Sword of Destiny - Andrzej Sapkowski

RATING: TWO STARS

Geralt of Rivia is a witcher, a man mutated by magic and potions who is as feared by the common folk as much as he is the monsters he hunts. For he is a hunter of great renown, a master swordsman who battles evil in all of its forms. Shunned aside from a small circle of friends, he is forced to take coin for his livelihood and spends much of his life alone, wandering far in search of contracts suited to his skills.

The Good
When I first heard that this was the book that inspired the hit Witcher games, I knew it was going to be good. Those games are epic on consoles and the book gives more of the same. It's full of lore about different beasts and monsters, with Geralt using his preternatural abilities and magic potions to give him a much needed edge over creatures that are vastly stronger and superior in guile and speed.

The short stories of this anthology don't disappoint and are both exciting in their combat and meaningful in their explanation of morality. Simply being a monster doesn't make something evil and men can be every bit as dark despite being part of the human race; it is up to Geralt to decide on what premise he will take a contact.

The Bad
I think the main issues with the book come from its translation. Sapkowski wrote the original version in Polish and I have a feeling that it is a lot better than the English version, if you can read the language. Simply put, the English translation isn't that great. It's not grammatically incorrect to be fair, rather everything has been translated literally. The result of is is incredibly cheesy fantasy dialogue and words the Western World doesn't really use in speech, like 'comrade.' There's nothing wrong with this in the original version since they're the culturally appropriate words, but the translator should have made a bit of effort to use some creative license with his work to make the book seem more relatable. This isn't the only problem as well and the translator hasn't considered the fact that English has far more words in its vocabulary than other languages do, particularly adjectives. This gives authors a chance to really describe subtle differences in movements, colours etc and Sword of Destiny was very bland to read, with brief, unpadded text - again, a bit of creative licence from the translator could have easily remedied this!

Final Thoughts
Overall, Sword of Destiny is a good, exciting read that puts a slightly different spin on 'monster hunting' than many other books do. It's main problem comes from the translation in my opinion, which although can't be faulted from a technical point of view, leaves a lot to be wanted from the prose and is responsible for the book's low rating.

Biggun: A Short Story - L. X. Cain

RATING: TWO STARS

Biggun: A Short Story tells the tale of a young mother who is trapped in her house during a zombie apocalypse. Her resources are dwindling and she is left with Biggun -- a shotgun given to her by her father -- to protect her young baby. Zombies are everywhere and they quickly realise that the young woman is barricaded in her home. Their attempts to invade it are relentless and eventually they are bound to ooze through her defences . . .

The Good
L. X. Cain has done a pretty good job with the story and has managed to paint a convincing picture of a mother desperately trying to protect her baby. He has thrown an interesting aspect into the story (which I won't spoil for you, but will be fairly obvious if you read it), which helps make it stand out from the other, more conventional zombie kill-fests out there.

The Bad
As with any zombie apocalypse book, the story itself is fairly predictable and isn't anything special. It's full of rotting corpses, gnashing teeth and the death the doom of the world brings. If you're looking for something new and deeply engaging, Biggun will definitely leave you feeling a bit disappointed.

My Thoughts
Biggun is exactly what it is says on the cover and is undeniably a short story. I doubt it'll take you much longer than fifteen minutes or so to read, but those fifteen minutes are fairly enjoyable. Cain has done a reasonable job in establishing a character and a snippet of her life in the short amount of prose he has used. The book certainly isn't something that you should rush online to buy, but it's perfect if you just want to kill a bit of time by diving in gristly horror.

Triton - Randolph Lalonde

RATING: TWO STARS

I must say that I was slightly disappointed with Triton and think that the book has fallen short of the quality of its predecessors. Sadly, I found the dialogue weak, the action bland and there was no real plot to the book. It had purpose, yes, and is unarguably important to the series, but it's far from a page-turner and became quite boring in parts.

As with the rest of Spinward Fringe, Triton begins right where the last book left off and picks up with Jake Valent and his crew as they begin adjusting to their newly secured prize - a hugely powerful warship from the Sol System called the Triton. It quickly becomes evident that the Triton is beyond them, however, in both in technology and size, and Lalonde focuses the story on how his characters come to terms with and adapt to this. 

In all fairness many of Lalonde’s ideas regarding this matter are good, although many were a little to ‘convenient’ for my taste. I could easily have let this go though, if the rest of the book had been up to scratch. His unusually poor characterisation, however, along with a significant lack of excitement, made this very difficult for me to do. In fact, I frequently found that Lalonde didn't develop his ideas as fully as he could have and think that he has sold Triton short of its potential.

This isn't to say that Triton didn't have its merits though, and there were parts that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Aside from the obvious attractions of space battles and lower-key scuffles, Lalonde has finally begun to bring many strings from the previous books together, which should prove interesting developments for the later books.

So all in all then, Triton was a bit a let-down. I feel that it failed to live up to its potential and should have been much more enjoyable to read than it was. Despite this, I'm still a huge fan of the series and will definitely be reading the next installment - I just hope it’s a bit more of a page-turner! Please, Lalonde! Please!