[Scott Bakker]

This is the first review I've found of the French translation of The Darkness That Comes Before! I'm pretty sure it's pretty good, but the my French is dismal, and the Google 'translate' function (which is horrible anyway) doesn't want to translate the all-important final paragraph. Any bilingual francophones out there?

Autrefois les tenebres (http://www.sfmag.net/article.php3?id_article=1737)

[saintjon]

can't help you, sorry... maybe my friend denise could though...

[Miriamele]

I'm not bilingual, Scott, but I can read the review well enough to tell you that it's a glowing one. The reviewer called your book "remarkable" about 5 times in the last paragraph alone. I would attempt to translate the last paragraph word for word for you, but I might end up embarassing myself when an actual French person comes along...suffice it to say that the reviewer really liked your book! :)

[Monty Mike]

10/10

Black the Fleuve editions continue their remarkable policy of publication with the arrival of a new cycle of Fantasy in rupture with all traditional "Best Sellers Fantasy saga"sur the roads of which considerable authors dance briskly (for our happiness and sometimes our trouble) since fundamental "the Lord of The Rings". We are at one very distant time, but in a company which survived on ashes of a formerly prosperous empire. Mog Not-God broke on the world of the men to leave only chaos and ruins where the survivors of misfortune wander. However, a rumour coming from the distances "Millet Temples"voudrait that certain Maithanet, the supreme chief and prelate, launched a call with the holy war against Fanims, lords of the crowned city of Shimeh, a caste with share of heretics vis-a-vis to the dogma, of incredible experts of an old and terrible magic. Achamian is a wizard-spy introduced within the Millet Temples in order to update the plans of Maithanet. It will arrive quickly at the conclusion that this last is guided by an unnamable creature which, little by little, advances its pawns in the holy war which is profiled. Paradoxically, it is in the union of the opposites, somewhat chaotic alliance with a warrior chief of clan of Scylvendi, Cnaiür the barbarian with the evil incurable and obscure, Serwë, its concubine gained with the combat, and Dûnyain Anasûrimbor Kelhus, resulting from a long line of former kings and in the search of his father, that Achamian will start an odyssey voyage where it will be neither more nor less question of avoiding a new Apocalypse. During centuries Fanim held the very holy city of Shimeh, but now all is scrambled, all becomes confused, and it would seem that the enemy counts many assets. It is in Momemn that will gather the first forces of the enemy, the faithful ones, but still and especially of the national of the elite even of Inrithis. The signs accumulate, the threats concentrate and Bakker us rejoue the drama of the apocalypse, where, in a protohistoire bathing in the religion and the old worships wizard, it puts to us in scene on a still virgin ground Mésopotamien of the modern considerations for the democracy, the great battles of Armageddon, and small alliances to start the eternal search of the redemption suitable for the prophecy of the first days. And during this time, of old misfortunes, of the groupings awake, these even which had formerly led Mog Not-God on the world........

A new chart of the Prototypes

The rupture with the formal processes and the traditional executives can testify only to one certain plume and a remarkable capacity to annex traditional data of the share of an author who hesitates to survey places never explored until at present. The American and Anglo-Saxon authors seemed condemned to a final relegation in sempiternal "the Tolkienneries", but Richard Scott Bakker is still there to show us the sublimes narrative variations of the kind and the voices opened by a new "Archetypal" chart that its feather returns at this point alive and convincing which one tests the same pleasure, same the extase to read the verbal distorsions of them. To traditional mythical conventions putting in scene the prototypes resulting from the primitive traditions, Bakker adds to it those of the monotheism, those of a reinvented mythology biblical and introduced into a context of Fantasy, unless it is not the opposite. The names, the topos, but also a multitude of linguistic inventions arising from the traditions resulting from mythologies from the cauldron from old Mésopotamie return account of an author to the completely controlled talent. The glossary of end of work is besides of a great help to accompany the readers not very familiar of this "reinvented judaity" where the biblical prophecy and accounts and legends will be entirely to the service of a fantastic adventure to the borders of the drawn humanity which it is between dogmatism and the worships dissenting wizards.

[Monty Mike]

I thought I'd leave this seperate, but here's the site I used:
http://www.worldlingo.com/en/websites/url_translator.html

[Scott Bakker]

Way cool, Monty Mike. That translation site gives the same result and quality as Google though: it leaves the last paragraphs cut off. I tried an text translation on the site, but much of it seems garbled - trouble with the idiomatic stuff I imagine.

It's those 'remarkables' that have me chomping at the bit, Miriamele! Enough that I'll likely end up breaking out my old dictionaries, rolling up my sleeves, and trying out my translation skills. It's been a loooong time.

[Monty Mike]

yeah, the site can translate it a bit oddly sometimes, but if you're going yo get out the old dictionary then Good Luck - you're gonna be a while ;)

[wwaring]

Way cool, Monty Mike. That translation site gives the same result and quality as Google though: it leaves the last paragraphs cut off. I tried an text translation on the site, but much of it seems garbled - trouble with the idiomatic stuff I imagine.

It's those 'remarkables' that have me chomping at the bit, Miriamele! Enough that I'll likely end up breaking out my old dictionaries, rolling up my sleeves, and trying out my translation skills. It's been a loooong time.

I'm not a bilingual francophone, I'm a bilingual anglophone -- and a translator (ex-Canada living in Sydney, Australia) -- and just happened to drop in today at the instigation of Brenda MacDibble. If you're willing to wait a day, I'd be happy to translate this for you. It's a glowing review, congratulates you on challenging the standard fantasy frameworks and going beyond the Tolkien 'heritage'. Put your dictionaries away. I'll post tomorrow.

a bientot,
Wendy

[Scott Bakker]

Thank you, Wendy! If you PM me with your address, I'll send you a book tout de suite!

[Fanatic]

Well, I don't have quite the French abilities to completely translate it. But from what I can read of it, they think quite highly of it.