The Gondolier in French

I sent this translation to various French magazines, and had an encouraging personal rejection from Canadian magazine Solaris (it was too short for them). In the end I've decided to post it here.

Le Gondolier
Par Gareth D. Jones



L'étrave noire de ma gondole tranchait doucement les eaux calmes des canaux. L'élégante embarcation me servait avec constance depuis des années. Dirigée par les mains de mes devanciers et elle avait conduit des générations de voyageurs à travers les canaux de la cité.

Le soleil se couchait sur la vieille cité. L'eau semblait changée en un ruban d'encre étalé entre les élégants immeubles aux façades de pierre. Je pris une profonde inspiration dans l'air frais du soir.

Existait-il où que ce soit un lieu plus beau que cette merveilleuse cité de canaux? Alors que le balancement du bateau s'atténuait dans son amarrage, je m'arrêtai quelques instants pour admirer les cieux assombris de Mars.


Fin.

Translated by Emilie Harry

Proofread by Aliette De Bodard

Danish Story Sale

My short story World Wire Web, first published in Nature magazine, has been accepted by Danish magazine Proxima. It's scheduled to appear in the spring issue in May. Danish will be the 21st language I've been published in.

I'm hoping to have news soon on three other translations too.

Favourite Stories of 2011

I read much less short fiction in 2011 than in previous years, but enjoyed a huge amount of it. My favourite stories of 2011 were:

Teamwork by Jonathan Pinnock – Murky Depths #16
The Orchid Hunters by Priya Sharma – AltHist #2
The Ceiling is Sky by Suzanne Palmer – Interzone #234
The Bitter End by Simon Kewin & Dominic de Mattos – Jupiter XXXIV
Digital Rights by Jim Hawkins - Interzone #237

First Review of the Year

I've seen a few positive comments and ratings for The Immersion Book of Steampunk in places such as Amazon and Goodreads, but the first full review has now appeared, on the Abyss and Apex website. Altogether it's pretty positive:

I love steampunk, but so rarely find one that will fit my magazine’s needs. So it was a pleasure to shuck off my editorial hat and just dive in and enjoy this collection of “everything steampunk could be.” Most of it went down well.

You can read the full review here.

The Spreadsheet of Ideas

Writing and editing Gap Years has kept me busy for ages. I've also recently done some work editing my novelette for the Ancient New anthology, written a flash fiction story and completed work on a collaboration with Ken Schneyer. I'm currently working on a collaboration with several other authors, but at the moment I have nothing to write until I hear back from them.

So, with time available, I sat down to do some writing and shockingly discovered that for the first time in several years I have nothing ready to write at the moment. My great spreadsheet of ideas lists 4 short stories and 2 novels, but even the short stories are not well-enough developed to start writing yet.

So I'm doing some plotting, working on synopses of the novels, biding my time...

Gap Years Edited

Several months after finishing the first draft, the final edit of Gap Years is complete. It's also now 10,000 words shorter.

Conveniently, during a break only pages from the end, I formulated the broad plot for a sequel. Not sure when I'll start work on that...

2011 Writing Review

At the begining of the year, I had several plans for what I was hoping to accomplish in terms of writing this year. We're approaching the finale now, so how have I done?

The main accomplishment has been finishing my second novel Gap Years. After some initial editing it was read by my beta readers, then I kind of ignored it for a while, but now I'm almost done with the final edit. Definitely by the end of December...

I wrote 2 of the short stories that had been waiting for ages, plus another 2 flash fiction stories that I thought up along the way. I wrote my first complete TV screenplay and plenty of suppporting material for a potential TV series. I've also collaborated on a short story with Kenneth Schneyer and recently started on another experimental collaboration with several authors. Details on both of these will be forthcoming.

What shall I do next...

Book Review: Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons

This was the last review I wrote, several months ago now, and the book is published this month.

Unusually for me, I’m reviewing a non-SF book. This is purely by accident of course. The title, the fact that it’s about an astronaut and is being published by Subterranean Press fooled me into thinking that Dan Simmons’ Phases Of Gravity was going to be science fiction.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

The Gondolier in Cornish

This Cornish translation of The Gondolier is due to appear in a newsletter for learners of Cornish at some point. It's already been posted here as part of the Celtic polyglot version, but this is the first time it's appeared on its own.

An Gondoler

Gen Gareth D. Jones

Pedn dirag du ow gondola a droghas leven der dhowr kosel an gwerdhowrow. An lester smoth re servyas dhebm lies bledhen ha degi trethyji dre dhowrhensyow an cyta 'ter dornow sur ow hendasow, henath war henath.

Th era an howl ow sedha dres an cyta goth, ow treylya an dowr maga tewal vel funen dhu 'ter treven fin derhevys a grag. Me 'anellas down ayr yeyn an gwyns gorthuher.

Era teller y'n bys o tekka 'vel an cyta varthys-ma a werdhowrow ? Ha'n skath ow tos es dh'y theller yn porth, me a sevis malja'ma miras der vaner lowen ort an ebren a vis Meurth yn tewlwolow.

An Diwedh

Translated by Neil Kennedy

Retro Roadmaker

I came across this article about a 1960s concept nuclear roadmaking machine. Similar idea, though far more colourful than the machine from my Roadmaker stories.