Asimov's Science Fiction: February 2014 (25 page)

Freed from custody after Miriam alerts the American consulate, Nikki starts writing to exorcise her compulsion—and to try making progress on the novel she's been working on. (She's under contract for a romance, but she somehow feels compelled to kill off her romantic leads.) Then she starts wondering just how closely her supposed crazy fan actually followed her scenario for the murder. She goes to the murdered man's building, and discovers that too many details of the real murder match her fictional scenario—and panic sets in. Has the crazy fan hacked her computer to get the details? Is he following her? She's preparing to flee the city—and then the real nature of her problem reveals itself.

Nikki has drawn the attention of a tanuki, a raccoon-like shapeshifter out of Japanese myth. Next thing she knows, a minor Japanese god—Atsumori, who appears to her as a teenage boy—takes her under his protection, and explains what has been happening. Nikki is an oracle, and what she writes is true.

In Atsumori's company—not entirely at her own free will, because he has the power to take over her body to go where he needs to—Nikki sets off on an adventure that ultimately involves many more gods, demons and tanuki, the yakuza, and various allies she has met through her interest in anime and manga (two interests she shares with Spencer herself). Also, a character named Scary Cat Dude she created in hopes of a romantic hero is tracking her... a problem of a different sort, especially after he too turns out to be real. And just in case we've forgotten the opening scene, her mom from Hell shows up determined to put Nikki in a mental hospital once and for all.

Spencer is a good storyteller, with a knack for pulling interesting plot surprises out of left field (a task made somewhat easier by her choice of setting). But Japan and its culture have also made a significant impact on our mainstream culture, accelerated in recent decades by the popularity of Japanese media. So while some readers will find a touch of the exotic in her Japanese folklore and setting, others will find it pleasantly familiar. And many will consider it a welcome break from the standard monsters of much current SF— not everyone wants every book filled with vampires and zombies.

A well-paced story with interesting characters and setting—give it a look if you're in the mood for something a little different.

THE GIST

By Michael Marshall Smith

Translated by Benoit Domis

Retranslated by Nicholas Royle

Subterranean, $35 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-59606-561-1

Here's an interesting experiment: a story written in English by one author, translated into French by another, and back into English by a third—who has not seen the first author's original text or communicated with him about it other than to agree to the project. What makes the project so interesting is that the story itself is about a translator faced with an apparently untranslatable text.

The story, which runs to about twenty pages in the original version, opens with the narrator, John, meeting one of his clients—a London-based rare book dealer named Portnoy. John begins by refusing the assignment he's being offered, in part because Portnoy owes him money. Portnoy—apparently reluctantly— writes out a check for 750 pounds for three older jobs, and then offers John 1,000 pounds to take on the new project, upping the ante to 1,200 almost before John has time to react.

John protests that the job is impossible—the text is either a fake or nonsense. He can read an impressive number of languages: the usual French, Spanish, Russian, German, plus more obscure ones like Basque, and some no longer extant, such as Lange d'oc. All come easily to him— though he has a strange block against speaking any of them. Because of this gift, he ekes out a living as a translator, living in a shabby apartment lined with reference books and little else. But Portnoy's offer will pay his rent for months and buy him a much-needed new computer. And the dealer appears to be willing to accept "the gist" of the story in lieu of a more exact translation. John takes the book and heads home.

Instead of sticking to the project, he spends much of the next week getting drunk in pubs. The bartender—and others—tells him he has been muttering something incomprehensible. He has blackouts, and he's developing a nasty cough. And he finds himself getting false memories. The story has a twist ending that deserves not to be spilled here, other than to say it's also about translation—in a somewhat different sense, and that the story would have been a good fit for a genre magazine.

The appearance of the story in three versions—original English, French translation, and translation back into English—adds an interesting twist to the project. I've undoubtedly missed things due to my rusty French, last regularly used in grad school. But you don't really need to read French to enjoy "The Gist." There's a good deal of interest and pleasure comparing the two English versions.

Smith's initial version is informal and slangy, with some characters using nonstandard grammar. He also drops in the occasional odd word like "eldritch" or tricky metaphor, giving Domis some interesting challenges. One of the top translators of English-language horror fiction into French, Domis does what appears to be a smooth job, finding equivalents for Smith's quirky idioms and giving his narrator a similarly shabby feel, though some of the odder vocabulary, like "eldritch," is dropped for lack of an exact equivalent. And the story ends up a touch longer in French.

In the retranslation by Royle, himself a well-received novelist, some of the fine points of the original are lost. For example, John's sometime girlfriend Cass now speaks more grammatically, and thus seems a bit more refined. John's language is somewhat less quirky, too, and he seems a bit wordier—though the story as a whole is actually a bit shorter. But the overall plot—the gist—comes through admirably. And that, of course, is the point of the exercise.

Anyone interested in linguistics will find this one intriguing—especially anyone who reads French fluently.

SHEILA WILLIAMS

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