I think you’ll enjoy Blood of Elves best if you do that, since Sword of Destiny introduces characters and situations you’ll see in Blood of Elves. That said, you can read it afterwards, though it will be somewhat spoiled by Blood of Elves in some aspects.
Let me put it this in a different way. If you want to understand better the nature of the relationship between Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri, you should read Sword of Destiny before Blood of Elves. If you don’t care about it that much (or if you think what you learned in Witcher 3 and such is sufficient), then keep reading Blood of Elves and read Sword of Destiny when you’re done.
What Nuke Winter said about the translations. I think the first couple of English translations of the books were done on the cheap, with very little editing (editing is REALLY important in translated fiction, and requires editors who can command major, major fees…so yeah, cheap).
Once the folks holding English language rights realized that this was starting to become a thing, however, they realized it was worth spending some money on, and the translations (and my opinion of Sapkowski’s prose) have improved markedly since.
robc04
5045
So is there some overlap in the timeline between Sword of Destiny and Blood of Elves?
[spoiler]
So far in Blood of Elves they talked Dandelion singing his ballads about Geralt, Yennifer and Ciri and the listeners arguing how much is true. Then it jumps to Geralt taking Ciri during a battle and bringing her to Kaer Morhen. They they start training her in Witcher skills and they bring in Triss to help with some ‘womanly concerns’ since they don’t know what to do.
Thanks pretty much where I’m at[/spoiler]
Side note: I met my first real life person named Geralt playing tennis. I feel like calling him the White Wolf since he’s pretty old. For some reason I doubt he’d get the reference.
Answering your question…
not really spoilers but I’m being extra cautious
…not really - as far as I know, every single story in Sword of Destiny happens before Blood of Elves. The Blood of Elves prologue actually seems to follow immediately the last story in Sword of Destiny.
You’d be amazed how many people don’t realize that just because a person speaks two languages well, that doesn’t make him/her a decent translator between them. It’s certainly a necessary qualification, but not a sufficient one. (I translate [technical lit] for a living, so I’m biased I suppose.)
I have a couple of clients for whom I edit translated technical stuff, and yeah, even in that milieu where things are very cut and dried, as an editor I have to go over every word carefully and adjust syntax and even occasionally ask the translator about a particular turn of phrase that doesn’t come out very well in English.
For fiction, where you’re adding a completely new element (style), which is fairly nebulous but incredibly important, it takes an incredible amount of talent from translator AND editor(s) to capture the flavor of the original author in another language.
I completely forgot that official one is already out. So yeah, get that I suppose.
robc04
5051
I went and got Sword of Destiny but only read a tiny bit because I was tired. Hopefully read more tonight.
I hope you like it as much as I did!
Editer
5053
Plus, the Witcher stories have awesome touches of subtle humor, as do the games. And it takes a talented translator to make these work across a translation.
I love the fact that the section of game that I’m on is all set in Novagrad, this huge sprawling city. The more stories you see there, the bigger the city feels. Besides being a different but common RPG setting, the city is extra cool in this particular type of game. Just from a space perspective, it’s so cool to have a change of pace, and to inhabit a different kind of setting in an open world game. It really mixes things up in terms of exploration and side quests and just the feel of the game.
The scale and the fact that you just walk into it is quite impressive. Pile on the npcs with schedules and boatloads of quests and it’s pretty remarkable.
Goddamn game is goddamn endless.
Then we’d never see you again…
It would be The Last Wish.
I thought so too but I can count myself among the few that have successfully completed the game. It was kind of wearing me down how it kept continuing but now that it’s over I"m sadden as now I have to wait for the expansion content. In the meanwhile I’m diving into the books now that more than the one short stories collections has been translated.
I’m 98 hours in and, according to a list of main quests I found, just finished with acts one of three.
The trophy I received on the PS4 indicates only 15% of Witcher 3 players have finished the game.
On Steam, 21% of people finished the game (on any difficulty).
5.6% finished on Blood and Broken Bones or Death March (me included).
In comparison, in 4 years since release, 28% of Steam players finished main quest in Skyrim.
10% of people finished Dark Souls 1.
17% finished Witcher 2.
These stats are depressing. No wonder most games’s endings suck. At least CDP puts in the effort.
