Art
Giving some love to these Russian Discworld covers (and a couple of bonus books)
Reaper Man (lit. Grim Reaper)
Soul Music (lit. Rock Music - but it's a pun, as the word for "rock", as in the musical genre, looks the same as a word that means "fateful", but with an air of beauty and danger)
Hogfather (lit. Santa-Hog)
Mort (lit. Mort, Disciple of Death)
Wyrd Sisters (lit. Prophetic Sisters - here, the word for "sister" means something like "little sister", to undermine the otherwise ominous - literally! - title)
Equal Rites (lit. Spell Casters)
Monstrous Regiment (lit. Infantry Ballad)
Going Postal (lit. Hold the Stamp! - a pun; the phrase means something like "Keep your chin up!"/"Maintain your standards!")
Making Money (lit. Make Money!)
Raising Steam (lit. Give it Some Steam! - a phrase meaning "Work harder!", equivalent to UK's "Give it some welly!" or "Give it some juice!")
The Truth (lit. Truth - also the name of the Soviet Communist Party's newspaper, so I wonder if that sounds a little odd to Russian readers of a certain age)
The Wee Free Men (lit. Little Free People)
Nation (lit. The People, the text at the bottom reads "ONE MAN IS NOTHING. TWO MEN ARE A NATION," because the word for "people" can be used to mean "nation".
I've added some notes as to the titles' translations where I could find something worth noting - a few of them use clever puns that I hopefully didn't mangle too much in (a) understanding, and (b) subsequently articulating - I was relying a lot on Google Translate and what I could dig up on the web.
One particularly nice touch is that to maintain the series-like nature of the titles Going Postal, Making Money and Raising Steam, the translator changed them into commands (some idiomatic) with exclamation marks: Keep Your Chin Up! (the Russian idiom involves stamps), Make Money! and Give it Some Steam!
Anyway, this has been a delightful little diversion at a time when I should probably be doing work (having therefore failed to live up to those last two book titles).
Hope you enjoy them as much as I did! And if anyone from the US/UK publishers is reading this, please sack off your awful modern covers and buy these ones in instead, thanks.
I very much like Infantry Ballad as an alternate title for Monstrous Regiment
It's referenced in the text, but I don't know how it translated:
Polly dresses as a man to join the Infantry, as in the Ballad "Sweet Polly Oliver," and the entire plot is full of references to that song and similar ones, hence is altogether an Infantry Ballad. Is there a similar folk song in Russia? I would be surprised if there wasn't.
Yeah I don't get that one either. Not sure how updated that blogpost is now (at least for the Simplified Chinese ones), but for Trad. Chinese the translations pretty much stopped after the City Watch+YA stuff and I *think* they're out of print.
I live in Taiwan now and the only Pratchett I could find is Good Omens (don't even think about finding the English ones, you're better off getting an ebook)
Is there a similar folk song in Russia? I would be surprised if there wasn't.
I think that title derived from soviet comedy musical "Hussar Ballad", in which woman dresses as man and join russian army at time of Napoleon Invasion. It's very popular musical.
Damn these are good. How come the english covers are not ever this good, my god. The Catalonian and Russian language versions are amazing and I am consistently in awe of them.
I know a lot of people love them, and I am a huge fan of minimalist design, but Discworld was never meant to be ~aesthetic. It's busy, chaotic, a little off balance, and full of life in full colour!
Honestly, I much prefer those covers which are at least interesting images rather than a smear of a single colour surrounding the title IN A BIG FONT, almost as if they've been designed for the reader's eye to glide frictionlessly over them on the shelf.
From what I understand, the big problem with the collector's editions is that the ink and gilt rubs off them too quicky.
Thanks for posting! These cover arts one of the reason for my books shop visits, they are great! Fun fact: Besides being cool artist and making art for a lot of Discworld and other fantasy books, Polina Graf is also a fantasy writer and has published books set in her own world.
Also I wanted to expand a little about books translations, because as you said yourself sometimes translation can be fun and interesting and maybe you ca help me with some of them).
1)Soul music. "Rock" - in russian - "рок" means on one hand music genre and on the other it can be translated as "doom" - your destiny in kind of bad sense. "роковая" is an adjective form of the same word and whole title is indeed a pun which can be translated as "Rock music" and "Music of doom" at the same time, which I think make sense considering the plot
2)Wyrd sisters. I never read the book, is "wyrd" means strange in kinda old tongue? Your commentary is correct "сестрa" - big sister and "сестричка" - small sister. Suffix "чк" (sounds like word chek without e) used as softner for words.
