Award for Marusek translation, 2312

Together with Jasper Nicolaisen, I received the Kurd Lasswitz SF Award for our German translation of several Stories from David Marusek's collection Getting to Know You (published by Golkonda, German publisher of, among others, Ted Chiang, Paolo Bacigalupi, Joe Lansdale, K.J. Parker and Samuel R. Delany). These are great and beautifully written stories, and tranlating them was highly rewarding in itself - among the stories I translated was "We were out of our minds with joy", and it's one of my favourite short stories, period. It's wonderful not only to see our work reognized this way, but to see that we have been able to convey our enthusiasm for Marusek's writing.

http://www.kurd-lasswitz-preis.de/2012/KLP_2012_Beste_Uebersetzung_Laudatio.htm

Beyond that, translating Marusek also has been a door-opener - at the moment, I'm translating Kim Stanley Robinson' 2312 into German for Heyne. So basically, I'm getting paid for reading (and corresponding with) one of my favourite authors! That one will be followed by Brom's new novel Krampus, and if his The Child Thief is anything to go by, I'll have a blast translating it.

If life keeps treating me so well, I'll probably get spoiled ...

Short Update

Reading: Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany. Hard work, but worthwile.
Also Reading: Wenn das der Führer wusste (translated into English as The Twilight Men), depressing and hilarious.

Published: Short Story "Die betrübte Strahlenkanone" ("The Aggrieved Ray Gun") in Hinterland, an anthology of 20 fantasy/sf stories inspired by David Bowie. More about that project soon - there's a German/English website with extracts in English.

Also published: Raumanzüge & Räuberpistolen (Spacesuits & Penny Dreadfuls), an anthology of nine fantasy/sf stories by me, Jasper Nicolaisen and Simon Weinert, all from our monthly reading at the lovely pub tristeza in Berlin, Neukölln. More soon.

Also published: "Im Himmel" ("In Heaven"), a Lovecraftian (or maybe Barronian, if there is such a word) short story, in Zwielicht 2, the second Horror anthology edited by Michael Schmidt. (despite having the same surname, we're not related.) More soon.

And soon to be published: A Hungarian translation of my short story "Auslese" ("Selection") at sfmag.hu. The first time one of my stories gets translated into another language! more (including a link) in January.

Yay - I wrote a blog post!

Nomination for the "Vincent Preis"

For the first time, one of my stories has been nominated for an award, and I feel like sharing - even though most readers of this blog will not be able to read either the story or anything about the award it has been nominated for, since it's all in German.

The Award (as far as I am aware) is the only German Award for Horror literature and artwork, and it's called the Vincent Preis - which means "Vincent Award" and is of course a pun, because it sounds like "Vincent Price". It's really kind of a groaner, but a charming one. The Vincent Preis has only been around since 2007, but it is an audience award with a relatively large number of voters contributing.

The title of the story ("Eine andere Wildnis") translates to "A Different Kind of Wilderness". It's a werewolf story which becomes a dog-were story, and its probably the most romantic thing I've ever written. I'm very proud of it and a little bit ashamed for a few moments of sentimentality that snuck in.

The story has been published in the Anthology Zwielicht, edited my Michael Schmidt (not related).

The winner will be determined sometime in September 2010.

Follow the link for the Vincent Preis blog, featuring an interview with me

Short story: "Mustard"

My short story "Senf" ("Mustard") is featured in the printed 2003 annual of the German online magazine Alien Contact. The complete story can be read here. It's about mutated, city-dwelling doves plotting for world domination by means of a biochemical technology which is based on eating selected types of junk ... actually, it's more about one of these doves who doesn't care for all this political stuff. He's much more interested in revenge ...

Short story: "Legacy of the Great Eater"

My short story "Das Vermächtnis des Großen Essers" ("Legacy of the Great Eater") has been published in the printed 2005 annual of the German online magazine Alien Contact. You can read the complete story online here. It's about a vaguely cyberpunkish near future Berlin where the public transportation system has taken over and the remaining humans try to get by on what they can steal from the self-refilling vending machines. It's mainly about how the technologies of our present and near future might furnish the mythology of future generations. There's also some gender-bending, because it's always fun.

Short story: "Byproducts"

My short story "Abfallprodukte" (which roughly translates to "Byproducts") has been published in the Octobre 2006 issue of the German print magazine phantastisch. I intend to write an English version one day - it's a horror story with sf overtones about a man who awakes one day to find that his inner organs have started abandoning him ... More on the German version on my other blog.

Short story published in nova

My short story "Nadeln und Fäden" ( if there'll ever be an English translation, it should probably be called "Needlework") has just been published in the 11th issue of the German science fiction magazine nova. You can have a look at the contents here.
It's my fifth short fiction publication and the first one in nova - so if you happen to read German you might just think about ordering it so I can tell the editors that lots and lots of people bought this issue because of my story!

Actually, it's not even necessary for you to read German to order the magazine ... Just buy it to look at the beautiful cover in full size!

Just wanted to share the beautiful cover artwort for the first issue of our new sf/fantasy magazine pandora. If you happen to read German, check out the web site.

New reviews

I've added links to my reviews of two very recommendable anthologies (James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 and Tesseracts Ten).