I have to say upfront that Google Translate does not really work with Hungarian yet; sometimes you can get the gist, sometimes you get the exact opposite! (Sometimes you get nonsense, but nonsense is not as misleading as when a sentence gets translated to the opposite of its intended meaning.) I’m mentioning this because some enterprising friends of mine have already tried to read my Hungarian-language articles using Google Translate and were quite baffled by the results!

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Most magyarul is elmondom – csináltam egy oldalt a magyar nyelvű cikkeimnek (főleg tudományos-technikai ismeretterjesztő cikkek és kritikák), érdemes megnézni és olvasgatni. Mindenkinek különösen ajánlom a Beszédfelismerés a videojátékokban 2. részét, történeti áttekintéssel – van benne többek között beszélő hal Spock kapitány hangjával, sikítozós Pikachu-terelgetés és a világ talán legnagyobbat bukott játékkonzolja! (Nem, nem a Virtual Boy. )

The story has an Ancient Hungarian setting, so if you’re interested in that sort of fantasy, be sure to get the anthology when it comes out. I’m all new to historical fantasy, but I enjoyed writing this piece and hopefully you’ll enjoy reading it, too!

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Unfortunately I’ve written all of two stories in 2010 so far… this was one of them. But I finished a thesis and a lengthy funding proposal, so I’ve written a lot overall, but it was all nonfiction. I’ll try to write more fiction from now on, especially seeing as this was a semi-pro sale. I need to convince myself to submit to pro markets! (In Hungarian it’s not a problem. But in English, I admit I have a self-confidence issue due to not being a native speaker.) It’s also hard to write fiction when my job involves writing nonfiction, and I don’t want to do ‘more of the same’ (= writing in general) in my free time!

With all that being said, I’m now writing a nonfiction piece on a science fiction topic, but who said I had to make sense?

Most are in English and Hungarian, some are in German. Prices are kindasorta negotiable and I also accept trade-ins if you have something cool (books, used games, cheap DVDs of arthouse movies, etc. you get the idea).

There will be more coming on Thursday IY”H, and the missing prices will also be updated. (I just don’t have those books here with me right now so that I could accurately set their prices.)

Prices include tax but do not include shipping.

I prefer to ship to Hungary and Austria, but I can ship anywhere. If you live anywhere else it’s probably not worth it (especially since the prices are adjusted to the Hungarian market), unless you absolutely need that vintage Hungarian copy of The Chrysalids…

These had longer writeups but I don’t feel like digging them up from the depths of the digital abyss. The first one is inspired by Jewish Kabbalah – “Sod” is the most esoteric of the four levels of Torah interpretation. It means “secret”. And what does the guy hold in his hand? Um, I guess that’s the Sod ;]

The second is more controversial… basically I got fed up with the fact that Hungarian right-wing extremists were taking everything that was traditionally Hungarian and claiming it to be their own. This in turn led people who refused to share their political views to feel a certain disdain for these symbols, which I personally found – and still find – alternately saddening and infuriating…. so this is a kind of attempt both to reclaim these symbols and to express my rather conflicting feelings associated with them.

The Turul is the mythical bird that’s the national animal of Hungarians. The Hungarian Runes simply say “Turul”. Red and white stripes – here red and black stripes – were on the original flag of the House of King Árpád in its latter years. I preserved the red-and-white color scheme in the background, and if anyone notices, um, more familiar historical allusions… oh well.

(And yes, the Hebrew is not accidental either.)

Both images were drawn in ArtRage on my tablet PC running Debian Linux. (ArtRage runs under Wine just fine, in case you were wondering.)