#8 in Action & adventure fiction books
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Reddit mentions of Blood of Elves
Sentiment score: 12
Reddit mentions: 18
We found 18 Reddit mentions of Blood of Elves. Here are the top ones.
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Orbit
Specs:
Height | 6.7 Inches |
Length | 4.2 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | May 2009 |
Weight | 0.45 Pounds |
Width | 1.2 Inches |
I'm personally really excited for the perma-death difficulty level they're adding to the game, die once and the game is over. They talk about it in the 5th developer diary.
Also, if anyone enjoyed the first game even a little, or is curious about this one, read the books they're based off of. Only two have been translated to english so far: The Last Wish, which is a collection of short stories, and Blood of Elves, which is a full length novel. They're really fantastic, and have one of the most original and interesting fantasy worlds I've ever seen/read. They'll also help you appreciate the games more.
Edit: Oh, and just for the record, the new way they're doing combat is much truer to the way Geral fights in the novels than in the first game. The games stay incredibly true to the books, but don't follow any of the book's plots, both of which I'm grateful for.
Google Play - 1, 2
,3
Amazon - 1, 2, 3
The order is not the actual release order of all of the books, but jut the three that have been translated from Polish. The first one is standalone, though I've heard that the second one is one part of an arc, and I have no clue about the third.
meh..
books are way better :)
Blood Elves,
Last Wish
If anyone wants to start reading The Witcher novels I made a guide over on the "Featured Character" comment section that I'll repost here:
Short stories:
Novels:
Overall:
The short stories are a must-read before the novels because they introduce many characters and plot points for the main saga. There is also a prequel story called Season of Storms which hasn't been officially translated into English yet, but there are fan translations if you can't wait. I haven't read it myself, but I hear that it is best read after the others. If you want to know more about The Witcher lore there is always The World of the Witcher^UK which will give you more backstory and details.
Whole lotta reading recommendations in this thread. May as well throw my two cents in.
The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. If you're into Guts' introspective-man-of-violence-looking-for-his-place-in-the-world-thing I'd think you find Logen Ninefingers to be an interesting character. If you're into audiobooks then I highly recommend checking out the audiobook versions. The guy reading them is practically a voice-actor.
The original trilogy:
The standalone novels (available as a single volume in The Great Leveller):
And the most recent Sharp Ends (short story collection).
The Witcher books by Andrezj Sapkowski. Already spawned a popular video game franchise (I've only played the third one and enjoyed it tremendously, but still prefer the books). They're planning to adapt the books into a Netflix series within the next few years.
Short story collections:
The novels:
Agreed..... both can be had for $10.18 USD.... get both, and enjoy the updates, they enhance the game greatly. you will not regret your decision to get the game.... though you may regret decisions made in the games.
Also... get the books... The fan translations and the ones on kindle/amazon (The Last Wish, Blood of Elves, The Time of Contempt )
For the correct order in which to read:
Witcher Wiki
EDIT: I just noticed you were asking about the books and the game. Woops. The game takes place after the books, so if you read the books first, while the character you play will have amnesia, you sure as hell won't. :) That being said, reading the books makes the games all the more memorable, IMO.
The first 2 (The Last Wish and The Sword of Destiny) are a collection of short stories, but they do have recurring characters, so it makes sense to read them in sequence. The rest are novels, and should be read one after the other. Mind you, the second book (The Sword of Destiny) was never officially translated (because publishers are dicks), but I definitely recommend reading it before Blood of Elves (the 3rd book, and first novel), since it introduces characters who are essential to the series. This means that you'd have to rely on an unofficial fan translation, assuming you don't speak Polish, or French (it was translated into French).
You can go here to access the unofficial fan translations. Honestly, they really aren't that bad, and I enjoyed the Sword of Destiny quite a bit. Also, in case you're confused as to the ordering of the books, this wiki page will break everything down for you.
Then read them in English? Assuming you're American:
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Wish-Introducing-Witcher/dp/0316029181/
http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Destiny-Witcher-Andrzej-Sapkowski/dp/0316389706/
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Elves-Andrzej-Sapkowski/dp/031602919X/
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Contempt-Witcher-Andrzej-Sapkowski/dp/0316219134/
http://www.amazon.com/Baptism-Fire-Witcher-Andrzej-Sapkowski/dp/0316219185/
http://www.amazon.com/Tower-Swallows-Witcher-Andrzej-Sapkowski/dp/0316273716/
Or
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Last-Wish-Audiobook/B00HWBTIFI/ etc.
Sure, a couple notes while I'm downloading BaW :)
The book order is thus:
The Last Wish
Sword of Destiny
Blood of Elves
The Time of Contempt
Baptism of Fire
The Tower of the Swallows
The Lady of the Lake
There's no official english translation of the last book yet, but the one I've linked is the best fan translation I've found. It's the one I read, and I honestly would have had no idea it wasn't a "real" edition if I didn't know better. Fantastic work.
There's also A Season of Storms, which is sort of a midquel for the series. But it was written in the last two years, has no bearing on any of the game's canon, and contain some minor potential spoilers for later books since he expected his readers had finished the series at this point. I recommend you ignore it for now, and if you decide you want to read it down the road pick it up after the series.
The first two books are a short story collections. The series is in chronological order, but the actual novel arc doesn't begin until the third book. Definitely don't skip the first two though, they set up important characters and events in Geralt's life prior to the novel arc beginning.
Lastly, if you really can't be bothered to spend a bit on the amazon paperbacks here's a link to all of them in epub format. I can't vouch for the quality of the fan translations in this pack, nor do I recommend this format. Buying the books supports the author and reading a book is still easier than reading on a tablet in my opinion.
Good luck on your journey into the Witcher!
P.S. - Oh, here is the Witcher 1 recap video I mentioned. DO NOT WATCH THIS until after you finish the books. It will spoil the climax of the series and ruin your reading. You can buy the game dirt cheap if you can handle a playthrough on PC, but you really won't miss a ton of important info if you skip it. I don't want to spoil the end of the books either, but essentially the second and third game don't rely on the first one at all aside from knowing cursory details of the first game.
The ones that have been officially translated are all available on Amazon:
The Last Wish: Introducing The Witcher
Blood of Elves
The Times of Contempt
There are also some unofficial translations around for the other books.
I've got about 600 hours in all three games. 300 hours in witcher 3 alone.
Yes, you can play it without having played 1 and 2. The Witcher games from minute one are sequels to the books by Andrzej Sapkowski. So even in the first game you're introduced to characters for the first time, but they react to Geralt as if they've known him for years, so you're just kind of thrown into this already running legacy of a character.
Honestly, if you wanted the backstory before playing witcher 3. I'd read the books (or listen to them in audiobook form), it gives you A TON of context to the game and you'll constantly recognize characters and names from Geralt's early adventures in the books.
Books are:
The Last Wish
Blood of Elves
Sword of Destiny
There's this animation which covers the events of the books, The Witcher 1 and The Witcher 2, so you could watch this after reading the books to prepare yourself for witcher 3's world state.
Recap (NSFW! Boobs and decapitation)
Green man gaming is sold out of the expansion pass codes, but you can get the base game for $22 here.
Witcher 3 on GMG
If you like it, you can buy the expansion pass on steam for 25 bucks, which is two expansions, the first is about 8-12 hours of content, the second is almost an entirely new game, easily with 25-40 hours content.
I can't explain to people how much I love this world and The Witcher 3 especially. If you like fantasy settings, this is a must play, and I bet that if you get into the game, you'll want to explore the books, and potentially play through the first two games as well.
Got them individually off of Amazon Prime:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316029181/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316219185/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316219134/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031602919X/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316273716/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316389706/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics and Angel graphic novels (and the respective tie-in novels) are all about demon hunting. As are the shows, which are amazing (if a little 90s-y). Also, in a similar vein, please check out the Witcher series, about a mutant monster hunter. First book. It's by a Polish author and is practically the national book of Poland. There are demon-y things in there too, like ghosts and sorceress's and ghouls. The video game series is based on the characters and setting in the books.
 
