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  • Blood of Elves

  • The Witcher, Book 1
  • By: Andrzej Sapkowski
  • Narrated by: Peter Kenny
  • Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (5,160 ratings)
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Blood of Elves cover art

Blood of Elves

By: Andrzej Sapkowski
Narrated by: Peter Kenny
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Summary

The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, holds the fate of the world in his hands in the New York Times best-selling first novel in the Witcher series that inspired the Netflix show and video games.

For more than a hundred years humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, the uneasy peace is over and now the races once again fight each other - and themselves: dwarves are killing their kinsmen, and elves are murdering humans and elves, at least those elves who are friendly to humans....

Into this tumultuous time is born a child for whom the witchers of the world have been waiting. Ciri, the granddaughter of Queen Calanthe, the Lioness of Cintra, has strange powers and a stranger destiny, for prophecy names her the Flame, one with the power to change the world - for good, or for evil....

Geralt, the witcher of Rivia, has taken Ciri to the relative safety of the Witchers' Settlement, but it soon becomes clear that Ciri isn't like the other witchers. As the political situation grows ever dimmer and the threat of war hangs almost palpably over the land, Geralt searches for someone to train Ciri's unique powers. But someone else has an eye on the young girl, someone who understand exactly what the prophecy means - and exactly what Ciri's power can do.

This time Geralt may have met his match.  

©1994 Andrzej Sapkowski (P)2014 Orion Publishing Group

What listeners say about Blood of Elves

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Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    3,524
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Story
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Good, if you read them all.

The blood of elves is the first book of the Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski, and if you give it a try you will realise it's very confusing at first. At least I found that. It all comes together however, so keep listening! It's worth reading the entire saga and the short stories. The world and the writing is outstanding and bound to draw you in, if you ever wanted a more realistic approach to a fantasy world (anti-fantasy), where politics of the realms have a larger impact on the world than a single character (at least throughout the entirety of the book).

The reading is fantastic. As a person who took this one up as one of my first audiobooks, I very quickly got accustomed to it and the range of voices for different characters is just astonishing. I found myself realising who was talking even without explanation.
Highly recommend.

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85 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Lore lovers need apply

I really enjoyed digging deeper into the lore of the Witcher.

The book itself is very good though I was not keen on some of the way the author choose to rely only on dialog to describe some scenes, it's odd and seems a little lazy. The book also ends very abruptly leading me to believe the author was pushed to publish a little early.

Regardless of my little issues with eh writing it is a book well worth reading especially if you are into the Witcher universe.

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25 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic fun to listen to

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, the dialogue is witty, the characters are believable and Peter Kenny is an amazing Narrator

What did you like best about this story?

The way Peter Kenny brought the characters to life

What does Peter Kenny bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Amazing pacing, fantastic voices

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Different than other fantasy as it is often just scenes with dialogues, but it is so well written you want to keep listening.

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23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A Modern fairytale!

From the wonderful short stories featuring Geralt the "witcher" begins this epic, set in a believable world full of spy's, witches and kings, heroes, villains and those in between. A unique take on traditional folk story's and fantasy epics, it deals with racism and the reality of war! Fantastic.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Very good story

The narration was masterfully executed. I only wish Geralt played more of a part throughout.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

very enjoyable I didn't want it to end

wonderful book I usually listen to these while I fall alseep bit this one kept me awake, very funny at points and kept you involved. the voice acting was very good too, peter Kenny breathed life into the characters. I really need to hear the rest now, I love the video games and now I love the books.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Wonderful, BUT...

What did you like best about this story?

The world that the story is set in.

Any additional comments?

The story is great when taken as a part of the overall series by Sapkowski, but falls a little flat on it's own.

The only real negative for me was Peter Kenny's pronunciation of certain names and places such as Dandelion the bard, dan dell ee on, Nope, sorry, WRONG, even the author says it's pronounced dandy lion, like the plant. This infuriated me on so many levels I couldn't finish it. Currently looking around for a better Narrator, one who knows the source material.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic!!

Builds upon the foundation laid by the short story collection, The Last Wish. Peter Kenny's narration is again superb.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Swords, Elves, Magicians but no magic.

I was hoping to find a new author and a series of books I could enjoy during the 2 books for 1 credit promotion. I have found a few new treasures this way. Sadly, on this occasion this is not the case.

I was impressed by the translator's efforts, it does sound as if English is the primary language of the author so there are only a few awkward or odd phrases as can sometimes happen.

The narrator did a reasonable job I suppose but I feel another may have done better. He has a large and interesting repertoire of different accents and tones, but I don't think his style was best suited to the material.

There are "Witchers" who also seem to be male warrior types but don't really have much in the way of witchery, there are magicians who are mostly females but they don't do much magic.

There is the odd bit of conflict; some suitably naughty baddies and the heroine is not unlikeable although insipid and not very intelligent. Apparently she is the sole survivor of her family with "The Blood Of Elves" running through her veins though why or if it matters is still a mystery.

There's the promise of warefare between Elves and Humans with other non-humans on the sidelines and there are personal antagonisms, there's a prophecy too but there doesn't seem to be a need or use for one.

Perhaps the structure of the story is too big to describe the outline clearly in this first book, or maybe a good editor could have tightened it up to make a comprehensive picture. Maybe the author was hoping to challenge Tolkien with an epic tale on a grand scale but the threads of the story are too loose and floppy to compete with a Lord Of The Rings.

I finally finished listening to this fairly long book and thought "Ho hum, I don't really care!" I'm not interested in what happens next. I'm bored with the interminable conversations and the lack of any real development of the characters or their part in the story; it all seems rather pointless and doesn't really achieve any progress from beginning to end.

Unlike many stories spanning several books, this is not a stand-alone story and so the final chapter just kind of wound down and stopped.

I will be utilising Audible's excellent policy - I didn't enjoy this book and will return it and am not interested in any subsequent books.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing.

As a big fan of the videogames of The Witcher I had high hopes but while the narration was great the story was, unfortunately, extremely dull and boring.

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11 people found this helpful