God's Warriors

[evilempire]

God's Warriors

So, it seems that it has been firmly estabilshed that Sapkowski's "The Witcher" is a veritable triumph of dark fantasy, and has earned its place as some of the best fantasy ever written. Even more so for anyone closely familiar with Eastern European culture, history, language, etc. The Witcher saga, however, is not Sapkowski's latest work. His newest saga is called "God's Warriors" and chronicles the lives of individuals living in late fifteenth-century, post-Hussite Wars Eastern Europe, a setting which, theortically, should be more familiar to us than the dark-fantasy world of the Witcher, but in practice has no worthy works of fiction to call its own. So, has anyone here read God's Warriors, and if so, what are your impressions?

 

[shadowlord]

[EDITED]You're mistaken a little. The series is titled Reynevanem (or The Saga of Reynevan). For now the series has 3 books: Narrenturm (The Jesters' Tower in Russian) (2002), Boży bojownicy (God's Warriors) (2004), and Lux perpetua (2006).

 

[Adakash]

First of all - where are you from?I just want to know, if you are interested in polish edition of God's Warriors (also known as Warriors of God) or want to read it in english?In polish it is very good book, with the following books of Narrenturm (Hussite) Trilogy being slightly worse. Anyway i found it better then "The Witcher' Saga, even if the witcher's world is more distinctive.However, I dont know anything about translation, even dont know publisher and when/if it was realeased, only found translator's name (Jennifer Croft).

 

[shadowlord]

Ah, so it's really God's Warriors, not 'wars'? ??? Sorry then but the Russian title is God's Wars for some reason.

 

[evilempire]

Ah, so it's really God's Warriors, not 'wars'? ??? Sorry then but the Russian title is God's Wars for some reason.

Actually, the Russian version I have is called "God's Warriors" -- "Bozhii Voini" -- however, you are right about the saga's actual name being the "Saga of Reinevan". Also, from what I understand, there are only 2 of the books available in Russian so far -- Narrenturm and God's Warriors. I found them both to be highly enjoyable, the atmosphere is excellent, the characters are interesting and overall, my impressions of the saga so far is that it's as good as The Witcher.

 

[shadowlord]

@ostbattalionLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL what an... inattentive person I am! ;D Yes, it's really "warriors"! I've made a mistake because I haven't read the book yet, just seen the cover, and in Russian words warriors (воины) and wars (войны) look almost identical! ;D Shame on me!

And yes, unfortunately only 2 books have been translated so far. :-\BTW, are you a Pole or a Russian?

 

[evilempire]

Yes, this is the exact same version I have. Get to reading it -- it's as good as the first one!Oh, and in terms of confusion between the words "wars" and "warriors" -- the Polish version is called "Boży bojownicy", as you said yourself. If you consider the similarities to Russian, you can assume that "war" or "battle" would be "boj", whereas "warrior" would be "bojownic". At least that's the way I thought of it.And, I'm Russian. I assume you are, too?

First of all - where are you from?I just want to know, if you are interested in polish edition of God's Warriors (also known as Warriors of God) or want to read it in english?In polish it is very good book, with the following books of Narrenturm (Hussite) Trilogy being slightly worse. Anyway i found it better then "The Witcher' Saga, even if the witcher's world is more distinctive.However, I dont know anything about translation, even dont know publisher and when/if it was realeased, only found translator's name (Jennifer Croft).

Well, I'm from Russia and I have already read the books. The Russian translation is quite good, which is to be expected, considering that there are clear similarities between the structure of Russian and Polish languages. I started this topic to see who else has read the books and what they thought of them.

 

[shadowlord]

Lol, разговариваем, как дурачки, на английском... ;d

 

[evilempire]

LOL, разговариваем, как дурачки, на английском... ;D

Nu, v Russkoi teme kto-to nachal vozbuhat po povodu togo chto, tipa, nado govorit po-angliiski. K tomu zhe, ya seichas na laptope -- Russkie bukvi ne pomecheni na klave .

 

[kelenthial]

I have read and loved them all. In Poland we just had the limited hard-cover edition published. A pity they can never do it BEFORE I buy all the volumes :| The same it was with the witcher saga. The hard-cover edition was published only when the saga proved to be succesful. I think that with the hussite trilogy they should know better -- I guess that anything Sapkowski would write now would prove to be a succes in Poland

 

[forsh]

It's sad than this theme is not active. Books are realy good. Ладно, все равно перевод пока только на русский. Упала как-то темка. Печально. А ведь книжки-то хорошие. А писать на русском вообще-то неприлично, кто-то понимает, кто-то нет. Но, не на инязе учусь.

 

[dadam]

I don't really praise this saga so much. Of course, as always great writing style, great background and overall great idea to mix history of hussite wars with magic and an adventure-fantasy. But main scenario and story is not as good as in The Witcher saga. After first 200 pages i knew that if Reinevan get into trouble, a sudden help in the very last moment will save him. It was funny for the first few hundreds of pages, but after 3 tomes it makes the story somehow boring.At the same time i must admit, that it was a first time for years, when i read each tome in 1 (in words: one) day. Yeah - whole saga took 3 days of my life However like i said, this saga is not impressive enough to be praised. But some of non-witcher short stories are . I don't know if others than Witcher ones Sapkowski's short stories are translated, but if yes... take them, read them, love them . In Poland there was published anthology Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna (Something ends, something begins), with few of them, with my very favorite one Złote popołudnie (Golden afternoon). Maybe it's avalaible also in Russiacheers

 

[equilibris]

After first 200 pages i knew that if Reinevan get into trouble, a sudden help in the very last moment will save him. It was funny for the first few hundreds of pages, but after 3 tomes it make the story somehow boring.

Ditto. The storyline is quite repetitive and predictable, but it´s still a fairly good read. A major factor of enjoyment for me was seeing all the familiar people and places from the Czech history, and unlike many other people, I liked reading all the Latin phrases (I took Latin at school, and at a long last, I found a practical use for it - plus it adds to the atmosphere, of course). However, no way does the Hussite trilogy match The Witcher saga. But then, I haven´t read Lux Perpetua yet, so maybe I will change my mind. I´m looking forward to reading it, but a little dreading a bad ending at the same time ... I think I will have to review the previous two books first, because it has been a while since I read it.

 

[dadam]

The ending is... interesting. But i won't give here any spoilers, read it by yourselves