Arthur Clarke lured me into lifelong science fiction fandom. I still remember reading his "Against the Fall of Night" and long afterwards dreaming about the cities of Diaspar and Liz. Eventually I made up my mind to read everything Clarke ever wrote, and almost finished all his fiction works! Almost, but not quite. Although I read Clarke's non-fiction as well, I was less impressed by it than by his fiction. I really liked the Mysterious World series on TV, and bought the book that went with it (actually all three books), but I was disappointed that the book was written by other people, while Clarke would only give his thoughts on the chapter/episode subject matter.
"The light of other days" is a similar case. It is written by Stephen Baxter based on a synopsis (probably just an idea) by Clarke. It uses elements from Clarke's "Childhood's End" which is one of the most amazing books I've ever read.
The idea is along Einsten's joke that if you had a lens powerful enough you could see around the curvature of the Universe, and thus see the past. You wouldn't be able to travel back in time, as that is always to remain impossible because of entropy and preservation of mass, but you would be able to see the light of the past and thus also the images that light is carrying. There is no such thing as physical time travel and there will never be one (otherwise we'd be swarmed with time tourists already), despite the silly story arches in sci-fi shows. Also no one will every be able to influence the past, since light travels only one way, from the past to the present and the future.
Baxter's book talks about a WormCam, which is a wormhole into time and space, that can see light from past events, pretty much anywhere and anytime. Besides the romantic story and the sociological didactic story about a self-made billionaire creating a clone of himself in order to be in full control (spoilers!!!), the book is mostly a speculation on what changes in society and people when everybody knows that they are under constant surveillance at every moment of their existence.
Obviously the society as we know it would fall apart, as everyone sane knows that it is based on lies, delusions and secrets, that are mostly getting passed for "morality and rules." When everyone knows everything about everyone else, politics and crime are almost impossible, while people start walking around naked and having sex in public, as everyone can see them through a WormCam nomatter where and when.
Also many myths fall apart, like Jesus, Moses, Ice Age, Human Ancestors, Columbus, etc. as now everyone can see what really happened (or nothing happened at all!) and uncover the lies and cover ups in the official versions.
Interesting book, but it has the attraction of non-fiction, more than that of a fiction book.
Monday, July 23, 2018
"The Last Wish" by Andrzej Sapkowski
This is the first book of The Witcher heptalogy (so far) and it is actually good! Well, anything would be good compared to "Blood of Elves" so the bar was not particularly high. This book is presented as a collection of short stories, and it is true that many of the stories have been published before in various magazines, but the first story is an over-arching narrative within which the other stories are presented as chapters in Chaucerian style, as stories told by Geralt to various people while waiting in the temple for his wounds to recuperate.
"The Voice of Reason" is the over-arching story, giving us insight into how the local authorities view the witchers (hint, horribly, which is tenuous, because witchers perform enormous services to the government and the people by taking on monsters that even the bravest (?) knights and soldiers are afraid to do. In fairy tales witchers would be offered kings' daughters hands in marriage for the things they do, but Sapkowski has them treated as vermin. Unconvincing.).
"The Witcher" (Wiedzmin) is the first story about Geralt ever published by Sapkowski back in 1986. It tells of how Geralt defeated the stryga which was actually illegitimate child of King Foltest's incestuous relationship with his own sister.
"A grain of truth" is the second story and my favorite, telling about a monster-looking man who is not actually a monster (doesn't react to silver). He was cursed by a temple priestess to transform outwardly into a monster while he was raping her in order to "become a man" as his father told him. Nivellen, the monster-man, actually finds out that many merchants are happy to leave their daughters for a year at his disposal, in exchange for a share of his treasure. The daughters themselves, to the last one, enjoy the sexual prowess of the monster-man quite a lot, after the initial acclimatization. However Nivellen longs for true love which can lift the curse and that comes in a form of a Bruxa, a super-vampira, which can turn invisible and has a sonic attack that renders people unconscious. Geralt defeats the Bruxa with Nivellen's help, and with her dying breath she professes true love for Nivellen, who is also mortally wounded by her, and just before he dies, he is transformed back into a man.
"The Lesser Evil" tells the story of how Geralt, undeservedly, got to be called "The Butcher of Blaviken." He kills a group of thugs who intend to kill the market-goers in the city of Blaviken, but the locals were unaware of the thugs intention, so they think Geralt frivolously committed a massacre. Renfri, the beautiful leader of the thugs, is actually a princess who cast away by the wizard Stregobor and her evil mother, sent to a forest with a hunter to kill her. But the hunter, in his "mercy" doesn't kill her, but rapes her, robs her of all she has and lets her go. The following years Renfri spends begging for food and being raped by various men for shelter, but eventually grows strong and becomes an assassin who now wants to kill Stregobor. Geralt refuses to choose between the greater and lesser evil, saying all evils are the same. Renfri sleeps with him saying she will leave town the next morning, but she goes to kill Stregobor. When Geralt confronts her and tells her to leave town or be killed, she decides to fight him and inevitably is cut open by Geralt. With her last words she tries to lure Geralt closer, but he doesn't fall for it, and as she dies a sharp dagger falls out of her clutched hand. Geralt is exiled from Blaviken forever.
