Hi everyone,

I'm a sci-fi fan from Turkey. I want to express my deep concern and anger about an event here.

Here in Turkey, a translation of William Gibson's Neuromancer was avaible since some years. But recently, taking advantage of the Matrix craze, another publisher published the book again, this time using the name "Matrix Avcisi" which means "Matrix Hunter" in Turkish.

As a lover of literature, sci-fi and Mr. Gibson's work, I find this cheap commercialism highly disrespectful to the author's work. I can not understand how they can feel the right to change a masterpiece's name so easily. Damaging a classic work to profit from a hollywood movie craze should not be so easy, I think.

I want to contact Mr. Gibson's agent about this subject and ask about their opinion, and I'd be grateful if you could help me contacting them.

Here is the publisher's website

http://www.altinkitaplar.com.tr/

Here is the cover of the book, naming it "Matrix Hunter" or "Hunter of Matrix"




Best wishes,

Levent Pekcan
A Gibson fan from Istanbul/Turkey

He might well read this post. Just check his blog.

And by the way: are you sure this "title-adaptation" was made without his agreement?

--
ArkanGL, Devil's advocate at times.

I gotta tell you, that's pretty awful. I don't know if he approved it or not, but that's just wretched. Ick.

Mind you, in selling international rights, I'm not sure what sort of control the author has. I'd be interested to know what WG thinks of this.

Ugh... Neuromancer deserves better...

Wonder what the Wachowskis or whatever studio it is that owns the Matrix series would think of this? I suppose though, that a cover for a Turkish paperback is pretty low on their list of copyright infringements. µ

Given that the late Arkan still posts messages on your site, WG, you might consider the health implications of denying that Serbo-Croat exists as a language.

Serious point: it was (is?) the official language of Yugoslavija. Interesting to speculate if the two flavours are now divergent.

WG wrote (I'm not sure about a "Serbo-Croation" edition of NEUROMANCER that someone brought me, years ago, from Prague; aside from there being, as far as I know, no such language...

As far as I am aware, Serbo-Croat is alive and well in its various forms in certain parts of the re-fragmented Balkans. But I suspect that the various countries that were once forced into an amalgamation called Yugoslavia have reverted where possible to their original native tongues or dialects, be they in Slovenia, Croatia or wherever.

But are translations of WG's work into umpteen different languages without his consent fraud or flattery, especially when the economics of authorised translation into langauges with a small audience might not add up.

How very odd.

I've known one ethnic Croat in my life, and one American descendant of ethnic Serbs. From this limited experience and what little a person can make out from snippets on NPR, even when there isn't a civil war going on, the two groups *still* maintain a dislike for each other, and a fierce pride in their separateness. If there is a more Serbian dialect of Serbo-croatian and a more Croatian dialect of Serbo-croatian, then there are going to be Serbs and Croats (and some outsiders) who think of these separate dialects as being separate languages. But if the difference is all in accent, pronunciation, and tonality, then it could probably be written down and understood by both sides -- which would mean there is a Serbo-croatian *written* language, regardless of variations in dialect.

But since the translation of Neuromancer into what was supposed to be Serbo-croatian turned out to be so short -- maybe the whole thing is a hoax. Any linguists on the board who would know how to clear that up?

Hey, leventp, welcome to the board! By the way, did Bruce Sterling's novel ZEITGEIST get published in Turkey? If I remember, a good chunk of the story takes place in Turkish Cypress.

i wouldn't consider the turkish title to be such a bad idea since mr. gibson has been using the matrix term for such a long time (and in some similar way as the recent use by the infamous wachowski brothers).

come to think of it, if the retitling does help to juice up the sales of neuromancer, nothing short of fair since it seems obvious that the afore mentioned directors borrowed a lot from gibson's books (and made some serious amount of money while at it).

spiceee.

Actually, Wax, the two dialects are almost exactly alike when spoken but are written with completely different scripts - Serbian with Cyrillic, Croatian with Roman. This - plus the Orthodox/Catholic divide - explains (partly) why Serbs tilt to Russia and Croats to Germany.

Of course, jingoists on both sides take the language distinction very VERY seriously and it's best not to use the hyphenated term in their presence.

My understanding is this makes Serbo-Croatian the "reverse" of Chinese, which is written the same whether Mandarin or Cantonese but pronounced very differently.

Please forgive my pedantry.

quote:

---

Given that the late Arkan still posts messages on your site..

---

I have nothing to do whatsoever with the infamous Arkan: I chose this username way before having heard about him, and I don't really want to change my name. I can live with it, as do all the others guys who bear the same name IRL...

I guess you meant this as a joke, and I know my point of view is hard to defend...
(and WG read this post... ewwwwww! what is he going to think of me....)

--
ArkanGL (GL was the only thing I altered after hearing from the bad-Arkan)

quote:

---

Originally posted by wax:
How very odd.

I've known one ethnic Croat in my life, and one American descendant of ethnic Serbs. From this limited experience and what little a person can make out from snippets on NPR, even when there isn't a civil war going on, the two groups *still* maintain a dislike for each other, and a fierce pride in their separateness.

