I can’t quite read this post in which Jeppe Larsen reviews the July 2008 issue of Asimov’s, but I think it’s in Danish. I can make out bits of what he has to say about my piece in the magazine,
Første historie i nummeret, “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues” af Gord Sellar, er en beretning fra en sort amerikansk jazz-musiker fra en alternativ tidslinje, hvor rumvæsener i 1940′erne har koloniseret solsystemet, og hans oplevelser som hyret musiker på et af deres skibe. Meget autentisk skrevet og en rigtig god historie, også selvom man ikke ved noget om jazz.
…but I won’t pretend to understand it all, even if my relative comfort with reading Chaucer means I can decode some of it. (Like the first bit, which is, “The first story is titled (named)…”). Going by guesswork, it seems like it’s positive, or at least not a pan or anything. I am curious, though, as to what it says specifically.
Danish-speaking readers? Anyone?
Gord, here’s my reworking of a Google Translate version:
“The first story, titled ‘Lester Young and Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues,’ by Gord Sellar, is a report by a black American jazz musician from an alternative timeline where space creatures in the 1940s have colonised the solar system, and it tells of his experiences as musician working on one of their ships. Very authentically written and a very good story, even if you know nothing about jazz.”
I used my knowledge of German for “rumvæsener,” i.e., “space beings” — though you might have used some other term yourself.
As for “tidslinje” . . . that’s certainly “timeline,” but I wonder if a different translation wouldn’t be better. Is the story about an alternative history, sort of what might have happened if…?
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Jeffery,
Thanks! Yeah, the standard genre term is “alternate history,” or maybe, in this case, “counterfactual history” since there’s explicit macro-scale quantum-weirdness presented in the story, and we don’t see those things in our particular universe.
Check your email for more! :)