How many alternate history books are available in your language?

[New Cleo Genesis]

(Anglophone members need not apply.)

I have been reading nigh every alternate history title I could get my hands on. It is interesting to notice that not only do S. M. Stirling and Harry Turtledove, the two alternate history greats, have no titles translated into Finnish, but there is seemingly very little in the way of original Finnish titles as well - the only ones I have come across are Pääkallokehrääjä by Ilkka Remes and some recently published collection of alternate history short stories I found in a library once and whose preface seemed to corroborate my findings.

Now, the Finnish corpus of translated alternate history titles seems to run as such:

- SS-GB by Len Deighton
- The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
- Fatherland by Robert Harris
- "Catch That Zeppelin!" by Fritz Leiber
- The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar by Michael Moorcock
- The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
- The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad

In addition, there are some comic books with alternate history elements available in Finnish as well:

- Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar
- Watchmen by Alan Moore
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore again

If I ever become the translator I aim to become I could maybe offer my services to a certain small publishing house - perhaps they'd be interested in publishing Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers, say.

So, how are things with other small or small-ish languages? There was a rather interesting thread concerning Russian (and to a lesser extent Polish) alternate history literature last year, that much I know.

 

[Rescribor]

Well, situation in Poland is quite different.

Starting form the 70's, any SF & F literature that was not deemed to be anti - communistic could be translated - in small amount of titles, but in high number of books printed. Among them were some books like The Man in High Castle.

After Spring of the Nations (1989) there were many small publishers buying a licence for publishing translations of Western books - of course older books were cheaper. Thus most of the backlog among older alternative history was translated.

Now alternative history is quite popular genre. Depending of exact definition of alternate history (pure fiction, speculative essays, historic what if) there is between 80 and 200 alternative history books published in Polish language. About half of them are translations.

There are many comic books (or even graphic novels) fans in Poland. Most of acclaimed works are translated, among them Millar, Moore etc. Unfortunately, local comic book authors (apart from few bestselling) cannot afford to make drawing comics anything more than after hours hobby.



I say try to interest your local publisher. Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers and Conquistador are my favourites among single books by that author.

 

[New Cleo Genesis]

Well, situation in Poland is quite different.

Starting form the 70's, any SF & F literature that was not deemed to be anti - communistic could be translated - in small amount of titles, but in high number of books printed. Among them were some books like The Man in High Castle.

After Spring of the Nations (1989) there were many small publishers buying a licence for publishing translations of Western books - of course older books were cheaper. Thus most of the backlog among older alternative history was translated.

Now alternative history is quite popular genre. Depending of exact definition of alternate history (pure fiction, speculative essays, historic what if) there is between 80 and 200 alternative history books published in Polish language. About half of them are translations.

There are many comic books (or even graphic novels) fans in Poland. Most of acclaimed works are translated, among them Millar, Moore etc. Unfortunately, local comic book authors (apart from few bestselling) cannot afford to make drawing comics anything more than after hours hobby.



I say try to interest your local publisher. Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers and Conquistador are my favourites among single books by that author.

Interesting, thank you very much for this. I actually just remembered that I did once read a bunch of speculative essays in Finnish as well, but I have no memory of what they might have entailed - not the most captivating subject matters that they had then, I'd guess.

 

[Augenis]

0. Nobody really knows what "alternate history" even is over here.

The closest you can get is Andrius Tapinas's recent Hour of the Wolf series, which detail an independent steampunk city-state Vilnius in the 19th century, but that is much less hard AH and far more steampunk fantasy. And I haven't read it.

 

[Timaeus]

Hm. I'm not sure.