The third story, "A question of price" is a precursor to much of what happens later in the books and the games. Queen Calanthe of Cintra is marrying her daughter Pavetta, who just turned 15, for a political alliance, but a man-hedgehog (urcheon) appears claiming he has a right to her already. Pavetta turns out not only to have already chosen the urcheon-man, but is already pregnant with his child. This child is to be Cirilla, or Ciri, who is the main plot device for all the later books and all The Witcher games.
The fourth story, "The end of the world" is probably the weakest, but it sets the stage of how Elves are treated in The Witcher universe and their ultimately inevitable demise.
The fifth story, "The Last Wish" is about when Geralt first met Yennefer, the love of his life. She has had pretty wild love life before Geralt and initially does't pay him much attention, even being very crude and rude to him yelling "you would like to lick my tits, and something else." This changes when Geralt saves her from a genie, which she thought she could put under her control, and the genie insists of fulfilling a wish of Geralt's who wishes that he and Yennefer are bound together forever. At the moment of the wishes fulfillment, he has an insight that Yennefer was a hunchback before becoming a sorceress, which was common at the time, since parents only gave their daughters for sorceress school if there was no chance of them ever getting married. The sorceress training corrected her physical flaws and made her beautiful (although not conventionally, Sapkowski says).
"The Voice of Reason" is the over-arching story, giving us insight into how the local authorities view the witchers (hint, horribly, which is tenuous, because witchers perform enormous services to the government and the people by taking on monsters that even the bravest (?) knights and soldiers are afraid to do. In fairy tales witchers would be offered kings' daughters hands in marriage for the things they do, but Sapkowski has them treated as vermin. Unconvincing.).
"The Witcher" (Wiedzmin) is the first story about Geralt ever published by Sapkowski back in 1986. It tells of how Geralt defeated the stryga which was actually illegitimate child of King Foltest's incestuous relationship with his own sister.
"A grain of truth" is the second story and my favorite, telling about a monster-looking man who is not actually a monster (doesn't react to silver). He was cursed by a temple priestess to transform outwardly into a monster while he was raping her in order to "become a man" as his father told him. Nivellen, the monster-man, actually finds out that many merchants are happy to leave their daughters for a year at his disposal, in exchange for a share of his treasure. The daughters themselves, to the last one, enjoy the sexual prowess of the monster-man quite a lot, after the initial acclimatization. However Nivellen longs for true love which can lift the curse and that comes in a form of a Bruxa, a super-vampira, which can turn invisible and has a sonic attack that renders people unconscious. Geralt defeats the Bruxa with Nivellen's help, and with her dying breath she professes true love for Nivellen, who is also mortally wounded by her, and just before he dies, he is transformed back into a man.
"The Lesser Evil" tells the story of how Geralt, undeservedly, got to be called "The Butcher of Blaviken." He kills a group of thugs who intend to kill the market-goers in the city of Blaviken, but the locals were unaware of the thugs intention, so they think Geralt frivolously committed a massacre. Renfri, the beautiful leader of the thugs, is actually a princess who cast away by the wizard Stregobor and her evil mother, sent to a forest with a hunter to kill her. But the hunter, in his "mercy" doesn't kill her, but rapes her, robs her of all she has and lets her go. The following years Renfri spends begging for food and being raped by various men for shelter, but eventually grows strong and becomes an assassin who now wants to kill Stregobor. Geralt refuses to choose between the greater and lesser evil, saying all evils are the same. Renfri sleeps with him saying she will leave town the next morning, but she goes to kill Stregobor. When Geralt confronts her and tells her to leave town or be killed, she decides to fight him and inevitably is cut open by Geralt. With her last words she tries to lure Geralt closer, but he doesn't fall for it, and as she dies a sharp dagger falls out of her clutched hand. Geralt is exiled from Blaviken forever.
The third story, "A question of price" is a precursor to much of what happens later in the books and the games. Queen Calanthe of Cintra is marrying her daughter Pavetta, who just turned 15, for a political alliance, but a man-hedgehog (urcheon) appears claiming he has a right to her already. Pavetta turns out not only to have already chosen the urcheon-man, but is already pregnant with his child. This child is to be Cirilla, or Ciri, who is the main plot device for all the later books and all The Witcher games.
The fourth story, "The end of the world" is probably the weakest, but it sets the stage of how Elves are treated in The Witcher universe and their ultimately inevitable demise.
