Things you might not know about Poland
It seems like it was only yesterday when I discovered that Poland has a game development scene. And now what happens? I discover that Poland also has literature
So I read that yesterday, and you know what? Even in translation, it’s surprisingly good. It’s not exactly a novel so much as it is a collection of short stories about the same character — Geralt of Rivia. We follow him around as he has grand adventures, slays monsters, makes friends and enemies, and philosophises. The short stories I think are an excellent way to present a fantasy adventure, since it doesn’t at any point get bogged down with the weight of an epic or filled out with fluff to try to bring it up to twenty thousand words. Each individual story is neat and self-contained, though not isolated; later stories do make reference to earlier ones, and characters other than Geralt appear multiple times. The stories are suspenseful, action-packed, and charming, and are filled with excellent moments and bits of humour that play well even through translation, and there are surprisingly few (though some) passages where you’re left thinking "… that must have read better in Polish."
If you’ve played the video game, you’ll recognise a lot of people and places, and you’ll read the stories behind some of the events alluded to in the game (though it’s worth noting that the game is not just a videogamelisation of anything in this book — to my knowledge, it’s original), and you’ll occasionally run across a passage of dialogue that was ripped wholesale and inserted into the game. What’s also notable is what you won’t find — many of the characters in the game were apparently introduced in the later books (of which number I’m given to understand there are between "some" and "more than that"), and to my knowledge this is the only one currently available in English.
If you like fantasy, I’d suggest giving it a go — it’s seven bucks, which ain’t a lot, and I haven’t run across as readable and enjoyable a fantasy novel in quite some time.