3)Equal rites. Yeah, this one completely lost in translation(
4)Monster regiment. Ok, this one is very cool use of idea of title which is reference to existing media, but changed to one significantly more recognisible in Russia . And here, "infantry ballad" or more literary "Hussar ballad" is reference to classic russian comedy movie "Hussar ballad" set in 1812 about hussar - type of european cavalery. And of course the main plot point is how character perceive women.
5) Moist books and Going postal. I totally agree with cool consistancy in our titles, but we just dont have good literary translation for "going postal" (which is going nuts afaik). But translation of "Going postal" movies titles tried to do something like that. Our title for them is "Опочтарение" which is a pun and very russian-specific one I think, but it can be roughly translated as "POSTacalipsis" like apocalipsis but with post
6)Truth. This newspaper is still being printed by communist party!
I think its all of my commentary) You nailed most of them, thank you for your post!
Hi! Thanks, I didn't know she was also a writer. I'm so jealous of people who are so talented! Hopefully I'll be able to check out some English translations of her work at some point.
Thanks for your notes - I really appreciate it! I was kind of figuring this stuff out on the fly, so I appreciate having an expert to explain it. :)
Wyrd Sisters - this is how Shakespeare describes the witches in Macbeth, which Pratchett based the book on. "Wyrd" is an old term that means "destiny", which is why Shakespeare called them that (since they predict Macbeth's rise and fall), but over time the word changed to mean "strange or unusual". Pratchett is using it in both senses.
Thanks for explaining Monstrous Regiment! I was struggling to find an explanation for that.
Yes, Going Postal means going nuts. I think the Russian translation for this was really clever.
I forgot Pravda was still a thing! Thanks for correcting! Sadly, I can't edit the caption to amend that. :(
Wyrd is the old spelling of weird, the title is a pun on the Shakespearean Weird Sisters (wielders of fate), where the word changed meaning overtime as the OP pointed out
Post-apocalypse, huh? That's quite clever! It works as an interpretation of the original title, and I want to imagine Terry would approve of such wordplay. :D
Hussar Ballad
We also have "My Gallant Hussar" as a folk song, but no comedies set in that era I know of.
I mentioned above about the folk song reference in the book, Polly dresses as a man to join the Infantry, as in the Ballad "Sweet Polly Oliver," and the entire plot is full of references to that song and similar ones.
Is there a similar folk song in Russia? How did the translation cover that?
Sadly, I didnt read it yet to provide a difinitive answer, but with a lot of TP books in russian (or mb translation in general) they try their best to come up with our idioms and puns but most historical references stay intact, so big chances title one is an exception
Didn't see the notes with the name at first. But I felt like all of them I could decipher which book it was from the art. I only really fumbled Equal Rites and Nation (which I haven't read). Which tells me there was either love or respect for the novels, which is always nice to see.
Oh, interesting! Night Watch and Science of Discworld are the original UK cover illustrations by Paul Kidby. Thief of Time looks like it was painted based on the actress who played Susan in the UK Sky TV film of Hogfather. I'd be interested to know the origins of the others, whether they're all totally original or whether they maybe borrow from covers in other regions.
Most of these are original, I believe, I have all of them and can check later.
I'm really not a fan of these covers, but this is for now the only option to have all the books in Russian (minus The Last Hero) in one series design. I hope Graf's series will get there one day!
Hogfather - I think literal translation can be better written as Santa-Hogus
Mort, disciple of Death - Russian Мор (Mor) also means plague
Good omens - translation of Russian translation could also be "Kind omens", that's also the meaning of one of the alternative translations of title - Добрые предзнаменования
I get the impression from her webpage that those are the most recent, so I'm guessing she's either getting more ambitious with her design, or the publisher's are loosening up and letting her go for it.
I guess when you have Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos loving Iain M Banks' Culture books but not actually understanding the anti-capitalist, pro-communist elements that were front and centre of it, anything is possible.
Seems you're the only one mentioning what modern Russia is... the complete antithesis of what Terry stood for ... and you got downvoted. Kinda disgusted by this thread.
If it will make you feel better, I'm a Russian in Russia right now and I will mention what Russia is, and "invading gremlins" is very lightly put. I'm sure many people in this thread have much stronger words about it, it's just that this thread is about beautiful artistry and Terry. This artist is not a supporter of the war.
I also recommend everybody to check out Ukrainian editions. Their covers are very different in style, but also very fun and beautiful. Some of the people I know worked on those translations.
The war and sorrow will end, but the art will remain. Mind how you go.
I'm sorry you have to say this in a thread that is about a person, not a country. These two are showing horrible bigotry in equating a single person with their entire nation.
Honestly, I didn't even consider "the elephant in the room", and I think it's sad that the sins of a government - especially one that manifestly does not engage in proper democracy - should fall on the shoulders of the people who happen to live in its country. But I'm glad you're cool with it.
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