The fifth story, "The Last Wish" is about when Geralt first met Yennefer, the love of his life. She has had pretty wild love life before Geralt and initially does't pay him much attention, even being very crude and rude to him yelling "you would like to lick my tits, and something else." This changes when Geralt saves her from a genie, which she thought she could put under her control, and the genie insists of fulfilling a wish of Geralt's who wishes that he and Yennefer are bound together forever. At the moment of the wishes fulfillment, he has an insight that Yennefer was a hunchback before becoming a sorceress, which was common at the time, since parents only gave their daughters for sorceress school if there was no chance of them ever getting married. The sorceress training corrected her physical flaws and made her beautiful (although not conventionally, Sapkowski says).
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
"Blood of Elves" by Andrzej Sapkowski
This is the first novel in "The Witcher" pentalogy of novels (for now), and if you count the first two collections of Witcher short stories, then this is the third book in a fantasy heptalogy. Sapkowski published his first Witcher (Wiedzmin) story in his native Poland in 1986. The books were apparently very popular in Eastern Europe, but they really got to be known in the west after the Polish software/gaming company CD Project RED published the series of Witcher games, the third installment of which, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is proclaimed by many specialized magazines and sites as the "Best Action RPG of all time" (btw, Action RPG is different from just RPG).
Well, the author of this blog LOVES the game Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and has already sunk about 120 hours of playing into it (still just level 31, and haven't finished the main story, nor started the DLCs). And because (obviously) the author of this blog also loves to read, he (yes, a guy! how curious!) also found the books, that is the English translations, by Sapkowski and started reading.
Let me tell you form the get go that if you expected something of Tolkien or even Martin quality - you will be very disappointed. The writing is much poorer, and so are the characters and plots. However it is not that bad. True, the first 150 pages of "Blood of Elves" are so boring and horribly written that it is an act of masochism to force yourself to read them, but it gets better. The last 50 pages are actually gripping.
You will meet familiar characters from the games, the Witchers: Geralt, Vessimir, Eskell, Lambert; the Sorceresses: Triss Merigold, Yennefer of Venderberg, Philippa and others; and the other assortment of characters: Dandelion, Zoltan. the Scoia'tail, the Nilfgardians, and of course, Ciri. The characters have much more dialogue, and do not sound exactly like in the games, but the differences are welcome. There are differences in characters' looks and manners from the games (Triss does not show a neck cleavage), but they are not major.
The book starts after the conquest of Cintra and many parties looking for Ciri, the last heir to Cintra's throne and possessing Elder Blood which gives her special powers. Geralt saves her and takes her to Kaer Morhen, the Witchers' fortress, to be hidden but also trained as a Witcher, though there have never been female Witchers in the entire history. Eventually Triss Merigold arrives at Kaer Morhen to give Ciri a female perspective and advises that Ciri is moved somewhere else because many sorcerers already learned about her location.
Many betrayals and battles happen during the moving but eventually Ciri is given as a ward to Yennefer who undertakes to train her as a sorceress. After initially butting heads, Ciri and Yennefer take to each other and the actual sorcery training begins. The book ends with Ciri learning telekinesis and Yennefer comparing the Witcher's Aard sign to real telekinetic sorcery.
Well, the author of this blog LOVES the game Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and has already sunk about 120 hours of playing into it (still just level 31, and haven't finished the main story, nor started the DLCs). And because (obviously) the author of this blog also loves to read, he (yes, a guy! how curious!) also found the books, that is the English translations, by Sapkowski and started reading.
Let me tell you form the get go that if you expected something of Tolkien or even Martin quality - you will be very disappointed. The writing is much poorer, and so are the characters and plots. However it is not that bad. True, the first 150 pages of "Blood of Elves" are so boring and horribly written that it is an act of masochism to force yourself to read them, but it gets better. The last 50 pages are actually gripping.
You will meet familiar characters from the games, the Witchers: Geralt, Vessimir, Eskell, Lambert; the Sorceresses: Triss Merigold, Yennefer of Venderberg, Philippa and others; and the other assortment of characters: Dandelion, Zoltan. the Scoia'tail, the Nilfgardians, and of course, Ciri. The characters have much more dialogue, and do not sound exactly like in the games, but the differences are welcome. There are differences in characters' looks and manners from the games (Triss does not show a neck cleavage), but they are not major.
The book starts after the conquest of Cintra and many parties looking for Ciri, the last heir to Cintra's throne and possessing Elder Blood which gives her special powers. Geralt saves her and takes her to Kaer Morhen, the Witchers' fortress, to be hidden but also trained as a Witcher, though there have never been female Witchers in the entire history. Eventually Triss Merigold arrives at Kaer Morhen to give Ciri a female perspective and advises that Ciri is moved somewhere else because many sorcerers already learned about her location.
Many betrayals and battles happen during the moving but eventually Ciri is given as a ward to Yennefer who undertakes to train her as a sorceress. After initially butting heads, Ciri and Yennefer take to each other and the actual sorcery training begins. The book ends with Ciri learning telekinesis and Yennefer comparing the Witcher's Aard sign to real telekinetic sorcery.
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