Eksmo changed the translation of the fantasy novel by Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King. Putin and the invasion were removed from the book, and the trolls there are now bred not by Russians in Siberia, but by Ukrainians - “like pigs.” The publishing house asked writers not to make Easter eggs about the wartranslated

This material is based on a post from the telegram channel about the “Raft” culture. Its hosts Sofya Vorobyova and Anton Khitrov daily follow the main cultural news of Russia and the world. Subscribe, let's escape the storm together. In the Russian translation of the American writer Joe Hill’s novel “King of Sorrow,” the author’s meanings were changed in several places to avoid problems with censorship. This was brought to the attention of the host of the telegram channel about the science fiction “Star Beacons of Captain North” Nikolai Karaev, who shared several quotes from the novel - in the original and in the Russian translation.

Joe Hill is a fantasy and horror author and the son of Stephen King. King of Sorrow is a novel about students who summon a dragon from another world. The book was published in Russian in August 2026 by the Fanzon publishing house (part of the Eksmo holding) translated by Dmitry Starkov.

Here are some examples of how the Russian translation was changed:

In the original, at one point, the hero says that he “has reliable information that the Russians are breeding trolls, growing them like potatoes in the Siberian permafrost.” In the Eksmo version they wrote: “I have reliable information that trolls are being created by Ukrainians. They raise trolls like pigs." In another fragment...