Germany exclusive Star Trek trilogy "Prometheus" coming in 2016

[Bernd Perplies]

I'm intregued at who/what the characters are, would love to find out more about them.

And we will satisfy your curiosity as soon as we are officially allowed to do so. At the moment CBS/Paramount might ask us to change some characters, so it is too early to talk about them.

But there will be some interesting new characters (of course) and some characters who had minor appearances in the TV shows and a guest star helping the Prometheus crew to deal with the threat lurking in the Lembatta Cluster.

 

[JD]

Here's the post from upthread:

If I may chime in here ...

I hope we will have the opportunity to read them too, although it might be part of their deal that the Prometheus books only appear in the German rights territory; that's happened in the past with Stargate SG-1 and Indiana Jones tie-ins that were published in German but never in English...

As far as I know Cross Cult owns the rights to distribute the "Prometheus" trilogy worldwide. Editor Markus Rohde told Christian and me, there will be English e-books at least (professionally translated and proofread by native speakers of course - I translate novels from English to German, but my English is not good enough to do it the other way round).

Of cource we all hope for a printed version.

That's the post, thanks for finding it.

I would imagine if a print edition did occur of the English translation it would likely be a trade paperback anthology. Or maybe they could release the three novels separate, either to give Pocket a break or if another situation like 2010 happened again where novels are pulled from the lineup creating a gap in the schedule.

If Cross Cult has worldwide distribution rites, wouldn't that include the English language version too, or would that have to be released by Pocket?

If anyone is interested they already have the Kindle versions of the German language editions available for pre-order at Amazon US .

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I'm intregued at who/what the characters are, would love to find out more about them.

And we will satisfy your curiosity as soon as we are officially allowed to do so. At the moment CBS/Paramount might ask us to change some characters, so it is too early to talk about them.

But there will be some interesting new characters (of course) and some characters who had minor appearances in the TV shows and a guest star helping the Prometheus crew to deal with the threat lurking in the Lembatta Cluster.

Colour me intrigued

Really wishing I'd paid more attention when I was learning German at school now

 

[trampledamage]

I wonder how far I can get on duolingo before the books come out...

 

[Bernd Perplies]

The first book is being translated at the moment. I am really excited. I had some foreign language editions of my books in the past (the children's fantasy novel series "Drachengasse 13" - or "Dragon's Alley 13" - I wrote with Christian was translated into Czech and Slovak for example), but an English edition is quite unusual for German authors. Usually it's the other way round.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

The first book is being translated at the moment. I am really excited. I had some foreign language editions of my books in the past (the children's fantasy novel series "Drachengasse 13" - or "Dragon's Alley 13" - I wrote with Christian was translated into Czech and Slovak for example), but an English edition is quite unusual for German authors. Usually it's the other way round.

Yes, even the big names of German genre literature are rarely translated into English. As far as I know (in other words, as Wikipedia tells me), only two novels of Andreas Eschbach were published in English.

 

[JD]

The first book is being translated at the moment. I am really excited. I had some foreign language editions of my books in the past (the children's fantasy novel series "Drachengasse 13" - or "Dragon's Alley 13" - I wrote with Christian was translated into Czech and Slovak for example), but an English edition is quite unusual for German authors. Usually it's the other way round.

That's cool for you. That actually kind of surprises me, I would think with Germany being such a major country there would be a lot more crossover with literature. Do you get a lot of English literature (outside of Trek) translated to German?

 

[Chris Humberg]

That actually kind of surprises me, I would think with Germany being such a major country there would be a lot more crossover with literature. Do you get a lot of English literature (outside of Trek) translated to German?

Oh, tons. General rule in literature (and yes, there are exemptions): Eastern markets are always interesting for western products, but western markets are hardly ever interested in eastern products. A German novel needs to be quite a sensational success over here in order to attract the attention of, for example, notable American publishing houses. I guess the same applies to music, television, movies ...

 

[Bernd Perplies]

That's true. I guess 80% of the books in my book shelves are written by English or American writers. And that is not because I don't like German authors. It's because our publishing houses translate a lot of books - especially SF and fantasy.

So if you visit a German book store and look for some SF for example, you will find David Brin, David Weber, Stephen Baxter, Heinlein, Asimov, Scalzi, Star Trek, Star Wars and Warhammer 40k. Oh well and one or two books by Andreas Eschbach and Andreas Brandhorst and perhaps one book - "Frontiersmen" - by Wes Andrews (that's me, pretending to be an American writer, just to sell some SF books to the German readers - I guess that answers your question more than anything else ...).

 

[Idran]

and perhaps one book - "Frontiersmen" - by Wes Andrews (that's me, pretending to be an American writer, just to sell some SF books to the German readers - I guess that answers your question more than anything else ...).

I apologize for laughing because that is kind of a shame, but there's also something kind of hilariously perverse about the fact that you needed to do that. Did you have to do anything to your writing style to "sound American" or anything? Or does translation normally wash that out anyway?

 

[Bernd Perplies]

No, I didn't change my style or something. I'm not even sure there is a distinct "American style" in genre literature. It's not like "Hollywood movies". Or perhaps it is, but I have internalized that style long ago, since I read so much American SF.

And just to make that clear: It is not unusual in Germany to use foreign sounding pen names. I know a lot of writers doing that. Mostly in genres like thriller and romance. It may sound strange, but we are heavily influenced by English/American pop culture. And so you have to be Wes Andrews instead of Bernd Perplies, just because it "looks better" on the cover - and we all know: Only people with cool names can write cool novels! (I exaggerate a little bit. In the end it's like with movie stars using pseudonyms for a better public image.)

 

[JD]

That is really interesting. I'm always fascinated by the ways different countries influence each other when it comes to this kind of stuff.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

When I saw "Prometheus" a little part of me hoped that it would be a post-Romulan War series on a Daedalus-Class ship, as I'm not the hugest fan of the Prometheus-Class, but that's just me.

 

[ToddCam]

I didn't read the whole thread, but "Richard Adams"? Blech.

 

[Avro Arrow]

^ Presumably a descendant of the legendary ship commander John J. Adams!

 

[Bernd Perplies]

To be honest, it's "Richard Hatch" combined with "William Adama". But don't tell anyone, that I told you this secret.

 

[JD]

StarTrek.com has a first look at the Prometheus novels with an official translated description of the series.

 

[Christopher]

^Err, your link goes to Facebook.com.

 

[Bernd Perplies]

That's great news!

Unfortunately they didn't show the covers in the right order (the last should be the first) and the synopsis ... well ... is incomplete at best. So please don't pay too much attention to it.

 

[David cgc]

Here's the link to the StarTrek.com story.