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Andrzej Sapkowski II


Larry.

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13 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Thanks 3CityApache! Wasn't sure and felt like I might have been missing the forest for the trees! 

Glad you found it. Believe me, ignore function is veeeery useful. I think I remember at least one time when the board had an influx of trolls when other boards went here to cause trouble but if you ignore them, they go away eventually. Or maybe they are still posting here but I can't tell because I have them on ignore. :)

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1 hour ago, Gigei said:

Glad you found it. Believe me, ignore function is veeeery useful. I think I remember at least one time when the board had an influx of trolls when other boards went here to cause trouble but if you ignore them, they go away eventually. Or maybe they are still posting here but I can't tell because I have them on ignore. :)

Do you still, then, get little bits of texts underneath some posts, saying something like "X person has a comment that you've hidden" or somesuch? 

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59 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Do you still, then, get little bits of texts underneath some posts, saying something like "X person has a comment that you've hidden" or somesuch? 

Yeah, but I've only got a couple handles blocked. Haven't seen one in a long while, might've changed.

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9 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Yeah, but I've only got a couple handles blocked. Haven't seen one in a long while, might've changed.

Ta. 

Wasn't aware that we had these sort of influx waves of frustrating posters. 

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14 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Do you still, then, get little bits of texts underneath some posts, saying something like "X person has a comment that you've hidden" or somesuch? 

Yes but I can mentally ignore them. Like, it's there but I already know posts are worthless so I don't even bother with them.

4 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Ta. 

Wasn't aware that we had these sort of influx waves of frustrating posters. 

They were not in all the subforums, IIRC. They tend to go to the main one where there are more posts.

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  • 3 months later...

Narrenturm (Tower of Fools) is good. But the last part of the trilogy, Lux Perpetua, is much weaker, I'm afraid. Similarly to The Witcher series, Sapkowski couldn't really handle the proper ending. But that's only me, obviously.

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  • 2 months later...

The Witcher #7: The Lady of the Lake by Andrzej Sapkowski

The Empire of Nilfgaard is prosecuting its invasion of the North with a three-pronged assault on the remaining free kingdoms. The allied nations make ready to receive them in the largest battle in living memory. Meanwhile, Ciri has learned how to use her powers to travel between worlds, but her ability to control them remains questionable. Geralt, the witcher, and his band of companions reach the fairytale kingdom of Toussaint in their pursuit of Ciri, but face difficult decisions on how to find the missing princess.

The Witcher books are an odd bunch, with two volumes of tightly-plotted short stories followed by a five-volume novel series which can be best described as meandering. Sapkowski takes in a lot of stories, characters and ideas in the series, but sometimes it feels like a certain focus is lacking. Main characters vanish for books or half a book at at time and it sometimes feels very random what major events will be depicted on-page or left to a side-paragraph in a later volume to be referred to. Sapkowski's witty dialogue and fine grasp of politics, character and action makes these narrative tangents entertaining, but it's hard to ignore the feeling that this could have been a stronger, tighter trilogy with some firmer editing.

However, and it feels like against the odds, Sapkowski ties his flabby narrative together here in the concluding volume with a surprisingly well-constructed ending. Character and story arcs stretching back to the short stories are rounded off well, and the main storylines revolving around Geralt's hunt for Ciri (not since Mario has a hero been so frustrated by the target of his search always being in another castle) and Nilfgaard's invasion are both resolved with surprising emotional power.

The novel follows several narratives in parallel. The main story is Ciri's, as she learns how to use her power to move between worlds (including our own) and finally learn how to stand on her own two feet and make decisions rather than be subject to the whims of others. Behind her is Geralt, whose story suffers a little from him always being a few steps behind Ciri, and not having indulged in any actual witchering for some considerable time. People used to the Witcher novels and video games may be surprised at Geralt's relatively low-key presence in this volume, although his story does climax in an extended battle sequence with he and his friends getting into a fight which they don't all survive. Sapkowski's characterisation of Geralt's band of allies has been good enough that it hurts a bit when not all of them make it (though gamers may be somewhat cheered that, at least in CD Projekt's version of the story, a couple of the characters who apparently bite the dust here do survive to return later on).

Another major story follows the military conflict and it's here that Sapkowski strikes gold, for the complex, multi-front Battle of Brenna is simply one of the finest battle sequences in fantasy this side of the Blackwater, Joe Abercrombie and Paul Kearney. The action is crisp and clear (even when the characters can't tell what the hell is going on), the consequences of the battle well-told and the conflict depicted without any glorification or glamour, just a lot of people dying unremarked in the mud for political causes they don't understand. I was extremely impressed by this extended sequence, where Sapkowski makes excellent use of some of the side-characters and stories he set up in earlier novels.

The semi-tragic finale is perhaps a bit disappointing, leaving the fates of too many characters up in the air, but it feels true to life and true to this world to leave things with a touch of ambiguity (although, again, the video games do present a non-canon, alternative idea of what might happen next). More entertaining is the discussion of the great prophecy about the end of the world, which is savagely stripped of all the traditional fantasy cliches and revealed to be a simple discussion about a scientific, natural process, which I did enjoy for subverting expectations. In fact, Sapkowski's theme in this book is that those expecting cliches and tropes to be employed without irony have definitely come to the wrong series.

Lady of the Lake (****) wraps up the Witcher series in style. It is available now in the UK and USA.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

I went to a dinner/lecture last night where the speaker was a man called Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent, a history of the wave of revenge killings, ethnic cleansing, class wars, that took place across Europe in the months and years after WWII. It struck me how much that was like the world of The Witcher. 

I can't say I feel the slightest degree of sympathy for concentration camp guards, or members of organisations like Ustasha, or Russian National Army, who were summarily executed.  On the other hand, there were civilians who suffered who plainly did not deserve to suffer.

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On 9/7/2021 at 7:08 PM, SeanF said:

I went to a dinner/lecture last night where the speaker was a man called Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent, a history of the wave of revenge killings, ethnic cleansing, class wars, that took place across Europe in the months and years after WWII. It struck me how much that was like the world of The Witcher. 

I can't say I feel the slightest degree of sympathy for concentration camp guards, or members of organisations like Ustasha, or Russian National Army, who were summarily executed.  On the other hand, there were civilians who suffered who plainly did not deserve to suffer.

Gosh, sounds brutal. The closest thing to that that I can recall was a series of photos I saw about people shaving women's heads after the war because they allegedly had sex with the German soldiers.

The Shaved Woman of Chartres
 

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On 9/9/2021 at 7:00 PM, Gigei said:

Gosh, sounds brutal. The closest thing to that that I can recall was a series of photos I saw about people shaving women's heads after the war because they allegedly had sex with the German soldiers.

The Shaved Woman of Chartres
 

Much worse things happened.

The speaker did address your issue.  His view was that the authorities allowed the head-shaving to take place because much worse things would have been done to the women and their families otherwise.  His argument was the authorities hought controlled revenge would be less grim than a free for all.

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