Discussion thread for Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess. Beware, Here There be SPOILERS

[hippogrif]

Welcome.

This is a thread for discussing the Girl Genius novelization Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess, as well as all Girl Genius in general. The subject matter is the property of Phil and Kaja Foglio.

No spoilers are required in this thread. The assumption is you've read the material already. That is why this thread exists--to provide a place for people to talk without having to try to avoid giving away secrets.

I own this account. If you're rude or a jackass, I will delete your post. If you're debating in good faith and not annoying the natives, I won't. If people really can't behave, I'll delete the whole fershlugginer thread.

Have fun. Talk at will. If you don't want spoilers, run away now.

Hippogrif.

Comments

Re: Change or Mistake?

[claudeng]

Actually, it's Sturmvoraus most places in the comic, which I think translates as "storm all around" or "storm ahead" or something like that. I tend to see it as a typo, given how many other typos the book had. I was kind of disappointed with their editing.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[lightningnettle.livejournal.com]

Eep. Apologies, I think I just liked the idea enough my head re-edited things.

Editing errors are an annoyance, since things have been computer composed they tend to creep in more. I suspect a good human editor is expensive.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[hippogrif]

http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php

Expensive, yes. Crushingly so depends on if the last book panned out.

This new novelization is better edited and written than the first, but, yes, still has some glaring typos. I believe the Foglios are currently cloud-sourcing their edits from friends. I am afraid I wish they would hire someone, preferably someone who knows the series and can catch them in errors like the eye color thing.

Tarvek's eyes have been brown from the start, though lately Cheyenne's been fiddling with the coloring a little, turning them a slightly odd brownish-purplish-grayish shade. I preferred them a slightly rusty brown: it always pleased me that both boys had brown eyes that more or less matched their hair, Gil's being golden-tawny brown and Tarvek's foxy-fall-maple-leaf brown.

I suspect the eye color thing was a brain-fart: thinking of Anevka, with her big blue eyes (Which I assume were blue in her live form, too), but also with Tarvek hovering in his mind. The brain can do depressingly weird things as you type and compose.

The Sturmvoraus/Sturmvarous thing is an ongoing problem with the comic as a whole. My sense is that Kaja usually spells it Sturmvoraus when she does the speech bubbles. Phil wavers more, but tends to slide into Sturmvarous when he's printing it without the drawings. If I understand correctly Phil did the main writing on the novels.

I prefer Sturmvoraus, because it can be parsed to mean both "eats storms" and "storms ahead," depending on whether you go German or Latin. But if Phil can't keep it straight, so be it: it remains a homophone for both.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[sffcorgi]

Wait, they did NOT change the 'Sturmvarous' thing?

[flips through, finds 'Silverodian' and a sentence fragment and goes a little pale]

Oh. I wasted my time, apparently. How stupid.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[lightningnettle.livejournal.com]

Oh, were you a beta reader? Did they intend to change the name back to Sturmvoraus? If you can't say, I understand; just curiosity.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[sffcorgi]

Short form is that I got an uncorrected proof via a friend who got to go to a con (or something); I remembered this post, took action accordingly and seemingly wasted a week of time I could have spent better.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[lightningnettle.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the picture. Is that EditMan or something?

Ah well, at least you tried.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[sffcorgi]

No, cusswords - that's stupid copy&paste doing neither correctly, and me not noticing the error.

http://philfoglio.livejournal.com/14787.html

Re: Change or Mistake?

[lightningnettle.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see, that makes a lot more sense.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[sffcorgi]

I'm sorry, this is ungracious of me and petulant, and I should keep my mouth shut.

Re: Change or Mistake?

[hippogrif]

Pffffttttt. (Hugs the Corgi) You worked very hard, and they failed to put that work to good use. A certain few moments of petulance seem entirely appropriate.

Just don't turn it into prolonged rants despising them. Right?

Of course right! ;-)

Re: Change or Mistake?

[sffcorgi]

NOOOOOnonono. I don't blame individuals, I blame the situation, and it's very frustrating not just on my own part but to see them/the work presented as far less than it deserves to be for Whatever Reasons. There's an overarching element of 'It's Not Fair' that seems to have a wide brush, with a touch of 'That's Just Wrong'.

It's an injustice of a sort.

(My OCDishness is quite aside from the point.)

Re: Change or Mistake?

[bunnyjadwiga]

The other thing is that red hair is stereotypically linked with blue eyes. So it's easy to fall into the mental trap of thinking of him with blue eyes.

However, I think for warm-caramel-feeling-producing-eye-contact, brown might be better. :)