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diedan
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I've finally got around to ordering Blood of Elves, the second Witcher book. I've ordered from an Irish book site that has a store in my city so with any luck I'll be able to pick it up from there on Wednesday. can't wait to get stuck into it. The third book is supposed to be getting a translation this year too so what better time to pick it up.

 

I really, really liked The Last Wish, but Blood of Elves has a lot less substance since it's the first part of a massive saga. With the rate of the translations it might be quicker to learn Polish. :P

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It's tempting alright, especially with the amount of hot Polish women that have made Ireland their home but I don't think I could learn it well enough to enjoy the books in their original language. The Last Wish was fantastic so it's certainly going to be hard for Blood of Elves to measure up but I'm sure I'll enjoy it nonetheless. I'm a Witcher fanboy after all, lol. :D

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I finished Mockingjay (final book of Hunger Games) last night, so here's two options.

 

TL'DR: 3/5

 

Otherwise, I'll go into some detail.

 

I can definitely see where readers coming out of a fit and rating the book with a single star are coming from when they announce their distaste of the book. It's essentially sloppy, and in parts I feel like you could easily make a comparison to Twilight given Katniss's shifts from homicidal to suicidal. Now, I could go into a lot more detail, but it's definitely spoiler based.

 

There's the defense that it's a "war story" novel and there has to be terrible things that occur and having a fairy tale ending is unrealistic. Yeah, I agree with that, but only if it's properly structured and has more of an affect on readers instead of teenage girls cutting themselves because of Katniss's woe.

 

As of now, I fell like I can only ever enjoy the first book because it was written to stand on its own, whereas Catching Fire was structured to lead into Mockingjay. Heck, I'm still looking forward to the movie in March, but I'm probably going to pass on the last movie adaption (or two given the trend of splitting the final book).

 

Really, the whole trilogy is as follows.

The Hunger Games: 5/5

Catching Fire: 4.5/5

Mockingjay: 3/5

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I've finally got around to ordering Blood of Elves, the second Witcher book. I've ordered from an Irish book site that has a store in my city so with any luck I'll be able to pick it up from there on Wednesday. can't wait to get stuck into it. The third book is supposed to be getting a translation this year too so what better time to pick it up.

 

In case you, or anyone else, is interested. Some lovely person has gone to the trouble of translating two of the short stories from the second collection of them (the book was written before Blood of Elves but not considered worth translating). The quality of translation appears to be pretty good too.

 

http://chomikuj.pl/Karen582/Dokumenty/The+Sword+of+Destiny+-+Andrzej+Sapkowski+-+A+Shard+of+Ice+-English,310983009.docx

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  • 3 weeks later...

The%20Psychopath%20Test.PNG

 

I've been reading this. It's the most intriguing thing I've read in a very long time. A journalist's account of his investigation into Psychopathy. I've not finished it but he's toying with the idea that people at the top of corporations might get there through the same traits that criminals are identified as psychopaths for...

 

Bob didn't seem to be listening. It was as if the crash had made him introspective. He said, almost to himself, "I shouldn't have done my research just in prisons. I should have spent some time inside the Stock Exchange as well."

 

I looked at Bob. "Really?" I said. He nodded. "But surely stock-market psychopaths can't be as bad as serial-killer psychopaths," I said.

"Serial killers ruin families," shrugged Bob. "Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies."

 

Seriously, read this book.

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Just finished Blood of Elves. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. When I finished and looked back on it, I realised that very little happened and the story barely advanced. The chapters threw me off too. The book is 7 chapters long and 300-odd pages so it was hard to find a suitable place to put the book down. I did enjoy the book regardless of all that however, even if Geralt wasn't present through most of it.

 

With any luck, the third book will arrive on time...and have shorter chapters.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This week I've read Paper Towns and The Fault In Our Stars by John Green (the vlogbrothers, nerdfighting John Green), and they were both really good. TFioS is one of those gut punching heart wrenching books, but it's wonderful.

 

Making my way through "The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie atm. It's alright.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So I'm a tool and reading Hunger Games. I'm on the third book, but so far I think the first was definitely the best. It kind of did that thing where it could work either as a series or as a standalone book if it didn't become popular enough to justify more, and I think it would have been better off just to be completely standalone.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Since I have a Kindle I guess I could ask for some recommendations from you guys. Haven't been reading as much as I should lately so I'm probably a little out of the loop concerning stuff released in the last five years.

 

In terms of what I like, it's skewed towards detective and noir-style stuff, possibly some fantasy as well. Also stuff like Catch-22 and A Confederacy of Dunces are good. Obviously, I'm open to all sorts of suggestions though.

 

OK, GO!

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possibly some fantasy

 

 

A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire A Song of Ice and Fire

 

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@Dex: Was Blood of Elves the one with the female witcher?

 

 

Yeah, though she wasn't quite a witcher. She's the child surprise he gets from Cintra. I can't wait for the third book to get translated because I think that's when the story really kicks off.

 

 

Has anyone read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan? Someone recommended them to me today, but there are an awful lot of them to plough through if they're not genre-defining.

 

I started reading the first book earlier this year and while it was good, it was a aimed a bit too young for my tastes these days so I never made it through to the end. If you find yourself still able to enjoy the Harry Potter books at this age though then you should enjoy it quite a bit.

 

Haha. Don't think that hadn't crossed my mind! Will probably wind up starting that next since it's a reasonable price.

 

I was hoping maybe for some more...'niche' suggestions perhaps.

 

I'm reading The Black Company at the moment. It's the first of a series of books about a mercenary band that isn't quite so mercenary and they're not really do-gooders. I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. The other books I'm slowly making my way through are Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, Songs of the Earth, a new fantasy from a new author called Elspeth Cooper that seems to be getting a lot of great reviews and the first book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I've gotten someway through Mistborn and Malazan and can recommend both but haven't really made headway with Song of the Earth just yet.

 

I strongly recommend The Black Company though if you haven't read it before.

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Finished reading Red Harvest and it really was quite good.

 

Onto those 'Songs of Icy Fire' books or whatever, that I seem to recall someone mentioning. Their name escapes me now...

 

Also tried a sample of Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan and that seemed pretty good, lighter reading. Might get that afterwards.

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