Thursday, November 8, 2007

Mystification

Yesterday the mail brought an edition of a Russian magazine, mailed from Moscow. I know I have a story in it because (1) why else would I be getting it, and (2) I think I can recognize my own name in Russian (НЗНСИ КРЕСС). What I can't recognize is the title of the story, which means I have no idea what story I may have sold to whom, when. The title is (as closely as I can match the letters from Microsoft's "Symbols" inserts):

Э Н Д Ш Π И п б

Help, anyone?

Other mystifications: Whether the thing I'm writing is or is not a novel, when Kodak will pay me for the presentation I did for them in September, the meaning of life in the universe.

5 comments:

Senex Gynt said...

I'm not sure - has been years since I read Russian fluently.
Looks to me like ENDSHPipB
Э Н Д Ш Π И п б
The first four characters are reasonably clear
1 Eh Э
2 N Н
3 D Д
4 SH Ш
5 P Π ??
6 I И
7 P п ??
8 b б Or could be silent.

Elver said...

It should be "Endgame". The penultimate mystery character should be an "L" resulting in "Endshpil".

Kinda odd since "shpil" sounds too germanic to be russian. But that makes sense since you have written a story called "Endgame" :)

Ruhan Zhao said...

I just asked one of my collegue who was from Ukraine. He said it is "Endgame". I think it is the stroy you published this year in Asimov's SF.

Nancy Kress said...

Aha! "Endgame"! Thank you, people!

Mr. JM said...

Other mystifications: Whether the thing I'm writing is or is not a novel, when Kodak will pay me for the presentation I did for them in September, the meaning of life in the universe.

1. It doesn't matter whether or not it's a novel, in my book -- it's written by Nancy Kress, so it will be good, in any case.

2. You could always send over some mobsters to "get" the money out of Kodak, if you know what I mean. But, of course, you wouldn't want to end up like O.J. Simpson, so maybe that's not a good idea. :)

3. Meaning of life in the universe. That's easy: 42.

Sincerely,
John-Mark