[Gothos]

What it SHOULD be:

Last Wish
Sword of Destiny
Blood of Elves
Time of Contempt
Baptism of Fire
Tower of the Swallow
Lady of the Lake

Storm Season


I don't know how many of these have actually been released in english, though.

[Wolfdrop]

Dadding, on 28 October 2014 - 08:01 PM, said:

I've been meaning to read this series for a long time, I'm a big fan of both video games. Was wondering if someone here can suggest a reading order, from what I've read online I can't seem to piece one together. Start with the Last Wish, then move onto to Saga starting with Blood of Elves? I'm not averse to reading the fan translations either.

It's exactly as Gothos says.

I went with the Gollancz edition of The Last Wish, the fan translation of The Sword of Destiny I posted a while back, then Blood of Elves, Time of Contempt and Baptism of Fire from Gollancz.

Saved the fan translation as a PDF and read it on the kindle, the rest in paperback

I'm still waiting for the other 2 to be published though the change of translators after the first two books was a a bit jarring, the new translator seems to be better.

They should have decided at the start to use CD Project Red's English translations, though the new translator is apparently one of the editors from the Witcher gamepedia wiki, which can only be a good thing!

[Dadding]

Thanks for the quick answers guys. Is The Last Wish discontinued for Kindle or something? The Amazon store says they no longer sell it.

[Wolfdrop]

Kindle version is working fine for Amazon UK/US. Unfortunately it looks like it might be an Amazon.ca problem. There's always the fan translation but I thought The official version of The Last Wish was done pretty well.

[Dadding]

Wolfdrop, on 28 October 2014 - 10:37 PM, said:

Kindle version is working fine for Amazon UK/US. Unfortunately it looks like it might be an Amazon.ca problem. There's always the fan translation but I thought The official version of The Last Wish was done pretty well.

Ah, that's too bad. I'll have to order the real book then. My second language is French, would you suggest reading the official French translation over the fan translation of The Sword of Destiny? Or is the fan translation done well?Last question, I promise!

[Wolfdrop]

I think that the fan translation is actually from the French version to English, rather than the original Polish, and it still reads alright despite 2 translations.

If you're a French speaker then the official French editions would probably be a good shout, they'll be more consistent and they're all translated.

Unfortunately, my French is pretty dire so I'm stuck with the English editions!

[Gothos]

Wolfdrop, on 29 October 2014 - 05:57 PM, said:

I think that the fan translation is actually from the French version to English, rather than the original Polish, and it still reads alright despite 2 translations.

If you're a French speaker then the official French editions would probably be a good shout, they'll be more consistent and they're all translated.

Unfortunately, my French is pretty dire so I'm stuck with the English editions!

It is, of course, always best to go for the native version. Go learn polish, liek, nao! You'll get to read Ziemiański and Pilipiuk as a bonus

[Tiste Simeon]

Gothos, on 14 May 2014 - 06:53 PM, said:

No, that's latvian currency. In our currency it would amount to a little bit of "good old times" and a splash of nationalist sentiment against russians.

So... A case of vodka? I'm sure us super rich capitalists can make that happen...

I have recently started playing the first game & I really like it & therefore think I would like the books. Dunno what the state of my TRP is atm but will think about downloading them.

[Tapper]

I have some really nice editions of the official english translation, which are available up to book 3 now. The release schedule seems to be once every year or so, and they're definately worth both the wait and the read.

[Gothos]

I'll stress this again: DO READ SWORD OF DESTINY before you go on to the saga. I read it in the wrong order the first time and a lot of stuff may not make sense and you may miss quite a bit of references to events and characters.

[Puck]

Gothos, on 30 October 2014 - 02:23 PM, said:

I'll stress this again: DO READ SWORD OF DESTINY before you go on to the saga. I read it in the wrong order the first time and a lot of stuff may not make sense and you may miss quite a bit of references to events and characters.

^This. And Sword of Destiny introduces a very important character.

[Dadding]

I'm halfway through The Last Wish already, it's great! Thanks for all the advice, I'll be sure to read Sword of Destiny next.

[Dadding]

It's so gripping! I'm supposed to be studying for exams and instead I've spent the last few days finishing The Last Wish and The Sword of Destiny. I've had to physically separate myself from my kindle in order to get any work done at all.

And now I'm even more excited for The Witcher 3 to come out ... it's taking too long!

[Wolfdrop]

Mass market paperback for Baptism of Fire is out Jan 8th in the UK, kindle and TP version been available for a year or so. There's also apparently a sequel to House of Glass in the works which is great news, the first was excellent! Theres also a "World of the Witcher " due in Feb.

This post has been edited by Wolfdrop: 30 December 2014 - 11:22 AM

[Raizen]

One of my favorite things about these books is the dry sarcastic humor. I actually think they did a pretty decent job bringing that into the development of the games too.

[Wolfdrop]

Possibly the best Witcher related news yet!

Sword of Destiny official translation release alongside the Witcher 3!

I emailed them that suggestion almost a year ago, it seems Gollancz has finally seen sense. Looks like we'll be getting the rest of the books too. No details on a translation of the latest one though, Storm Season I think it might be called.

All info from the Wertzone: http://thewertzone.b...cquired-by.html

[Maark Abbott]

So if I was to look at these, would I look to ideally start off with the books that deal with Gerald?

[Puck]

I'm not entirely sure about what you mean, Maark, as all the books deal with Geralt, except after the short story collections other point of views are added. If you're looking to start the series, you ideally should start with the short stories in The Last Wish, and preferably also read Sword of Destiny (fan translation or wait for the official release) before moving on to the main series, as they introduce the main cast of characters and the background story.

[amphibian]

Gothos, on 28 October 2014 - 08:16 PM, said:

What it SHOULD be:

Last Wish
Sword of Destiny
Blood of Elves
Time of Contempt
Baptism of Fire
Tower of the Swallow
Lady of the Lake

Storm Season

I have borked this, so my actual reading order has been Last Wish, Time of Contempt, Sword of Destiny and now I'm reading Blood of Elves.

I liked Last Wish, Time of Contempt and Sword of Destiny more than Blood of Elves thus far. BoE is picking up as the magical teaching of the Blood of Elves kicks into gear because it's more relatable.

[Maark Abbott]

Puck, on 27 January 2015 - 03:39 PM, said:

I'm not entirely sure about what you mean, Maark, as all the books deal with Geralt, except after the short story collections other point of views are added. If you're looking to start the series, you ideally should start with the short stories in The Last Wish, and preferably also read Sword of Destiny (fan translation or wait for the official release) before moving on to the main series, as they introduce the main cast of characters and the background story.

I'm already pretty aware of Gerald via the game adaptations, so introductions would seem perhaps a little superfluous. Without going too deep into spoilerland, is the story based on the mishaps caused by the Scoia'Tael?

Also I have to call him Gerald because of that Zero Punctuation review from way back when.