Are the Witcher books actually good? and if they are, do I read be order of release or chronologically?

Are the Witcher books actually good? and if they are, do I read be order of release or chronologically?

The two short story collections are OK. Not in terms of writing quality, but it's an interesting world.

The novels are total trash and should never be read.

>>>/sffg/

>reading translations

I second this

The books are at least tonally interesting. They are very violent and smutty, and gritty in a sort of 80's action movie sort of way, but nothing, not even the Legendary Hero Cirila stuff, is played straight. Everything is a sort of play on fantasy and fairy tale tropes with this weird, anachronistic tinge of modern morality, sexuality, with ideas of evolution, mutation and twists on current ecological concerns.
The books also have a neat explanation for human dominance, wherein the gradual dying-out of elves and other races is due to the fact that male men, growing up in a more violent world, had to be fairly aggressive and procreate fairly frequently to survive, thus with the conjunction, men became like an invasive species of plague animal whose sheer virility and aggression served to fuck every other hominoid species up. Men are not believed to be indigenous to the continent, and the general idea is that life was better without them.
The short stories are the best, and things get a bit convoluted in the novel series, but there are enough moments, like Geralt having a dialogue with Avallach in a cave in Tower of the Swallow, in each book to make them fun reads.

Literally Polish light novels.

>The novels are total trash and should never be read.
Now I know why no one takes this board seriously.

Good post. Also good books.

OP again, thanks for the info. So where do I start?

Last Wish, then Sword of Destiny, then Blood of Elves and the rest of them.

It's hard for plens to comprehend video games have shit writing?

The last wish is the best place to begin.

Blood of Elves was really bad.

I read his first short story compilation and then a few of the books in his main storyline.

Stories are good, but as for the novels, you can tell he has no idea where he wants to take the plot half the time. He also has the habit of introducing too many characters at once without giving the reader more than a few details about that character

Something redeemable (but not redeeming) about the series is that it plays off fairytales/folklore in a gothic setting which is an interesting aesthetic

yeah, and there could be also too many poles exclusives jokes and easter eggs, like references to polish culture and stories.

last wish, then sword of destiny

then stop

everything after is awful

leaul, you obviously have no idea that witcher books (the important ones, not that last shitty one) were written in the late 80's and 90's.

And that those games (imho not really good games) were created on the basis of those books

Based on the text and the video game adaptation, I thought this series was by a 20-something polish neil gaiman-wannabe. I was pretty damn surprised to discover the author is nearly fucking 70.

Yeah, I can, in a way, undrestand this. If I'm not mistaken the books were translated into english just because of the success of the las game right? (and sadly, third game has actually somewhat more western-high-fantasy feeling than anything else)

I read some Witcher books around the end of 90's and liked it a lot; and by some books I mean mainly the short stories. (Funny thing is that polish TV series was created as well and it was pretty bad; then the movie was made ouf the series, just by recutting it and fitting the main story - even worse than the series.

I guess the main attraction of the Witcher was, and partly still is, its setting and grittiniess and cruelty. Nowadays these last things, in the age of GRRrrrrrM (etc.) do not matter that much. Yet still, the slavic countryside and myths together with imperfect, ugly, wrong characters, the racial issues, and generally the feeling of somewhat medieval real world, was something that made it works.

This atmosphere was more or less captured in the first game (yet I didn't like it), then less in the second one and for the recent one, it's just the faint echo.

And as was said before: the real something are short stories. Novels are worse and they are getting worse and worse with each sequel. This is partly because of Sapkowski didn't even like that: he slowly became hatefull because of the huge fan-following and their love for the characters (hence the ending of the original series of books) and so on.

And for everyone reading this thread: sorry for hiding this post in spoiler; mistakes were made.

I tried audio books but the voices were crap and writing style put me to sleep.Went in mainly to see ciri get fucked but instead I got tons of melancholy about old Poland

>I guess the main attraction of the Witcher was, and partly still is, its setting and grittiniess and cruelty.

For me, the main hook both in the game and the books, was the characters and the dialogue. The setting is just generic fantasy fodder to me, but it's the encounters that happen there that make it. And the protagonist really is the saving grace.

Geralt is terribly cynical in his views, yet can't help but go full white knight when the situation calls for it, even when he knows it's stupid. He's not a jaded edgelord, but still retains a boyish sense of humor and readily plays along with his friends. A life of killing and nightmares doesn't prevent him from happily responding to the dumbest remark with the most inane retort, whether the situation is appropriate for it or not. I seriously didn't expect some old fart to come up with such a fresh and many-faced character.

The books aren't particularly violent or cruel either, in my opinion. People die, there's incest, rape and gross monsters, but it's all presented in almost comical fashion. Like, shit happens, but that's life.

This based on the English translation.

>The books aren't particularly violent or cruel either, in my opinion

My main point was it was that way for the time when the original books were released: that's approx 25 years ago (and I read it something about 16 years ago, or so).

By todays measures, it's more or less norm, nothing special.

And yeah, those things you pointed out as well. And last thing, I have no idea what the english translations is alike (for the books); but I can say that in the game the english subtitles or dubbing are way more polished (lel) and more in normal-fantasy manners, original seams to me way dirtier and so on.

Veeky Forums is garbage. Read them all they are great.

Readable in Polish only tbqhwy.
Prose is average, storyline uneven, but Witcher is buzzing with polish folklore elements, culture, language and without knowlegde on those half of fun is gone

>Are the Witcher books actually good?
like Veeky Forums good? No.

they should be read at the age of 13-16, after that they feel cheesy

Veeky Forums is not garbage. Don't read any of them; they are genre trash.

Also this.

He is objectively right

Veeky Forums is a we mediocre forum about books, but as far as Veeky Forums boards go that one is quite decent.
Novels arent worth reading; short stories might interest you, especially if you like fantasy. In my opinion they are better than Pratchetts discworld. But this is for polish version, I feel like translation would be much less enjoyable. Sapkowskis style is surprisingly good.

I enjoyed them all but they are probably trash to someone with more discerning taste.

Being taken seriously by the average /v/edditor like (You) is not really something we strive for..

It's genre fiction you fucking pleb. You are probably Polish so you act all high and migthy but being able to read his trash in its original language is hardly something to be proud of.

I bet you are one of those who call Veeky Forums pretentious for liking Joyce or Pynchon. If anything, plebs like you are the reason Veeky Forums is trash. Fuck off back to /v/.

The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny are good reads. Novels, not so much. Unless you want to get into the games, no real need to get into the novels. As for their Veeky Forumserary qualities, they're gritty fantasy, so they're no Hemingway or Steinbeck, but fun to read in a teenage fantasy way.

Do a good job of encapsulating why they are decent reads.

Even their "classic", The Deluge &c., is just slightly older genre fiction trash.
>no Hemingway or Steinbeck
That's a complement.

Is there any truth in the rumor that the author had previously translated the Elric series shortly before he began the first few short stories?

The timeline fits, he was working as a fantasy translator at the time and Moorplots Elric series would of came his way.

Yes, you should read them regardless of whether you have played the videogames.

They're better if you're well read on Polish culture and folklore and can actually read them in Polish, but it's not high literature or anything.

The two short story collections are pretty good. The Last Wish is clever with the post-modern fairytale shit. Sword of Destiny is more about Geralt's relationships than anything else and isn't even all that grimdark or violent. I know the """""""patrician""""""" thing to do is to dismiss genre literature outright, to say nothing of ugh TRANSLATIONS, but I'd say the Witcher is about as literary as fantasy gets.