The Leaning Tower of Damocles

The Lovely Angels Meet Conan (GB6)

…not Future Boy or the little squirt in the blue jacket, but Robert E. Howard’s creation (whom Takachiho acknowledges in the dedication). Daatipea no Daiseifuku [The Dirty Pair’s Great Conquest], the sixth novel in the DP series (Dokusaisha no Isan, from 1997, is now counted as a ’side story’), was published on 27 April 2006.

The Angels are sent to investigate underworld activity which is taking place on a “theme park” world based on elements from the realm of “heroic fantasy”. In order to operate clandestinely, they must take on roles in keeping with the theme… The illustrations, as always by Yasuhiko Yoshikazu, include a wonderful color frontispiece of Kei battling a flying dragon.

While we’re on about the novels… (GB3)

Takachiho-sensei mentioned this on his blog and I just found it at Hayakawa Shobo’s site…

There is a new printing of Daatipea no Daifukkatsu [Great Resurrection of the Dirty Pair], the novel with which the Author returned to the series in 2004 after a twelve-year hiatus and brought the Lovely Angels out of “cold storage” (literally). This reprinting will be out on 24 January (and I see Yas. redid the cover — and redesigned the Pair slightly again…).

[update (2/21) — a copy of this printing has now come to hand (rocketed to me by AmazonJapan, even without asking for Air Mail!). In an interesting reversal of usual practice, the earlier trade paperback had no interior illustrations, but this new printing does. Maybe Yasuhiko-sensei was too busy at the time of the original edition; he even did a new color frontispiece for this one.]

Now (again) in English! (GB2)

There had been word at cons (I’m told) and about the ‘Net that this was coming, and now we have a (probable) release date.

The first book in the Dirty Pair series, Daatipea no Daibouken [Great Adventures of the Dirty Pair], published in Japan by Hayakawa Shobo, will be available again in English translation from Dark Horse on 28 June. Long-time fans know about the Kodansha English Library edition of the first short story; the Library was a series of small books intended for Japanese students of English. This new book will (hopefully) contain both of the stories in the original Japanese book, since it is indicated that this edition will have 250 pages. (The very first novella was entitled Daatipea no Daibouken; since Japanese does not use plural forms, the original book, which included Takachiho’s second DP story, did not need to change its title.) It will also contain 20 illustrations by Yasuhiko Yoshikazu, who has illustrated all of the novels; judging from the number, these may include all of the drawings he did for the stories, in both editions of the book from Hayakawa and the edition in 1983 from Kadokawa and also perhaps from SF Magajin (there are some pix Yas. published there that have not been in the books).

[update (2/17): this book is now listed at Dark Horse’s site. The page count is now given as 280 pages and the publication date is currently given as 13 June.]