Ever since I finished the Adelsverein Trilogy, I’ve wanted to have a German language version out there.

I’ve had emails from fans asking about it, and talked with native German speakers who assured me that Karl May (the German equivalent of Zane Grey) has an enormous and devoted Old West fan-base. This in spite of the fact that he shuffled off the mortal coil in 1912, and only visited the US once: on that occasion, he only went as far west as Buffalo, New York – but in book-world, his characters of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand were in the thick of it.

In any event, movies, television and radio dramas and comic books based on Karl May’s version of the Wild West have continued to be madly popular in Germany ever since. I have made an arrangement with a freelance translator, Chicagoboyz fan and commenter Lukas R., who has provided a sample translation of a chapter. If you are fluent in German, take a look at it (here on my book blog) and tell me what you think. If it works out as I hope, the German-language version of Adelsverein: The Gathering would be available in about a year, as an e-book and print paperback edition.

(Crossposted at my writer’s blog and at Chicagoboyz.)