This is also kind of like Buffy in that it features vampires more often than other demons, but Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko is essentially about a war between demons and magic users of all different sorts. The main character takes on demons frequently. They made a movie of that, and I heard they're making a show?
 
Last thing, there are a ton of Marvel and Dark Horse comics that deal with demons. Hellboy for one fights demons frequently. Also, there is a comic by Devil's Due called Mercy Sparxxx about a devil lady who is employed by heaven to take in unruly demons/devils. Or that's the gist I got from the few issues I read. It was pretty good.
 
I know a lot of these are comics, but I hope this helped!
If you're interested, here's the chronollogical order of the books (with links to buy them on Amazon):
--------
Season of Storms is an upcoming book set in between the short stories of The Last Wish. It will be released in English on March 2018.
None, from what I can tell. The differences are that the publishers give different covers, letter size and book size. The issue seems to be with the translator, because for The Time of Contempt and Baptism of Fire, which I own (The ToC is from Orbit and BoF from Gollancz), have the same translator. David French is his name.
Now if you wish for a good translation for The Last Wish and maybe also from Blood of Elves, pick the one from Danusia Stok (Orbit). Which in my opinion was an excellent read. Here are the links:
Now, I tell you this because I've been reading the books non-stop since I bought them the other day and they are great!
You can read the Witcher series: [fantasy]
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Wish-Introducing-Witcher/dp/0316029181/
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Elves-Andrzej-Sapkowski/dp/031602919X/
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Contempt-Witcher-Andrzej-Sapkowski/dp/0316219134/
http://www.amazon.com/Baptism-Fire-Witcher-Andrzej-Sapkowski/dp/0316219185/
There are few that are not published yet, so, yes, we have to wait :/ But these four are really great.
The Blood of Elves is very entertaining, and there's a whole video game series based off it.
It's really weird it is translated so slowly, cause in Poland it's like the most famous saga and personally i think that what Andrzej Sapkowski created is genius. Interesting fun fact: The Witcher (game series) take off where the books have ended and are officially approved by the author.
Anyway, you're in luck!
Ok, so i'll try to give You some help, whether You like it or not. Sapkowski first started to publish The Witcher stories in a magazine between 1986-1990. Then they've been assembled in books. So, to this day there have been 7 stories compilations released (In Poland), but what we're interested in are the following: The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny in that order (these 2 are the introduction to The Witcher world)
THE WITCHER - INTRODUCTION
But no worries, you already know what is going on and You're ready to jump in The Witcher Saga! (ok, you'll lose some of the flow, since there's a bunch of characters introduced here that later appear in The Blood of Elves.)
THE WITCHER SAGA
Well, with Witcher 3 coming soon and with the hype around it i guess they will continue the releases. I highly recommend it to everyone! Also it gives a better perspective on the game series, its characters, plots, etc.
There's also one Witcher story (The Spellmaker) in this: The Polish Book of Monsters