rare for Japan. The only other 2 I can think of is Vampire Hunter D and Lodoss War. I've actualy got one of the Lodoss books too, about 5 pictures (includeing the map) in the whole thing.
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There's actually quite a few series that are novels first. Recently, Twelve Kingdoms/Twelve Countries/Juuni Kokuki is a popular example of this.
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I thought Lodoss was a story writen from a D&D session.
So what you're saying, Ookla the Mok, is that you did the editing for the Tokyo Pop translations?
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It was, but that was just the original series. There is a prequel and several others that happen after the orignal series (some are books other are manga).
And yes Ookla is an editor for Tokyo Pop.
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Cooool...
Now I know 4 people working for Tokyo Pop. ^_^
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I'm a copyeditor. Which means I'm one of the dogs begging for scraps from the editor's tables.
I'm supposed to get my name in the book, though. I wish I'd been able to go through it after it got laid out though (and before the blueline).
Who are the other people you know at TOKYOPOP?
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3 translators. Athena and Alethia (don't remember their last name, but they've done a lot of work), and Ryan Flake who did Lament of the Lamb and used to be my boyfriend.
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Athena and Alethia, aren't they the twins that want to be Voice actors in Anime?
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I met Ryan Flake (again) at Anime Expo. Actually, he and I were in the same ward at BYU for a semester or two. He lived on the 6th floor of R Hall, and I lived on the 7th. It was freaky when he walked up to the booth--I recognized him instantly but had no clue where from.
Alethea and Athena's old home teacher is in my ward now... I missed meeting them at AX. Yeah, I guess they want to do voice acting. They currently translate a lot of stuff, like Ai Yori Aoshi.
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Ya they use to be in one of my Japanese classes at BYU, they confused Watanabe Sensei. He had no idea what they were talking about when they said they wanted to be voice actors (in Japanese) he dosne't know "anime" vocabulary despite:
1) being Japanese
2) being one of the best and most knowalgble Japanese language instructors in the US.
It was pretty funny.
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I was at AX too. Actually, I think I was there when Ryan was talking to you, Ookla. (Hmm, can't remember what you looked like....)
And to keep this from going completely off topic: Slayers RULES! ^_~