Gunnm Novel - Translation and Proofreading

[TargaryenX]

Thanks to Sergio, we now have access to scans from the Gunnm Novel. This is the most difficult thing I've done so far, so it will be interesting. The most important thing here is not necessarily to preserve all the descriptive language perfectly, but to make sure that it reads as good English prose, so feel free to suggest completely different sentences or even paragraph structures! I will make new posts as I work through the book, but I will also update these posts with the final version as it is proofread.

Anyway, without further ado, the first three pages.

Page 01

Contents
Gunnm[9]/Afterword[212]

Page 02

Alita: A cyborg girl with no memory of her past.
Ido: A cyber-doctor (a doctor who repairs cyborgs) who lives in The Scrapyard.
Calico: A female cyborg hunter-warrior.
Colt: A thug from The Scrapyard.
Norinko: A homeless ex-hunter-warrior.
Profile

Page 03

This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to existing people, groups, or events is purely coincidental.

Page 04

Gunnm

Page 10

(no text)

Page 11

A man was running on an eerie moonlit night. The dark alley didn't even have streetlamps, but the torn cables dangling from the walls would occasionally give off a shower of sparks, scorching the darkness with pale blue light. In the flickering darkness, the man's mad dash seemed to be part of a stop-motion reel. One moment he would float suspended in the air, the next he would disappear.

The man's left arm and part of his head had been mechanized, making him a partial cyborg. In his cybernetic hand, he held a large, worn machete with dark blood still glistening dully on the blade. Here outside The Scrapyard's pleasure quarters, the only roads were dirty, deserted little alleys like this one, running through the buildings like capillaries.

Page 12

He ran aimlessly through the tangle of alleys, some wide, some narrow. From time to time he would come to a fork in the road, pause as if carefully considering his path, and then suddenly take off down one path or the other like a stray dog looking for food. "Gonna get killed, gonna get melted", the man whispered fearfully to the shadows. The muddy red alleys twisted away like an animals innards as they reflected in his dirty eyes, almost as if he had been swallowed whole by some huge beast, and was now being digested.

The man cried out in terror at his imagined pursuer, but instead of stopping dove ever deeper into the maze of alleyways. It was already too late to turn back. He was certain that the moment he stopped running, acid would spray from the walls around him and reduce everything to a bubbling ooze. If you squeezed his brain like an orange right now, alkaloids would probably run out instead of fruit juice. This was the result of withdrawal from a plant-based narcotic, a "bad trip".

"Aaah, the footsteps are getting closer! They're here to melt me!"

Page 13

The man's flight through the countless alleyways was brought to an abrupt stop by a deep drainage ditch which cut across the road, blocking his progress. He leaned against the chain-link fence at the edge of the ditch and shaking uncontrollably, looked back the way he had come. The far end of the alley was covered in such a deep darkness that it might well have been an entirely different dimension. The walls looming on all sides began to press in and crush him.

"Aargh, Stop! Fuck! Stop it!"

With a desperate look, he gripped his machete backwards and began slashing at his flesh-and-blood right arm. One cut, two cuts. Pink flesh was briefly visible through the gaping wound before being covered by a wave of blood.

"Aiiiiii! Hyaaaaa!"

The intense pain in his arm caused his breathing to become irregular, his chest heaveing up and down like a bellows. However, once the pain had completely permeated his consciousness his vision began clearing rapidly . As he came out of his hallucinations, he let out a spastic chuckle.

[TargaryenX]

Reserved

[TargaryenX]

Reserved

[TargaryenX]

Reserved

[TargaryenX]

Reserved

[Lemonlol]

Yay ! I'll do the cleaning for... errr... mhhh... I'll clean the blank pages, so you can safely write on them...

[Sergio Nova]

Just a remark: in our texts, we are to call the heroine Alita, otherwise crazyankan will scold us.

[kamugin]

I'm glad you guys are doing this. When it is finished there will be nothing lef of Alita being untranslated, or so I think...

But so many "reserved"... I'll come back when it is completely done

[tristanthorn]

[moved to private forum]

[tristanthorn]

[moved to private forum]

[tristanthorn]

[moved to private forum]

[Sergio Nova]

tristanthorn, please, let's move to the private forum.
I am posting my comments there.
Thanks.