Desperately seeking David Aramor (pen name) a.k.a. David J. Williams (real name)!!!

David Aramor (real name David Jonathan Williams), the author of novella Free Fall that went through the Critters workshop in 2001 - where are you??

Free Fall, David's highly talented and atmospheric piece, has just come out in Russia (translated by yours truly) as part of Weatherboard Spaceship: The Anthology of Today's English-Language Science Fiction, published by Milky Way Publishers. But one of the authors is missing! Dave Aramor's email addresses bounce and he's nowhere to be found.

Please he-e-e-e-elp!!! :-)

And here's the anthology itself:

Dual language books: Crime and Punishment, the Russian original and its English translation under one e-book "cover"

If you're looking for a dual-language text of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, here's Crime and Punishment (Annotated), The Original Version This enormous e-book includes, apart from the original Russian text of the novel and its English translation, also the translator's preface explaining a few things about the story, as well as Struggle for Life (Борьба за жизнь), the first big literary critique of the famous murder novel by the 19th century Russian critic Dmitri Pisarev (this one is only available in Russian, though). The translation is by Constance Garnett, and I personally love the cover image by a mysterious Dimitri B.



I love dual-language books, to the point where I've made my way through TLOTR three times, with Tolkien's three-book hardcover in one hand and Vlastelin Kolec / Lord of the Rings (Russian Edition)(another doorstopper of a hardcover) in the other. I still believe it to be the best Russian translation of The Lord of the Rings, expertly done by the late Vladimir Muraviev and his colleague and co-translator Andrei Kistyakovsky.

Enjoy!

Free Book of the Month

A few posts back, I mentioned The City of Eternal Hope- a long short story by Russian writer Rina Grant. Well, it's currently on promotion and is totally free for a few days, so go and grab your free copy of this magic-realism piece.

Absolutely cool Ancient Slavic calendar

The number 7520 below the clock is the current year "from Creation" (I write about it in my book, The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Russia)



The old Slavic time system had 16 hours in a day (as opposed to our 24 hours), starting at sunset. In this cool clock the beginning of a new day is set at 6 p.m. Moscow time. Every hour was divided further into 144 parts. One part contained 1296 beats.

The year had three seasons: springtime, winter and autumn (what's summer in Russia, anyway? Blink and you'll miss it!) and nine months with totally unpronounceable but weirdly Celtic names.

Courtesy of Traditio.ru and slavic-aryan.narod.ru

Zombies come to Russia! Or shamelessly blowing my own trumpet

Call Me Human: A Zombie Apocalypse Novelis a new Kindle addition from a wonderful Russian author Sergei Marysh in my (hopefully, not so bad, either :)) translation into English. Call Me Human: A Zombie Apocalypse Novelis a strangely believable book written for a more emphatic audience who look for an emotional experience rather than a straightforward scare. The story of a brave but unfortunate Igor Bernik who grows more human as he turns into a zombie is weirdly realistic, and the author's explanation of zombies' nature is very novel, if you'll excuse the pun.

I read it, translated it, and I loved it (otherwise I wouldn't have translated it). Hope you'll enjoy it, too. Congrats to Sergei on his Kindle debut!

I Haz Book!

Alert Alert!

The second edition of The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Russia is out at A Conspiracy of Authors and is currently available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords!

Below is the book on Kindle:



Kindle also includes a generous sample of the book so you can take a look and tell me if you think it's useful or not.

Happy reading!

(And I'm back, butt in chair, to my SF murder mystery...)

New Russian Writer: Rina Grant

Rina Grant is a Russian writer who, in the best traditions of Nabokov and Brodsky, writes in both English and Russian. She works in the genre of magic realism, and her English-language short story The City of Eternal Hope tells the tale of Tim, a young boy who dares to challenge the demonic customs of the said city. The story was published in 2007 in Sorcerous Signals, and is currently available on Amazon. Below is the beautiful cover created by Spanish photographer Carlos de Paz Villasenin. Happy reading!