The witcher
Out of all the news from SDCC 2019 I am mostly excited about The Witcher.
I was worried and excited about their Netfilx adaption from the beginning, but now I am mostly excited - and only a little bit worried, because I want this story to play till its logical end.
I fell in love with more than 20 years ago. The books, of course, only the books. The first two books - collections of short stories loosely connected by the main character Geralt were published in Russian in 1996, three years after the original Polish edition.
I was in love with all the characters and stories. It was dark and twisted fairy tale retellings - now a tired genre, then new and wonderful. Some stories were familiar to most of Western public - Snowhite, Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, some were more familiar to those read more fairytales than Brothers Grimm and Charles Pierrot. There were shades of Arthurian myth, and Tolkien, and Eastern European history - old and modern both, and a lot more. It felt both new and familiar and was perfect in every way for twenty-year old me.
The last books felt more heavy and tired and I liked them less, but I still loved all the characters and cared about them, so I loved the books.
The only problem, when I left Russia, I had almost nobody to be fannish about them together -safe for my Polish friend who loved them even more.
The books were eventually translated in English, but I suspect that hardly anyone read them. The games though became popular (I haven’t played them myself).
I was delighted when I learned that Netflix is doing the Witcher tv series, but I got immediately tired from screams from all the people who haven’t read the books, but hated Henry Cavill as Superman.
Henry Cavill is fine.
And the trailer is promising.
And the books are cool (though they do need adapting to world audience of now from Polish audience of 25 years ago.)
The order of books:
The Last Wish.
Sword of Destiny,
These two are short story collections, loosely connected, but important for the novels that follow them. Also, they are pretty good dark fun.
The novels tell the main story of a big war.
Blood of Elves,
Time of Contempt,
Baptism of Fire,
The Tower of the Swallow
The Lady of the Lake.
I was worried and excited about their Netfilx adaption from the beginning, but now I am mostly excited - and only a little bit worried, because I want this story to play till its logical end.
I fell in love with more than 20 years ago. The books, of course, only the books. The first two books - collections of short stories loosely connected by the main character Geralt were published in Russian in 1996, three years after the original Polish edition.
I was in love with all the characters and stories. It was dark and twisted fairy tale retellings - now a tired genre, then new and wonderful. Some stories were familiar to most of Western public - Snowhite, Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, some were more familiar to those read more fairytales than Brothers Grimm and Charles Pierrot. There were shades of Arthurian myth, and Tolkien, and Eastern European history - old and modern both, and a lot more. It felt both new and familiar and was perfect in every way for twenty-year old me.
The last books felt more heavy and tired and I liked them less, but I still loved all the characters and cared about them, so I loved the books.
The only problem, when I left Russia, I had almost nobody to be fannish about them together -safe for my Polish friend who loved them even more.
The books were eventually translated in English, but I suspect that hardly anyone read them. The games though became popular (I haven’t played them myself).
I was delighted when I learned that Netflix is doing the Witcher tv series, but I got immediately tired from screams from all the people who haven’t read the books, but hated Henry Cavill as Superman.
Henry Cavill is fine.
And the trailer is promising.
And the books are cool (though they do need adapting to world audience of now from Polish audience of 25 years ago.)
The order of books:
The Last Wish.
Sword of Destiny,
These two are short story collections, loosely connected, but important for the novels that follow them. Also, they are pretty good dark fun.
The novels tell the main story of a big war.
Blood of Elves,
Time of Contempt,
Baptism of Fire,
The Tower of the Swallow
The Lady of the Lake.