I've been pre-ordering the books as they become available. Seeing how they're translated sci-fi books, from the 80's, from a Japanese author, I have my doubts about how long they're easily available. I was honestly surprised Viz Media even bothered picking up the license, and I'm worried they'll stop the translations at any moment upon noticing the sales aren't that great.drauch wrote:How are the books? Now that they've received a physical release I've been tempted. Love the show, just apprehensive with all the characters and politics via text.
It might be something lost in translation, but the language used in the books is very odd at times. It's all grammatically correct of course, but sometimes you come across these sentences that are structured in a way that reveals the writer's origin, there's just no way a native English speaker would say these things in this way. There's also this...I'm not quite sure how to express it, an aloof disconnect between the text and the events happening. It's like the text is from a machine, coldly, logically and all-knowingly telling these events. Again, maybe something is lost in translation or maybe this is how Japanese authors, or at least this particular author, writes, I don't really know, I haven't read any other Japanese novels, translated or otherwise.
But honestly, if the books were released in English in the 80's, in the exact same form they're available today, I'm not sure how popular they'd have been. Back then something like Dune was already ~20 years old and the use of language there is just on a totally different level, I think. As a fan of the anime it's interesting enough for me to see where it all began, and spot the small differences between the source material and the adaptation, but I find it a bit hard to believe someone could become a fan of LOGH from these books alone. I would be really curious to hear the opinion of someone who hasn't seen the anime but is reading the books, if such a person exists.