---

As always, wax, WORD.
I knew a Croatian-Canadian dude (back before the unpleasantness of the early 90's, or at least at the very outset), and he just about like to lose his religion if he ever heard anyone use the reduced/hyphenate 'Serbo-Croatian', like actually get near violent on one's ass...I think he went and jined up...

Case, mon, Garvey a tug...

quote:

---

from WG's weBlog june04:2003
Be that as it may, my reaction to my Turkish publisher's evident intent is best described as one of considerable and enjoyably convoluted amusement.

---

more of a bemused chuckle at the free-market-ingenuity of it, myself.
and hey if it sells a zillion copies for you WGman, that's coo too, spreads the trait along. I like the neuromatrix. that's good too.

If these things were on electronic-paper, would there be a market for the sort of product-placement tool that's previously only available to the internet?
namely, links.

see the word matrix. option to click on the word matrix to link to people who sell soap. or a hit movie. whatever.

Apple. Starbucks. Curta. SinclairZX-81.

what happens when you use technology to sell. you have much spam spam spam - stop that! - opportunistic websites. a bizarre form of shallow depth. you have almost an invasion of privacy. like in minority report where big bro's dirt-cheap retinal scanners means you are targeted for marketing. a demographic of one.

deny everything

Look, wraith picked up my WG-man thing ...

The sincerest form of flattery. Pretty soon some sober-headed fellow will be telling us to get a virtual room ...

I like it. it makes me think of WG as some kinda superhero (namely gattchaman, you should've known that wax)

which asks the question what do you prefer to be called WG? is WG tolerable, amusing, unexpected? I went with what the older kids were all going for. what's your handle cowboy?

[This message was edited by wraith on June 05, 2003 at 09:15 AM.]

just to play the whise guy... count zero is biochips in germany, not microchips... sorry, i dont doubt the allmighty gibson, im sure it should have been microchips, but an unworthy german worm made a mistake...



forget gravity, it only pulls you down...

OK guys,

I am from ex. Yugoslavia - Sarajevo, Bosnia more precisely.
So yeah, there was official language called "Serbo-Croatian"... and it was, well, official untill YU broke apart in '92 (language was called that for a while longer in Serbia).
Difference between Croatian and Serbian is minor - something like difference between English and american english, plus there are some different words for same things - but not many. (I am sure some of people from ex. Yu are ready to smack me now - I'm glad this is just BBS

So Croats and Serbs understand each other perfectly - one more confuzing thing to grasp when you try to understand why that war happened.
(BECAUSE of that?)

Yeah, Croats write in latin writing (so like you see it now here) while serbs preffer to write in Cyrillic - simiar (but not the same) to russian alphabet. People who went to shool from 50's to late 80's will probably know how to read and write in both alphabets both Serbs and Croats - since that was mandatory in school - one week Cyrillic and week Latin alphabet - no kidding.
After YU broke apart - that was swiftly kicked out of curriculum (at least in Bosnia and Croatia - not sure about Serbia).

So, I guess we'll understand each other a bit less from now on - maybe that is good, who knows.

So, now that's dead language - now you have "Croatian", "Serbian", "Bosnian" etc.

As Mr Gibson would maybe say - it diversifies fractaly from now on...

my 2 rubles,
Igor


PS. and hey - I know of at least one Yugoslavian Neuromancer edition that was full text. Not great translation, though.

Sarajevo here too.

I was tempted to chip in on this discussion but Igor explained it briefly and accurately.
Hi Igor!

Regarding the Neuromancer editions, can you tell if the one I have is integral.
It is Zoroaster 1st edition from 1987 with Kordej's illustration. Please tell it hasn't been slaughtered.

Duska

"There's a quality to a good translation that you just don't get in the original text." --Bruce Sterling

Robert Fulghum, author of Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, reported on the truth of this after a trip to Romania. He was there to meet the publisher of that book in its translated edition, where it proved to be a huge success. Its sales in that country were outsized compared to its population, and Fulghum went to do a promotional tour.

His host was a rather stern publishing editor who looked like a veteran of the country's women's weightlifting team. She hosted him grudgingly and without cheer. When he eventually asked her why she thought the book had proved so popular with her fellow citizens, she gravely intoned, "Our translator is a much better writer than you are."

John Tynes
www.JohnTynes.com

I am from Turkey, Ankara. I just saw The "Matrix Hunter" on a pirate bookseller here on the street. To be honest, I stopped in here searching for the mail address of William Gibson, to ask him if he had any knowledge of the blasphamy. I bought the new translation just to see the damage that has been done to the masterpiece. What I saw was horrifying, as the book itself has been translated (and changed) according to the movie Matrix. This must be the greatest sin that Capitalism has ever made. This means not only the book "is not published" here in Turkey, but also it has been a second "Solaris" phenomennon. So sad.

42

Word is, that copy is legitimate.

click here please

Of course, if the text has been altered to make it seen more like the Wachowskis' movie trilogy, I don't know if that would change Mr. Gibson's perspective on the situation. If it does, then he'll certainly let us know, I'm sure.