The Witcher Saga

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Other reasons to get the original English books are that translations can sometimes be really bad, and then you often just don't get the same "feel" for it when you read it in your own language. It's a bit like dubbing, actually.

[Escriba]

Oh, I would have no problems to purchase the English version if there was one. But there isn't, in that we Spanish win

I could have bought the book in a Spanish shop very famous for letting you return what you buy if you aren't satisfied, read it and then give it back to the shop saying "It was a gift for a friend, but he already has it." This way I could read it for free. But I'm a too nice girl. For now. I don't know what will happen with the second volume.

Splitting books in two isn't a very common practice here and we don't have much problems with sci-fi & fantasy books being published in our language. I guess it's because the market in Spanish language is very large. The publishing house of "The Witcher Saga", Bibliopolis/Alamut, has lost any credibility with that garbage of splitting the books after two years of delay. I think it's disrepectful for the readers and the translator, who did a hell of a job.

[Ludmila]

Escriba, can you read in other languages?
The "Witcher Saga" stories and novels have been translated into Czech, Portuguese, German, Russian, Lithuanian, French, Spanish and Bulgarian .
We have few different editions of this story in Russian.
There are collected stories (Chrzest Ognia. Wieza Jaskolki. Panije ziora) with three different stories in one book "Tsiri":
http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/2139012/

Or "Lady of the Lake (Pani Jeziora). The Road with No Return (Droga Bez Powrotu)":
http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/119249/

I prefer sci-fi and had not read this author. But my colleague did. She said that this story do not stop in the middle of its tale.

Do you have access to Amazon's used books? So many of them are a penny plus postage (which would be a fortune from here, of course).
A field trip to Amsterdam would set you up with plenty of English books from all the English speaking countries, if the city is as I remembered.

I like using the service of our respectable internet shop, which is working only with Amazon.com and only with new books in stock. Even no Amazon.de
I know the insecure resellers but I prefer to wait for the translated books for now and buying the new books in English if my impatience is strong.
I try to seek for English books in the big Spanish shops (but they as and ours prefer selling the books in the native languages) but I discovered the "bookshops of used books in the different languages" during my last visit. Though there were older books with few modern ones.

[Escriba]

Unfortunately the only foreign language I have a good command of is English (at least to read in it.) I don't understand much of German (even though my first crush/love was a German boy.)
I could try French, but their edition isn't published yet either. About Portuguese... I can't find the books in that language. And I can't for the life of me read in Russian

I'll have to wait. It's not a big deal, really. The publisher house's low trick infuriated me, that was mostly my problem.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Since I'm missing any new George R.R. Martin stuff coming out, I'm thinking giving this a try. But what shall I begin with? It seems a bit confusing which order the books shall be read. There's one called The Last Wish but that seems like a collection fo short stories. Then there's one called Blood of Elves, which I think might be the first proper novel in the saga. Help!

[Escriba]

Well, strictly speaking the books in the Witcher Saga are:

Blood of Elves
Times of Contempt
Baptism of Fire
The Swallow's Tower
Lady of the Lake

It is advisable, but not necessary to read The Last Wish, which, as you said, it's a "compilation" of short stories that happen before the events in Blood of Elves. It helps to learn about the context, the main character and other important characters to the story. But you don't need to read it if you don't want to. The short stories are a rewriting of folk tales, very good and kick-ass rewriting, I admit, but the book itself is a bit different from Blood of Elves, since with this one is where the epic... THE EEEPIIIC... *aheam* The Epic begins.

I think A Song of Ice and Fire is more epic, but Sapkowski's work is more related to our world, somehow. Especially for what happens with the Elves. If you read the book (or books) you'll tell me.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Well, on amazon.co.uk they only seem to have Blood of Elves and The Last Wish at the moment, with Times of Contempt not coming out until 21 April 2011. I'm not even sure if the others have been translated into English yet.

How disappointing!

[Escriba]

And I thought I was in a bad situation. The worst part is that the saga is finished, just not translated (into a language I can understand.) As frustrating as having to wait for George R.R. Martin to end the story.

Well, you could try The Last Wish, if you are curious. On the other hand, have you read Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez Reverte? It is a series of novels that deals with the adventures of the title character. It's historical, not sci-fi or fantasy, but it's historical in the same way that The Three Musketeers is (they share some common things, actually.)

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

For now I've settled for trying out Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, which I haven't read. I figure that by the time I'm done with all that's been published, the continuations by Brandon Sanderson (since Jordan died on us before finishing) will have been published too.

Too bad about The Witcher Saga though, but i don't want to get invested and then wait a year and a half or so for the next one.