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Andrzej Sapkowski II


Larry.

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Nice - I was worried they might have been put on hold indefinitely. The Witcher 3 is getting a lot of anticipation, so I'm not surprised to see some news on it now.

I didn't have too difficult a time missing out on Sword of Destiny, other than really wishing I had read some of the scenes they allude to.

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I didn't have too difficult a time missing out on Sword of Destiny, other than really wishing I had read some of the scenes they allude to.

As a matter of fact, some of the most powerful scenes of the entire series were in the final two stories from The Sword of Destiny.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nice - I was worried they might have been put on hold indefinitely. The Witcher 3 is getting a lot of anticipation, so I'm not surprised to see some news on it now.

I didn't have too difficult a time missing out on Sword of Destiny, other than really wishing I had read some of the scenes they allude to.

I thought I didn't either, until I read the fan transation, and then I realized how much Blood of Elves suffered without it. I'll buy the translation the day it comes out, though I've read it already. It adds so much to Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer's story.

3city, I'm with you. By the end of Sword I couldn't believe how much it fundanmentally changed what came after, how much it changed Blood of Elves and everything I read.

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These are amazing books that deserve a lot more recognition. I read them in the Czech translation, which is pretty close to the original Polish I would imagine, so I can't really comment on the quality of the English one. But I would definitely recommend them to anyone, especially ASOAIF fans as there are a lot of similarities in the 'realism' they both seem to aim for. I love that Geralt kills monsters for hard cold cash (and that people fear him as much as they need him), the witches that consciously make themselves look gorgeous on purpose, the fantasy environmentalism and that the races don't automatically get along and the prejudice that ensues. There's a lot of Slavic folklore integrated into it as well, which gives it a different flavour than most Western-based fantasy.


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  • 2 months later...

For those (like myself) who read Sapkowski in Spanish, the translation of Storm Season goes on sale (and can be shipped internationally) on April 23. Probably won't be until June before I can get around to buying/reading it, but once I do, I certainly shall post a review here and elsewhere. Now if only they'd set a publication date for Lux Perpetua so I can read it in Spanish instead of attempting to do so in German...


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  • 1 month later...

I'm a bit confused by the order of the books, recently played the first two Witcher games and want to read the books. So The Last Wish is the first book in the series? Followed by the just released Sword of Destiny, then Blood of Elves, Baptism of Fire and the two books not translated into English yet?


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I'm a bit confused by the order of the books, recently played the first two Witcher games and want to read the books. So The Last Wish is the first book in the series? Followed by the just released Sword of Destiny, then Blood of Elves, Baptism of Fire and the two books not translated into English yet?

Yes, the weirdest damn mistake in publishing. They published The Last Wish (Book 1#) then Blood of Elves (Book 3#) despite the second book being vital to understand what the hell was going on.

I think they assumed the anthologies were just independent fiction of the books because that's how most American series are.

I do love the books, though, even if I'm not especially fond of Yennefer/Geralt.

Ciri is awesome, Dandelion, and Geralt of course.

I also think Nilfgaard is the best Evil Empire I've ever read.

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Finished the Ciri cycle shortly before The Witcher 3 came out, Tower of the Swallow was probably the best one in the series and the ending was pretty good in my mind. The new game is pretty great also and lives up to the reviews it's been blowing up.

Will finally check out the Sword of Destiny eventually now that there's an official English translation. Would anyone recommend still hunting down the unofficial fan translation? I heard those were generally better than what the publisher put out.

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Finished the Ciri cycle shortly before The Witcher 3 came out, Tower of the Swallow was probably the best one in the series and the ending was pretty good in my mind. The new game is pretty great also and lives up to the reviews it's been blowing up.

Will finally check out the Sword of Destiny eventually now that there's an official English translation. Would anyone recommend still hunting down the unofficial fan translation? I heard those were generally better than what the publisher put out.

TSoD is a much-much better translation than most.

Very humorous and very powerful in equal measure.

"Not this war, Geralt. After this war, no-one returns. There will be nothing to return to. Nilfgaard leaves behind it only rubble; its armies advance like lava from which no-one escapes. The roads are strewn, for miles, with gallows and pyres; the sky is cut with columns of smoke as long as the horizon. Since the beginning of the world, in fact, nothing of this sort has happened before. Since the world is our world... You must understand that the Nilfgaardians have descended from their mountains to destroy this world."

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Huh. Weird.

They just corrected their mistake, at last. For those who haven't read him yet, I strongly recommend reading in correct order mentioned above: The Last Wish, The Sword of Destiny, Blood of Elves, Time of Contempt, Baptism of Fire, Tower of the Swallow, Lady of the Lake.

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TSoD is a much-much better translation than most.

Very humorous and very powerful in equal measure.

"Not this war, Geralt. After this war, no-one returns. There will be nothing to return to. Nilfgaard leaves behind it only rubble; its armies advance like lava from which no-one escapes. The roads are strewn, for miles, with gallows and pyres; the sky is cut with columns of smoke as long as the horizon. Since the beginning of the world, in fact, nothing of this sort has happened before. Since the world is our world... You must understand that the Nilfgaardians have descended from their mountains to destroy this world."

Good to know. Looking forward to this quite a bit now.

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The big problem with Blood of Elves is that it makes no sense as an independent work but as a direct continuation of Sword of Destiny, it's pretty darn fun. Even the translated version has a lot of fun.

“The mushrooms whose secrets you guard so carefully,” Triss explained, “do, indeed, keep the girl wonderfully fit and strengthen her muscles. The herbs guarantee an ideal metabolic rate and hasten her development. All this taken together and helped along by gruelling training causes certain changes in her build, in her adipose tissue. She’s a woman, and as you haven’t crippled her hormonal system, do not cripple her physically now. She might hold it against you later if you so ruthlessly deprive her of her womanly… attributes. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“And how,” muttered Lambert, brazenly eyeing Triss’s breasts which strained against the fabric of her dress. Eskel cleared his throat and looked daggers at the young witcher.

How they confused this for a serious series, I'll never know.

Oh right, the genocide and horrific racial strife.

:)

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