I was trying to think of possible reasons (besides the most obvious one that I didn't state in my original post, on purpose) why for modern-day epic fantasies, those huge tomes don't sell as well in translation.
Seriously, I'd just go for translations sucking. I know it's a subjective reason, but considering I found The Lord of the Rings excruciatingly boring when I first read it in French, and now adore it with fanboyish zeal, I have to say there's a reason for it.
Maybe the quality of the translation is more tied to the perceived quality of the original's genre type than anything else? And LotR can be quite boring in English as well, if read from a certain angle and not another
I won't interfere further in a discussion between people who obviously know more on the subject than I do, but I should point out that the only Québecois series of fantasy that has been popular enough for me to hear about was Anne Robillard's Les Chevaliers d'Émeraude and I loathed that book. I can say with absolute confidence that I have deeper, more complex settings and characters in my Dungeons & Dragons campaigns than the first book of that series gave me (I never read further).
Ouch!
If that's the best we can come up with in the genre, I certainly understand why it isn't popular around here.
Of course, I suspect (and Dom kinda agrees, with several caveats) that if the scope of "spec fic" is broadened a bit (as I and certain others tend to do), that more gems will turn up in that category.
By the way, do you avoid all translations if at all possible? Because I know of this certain translation from the Spanish into English that may be coming out in November...
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Interesting discussion on the series, for the few here who can understand it
- 13/05/2010 11:15:27 PM
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Speaking for my own culture...
- 14/05/2010 01:04:54 AM
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Nice counterpoints
- 14/05/2010 01:54:07 AM
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Re: Nice counterpoints
- 14/05/2010 10:53:33 PM
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But some translations are actually quite good
- 14/05/2010 11:38:19 PM
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Re: But some translations are actually quite good
- 15/05/2010 02:15:11 AM
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Have they finally released Monaldi & Sorti in the original Italian now?
- 15/05/2010 09:51:36 AM
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- 15/05/2010 09:51:36 AM
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Re: Have they finally released Monaldi & Sorti in the original Italian now?
- 15/05/2010 05:27:58 PM
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- 15/05/2010 05:27:58 PM
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Russia loves that sort of crap.
- 14/05/2010 03:59:52 PM
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After reading Alexey Pehov's first translated work, I can believe that 
*NM*
- 14/05/2010 04:12:07 PM
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*NM*
- 14/05/2010 04:12:07 PM
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You're just linking that because of the compliments they're making about you, admit it.
- 14/05/2010 09:00:35 PM
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- 14/05/2010 09:00:35 PM
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I did say I was made aware of this because of a link to my comments
- 14/05/2010 09:09:34 PM
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- 14/05/2010 09:09:34 PM
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