Justin's Notes

Feb. 28, 2024

I really enjoyed reading Sword of Destiny. I have read The Last Wish twice already. Geralt is such a cool character. He often feels like the wiser person in many of the stories, but is so obviously imperfect. Sapkowski seems to contrast Geralt with himself within stories, making him go from rational, to irrational and back within a few pages. From calm to intense. From confident to uncertain. I really enjoy seeing those moments of back and forth with Geralt. Makes him feel more relatable, you know, as far as you can relate to a mutant human in a dark fantasy world. As much as I love the short story format of the first two Witcher books, I am really excited for when I truly dive into the rest of the series and have one continuous story to indulge in.

If you want to challenge yourself creatively, I would definitely recommend this book. It was a really good read that encouraged me. I wrote in length about it here.

Simply put, this book was brilliant. It is about The Wager, a British ship that wrecked off the coast of Chile in the 1740's, and the survival, mutiny, and trial that followed. It was incredible. I left almost every chapter shocked, trying to figure out how they were still alive. It almost reads like a fictional story. I think that is partially due to just how old the story is, and Grann's seamless way of telling it. Grann being able to accurately convey this tale based off all the journals and first hand accounts is incredible. I felt my allegiance to who I felt was in the right often, and could feel the pain the castaways felt when they had to make the choices they did. This book going forward will be the reason why I tell people non-fiction can be as exciting as fiction. Just an incredible tale told beautifully.

This inspired Blade Runner. I have never seen the original Blade Runner, only Blade Runner 2049. So I essentially went into this blind, because to be honest I had no idea what was happening in the 2017 movie. I thought the book was great. The idea of androids living among us, being so close to humans that an empathy test is the best way to find them is honestly mildly frightening. I also love anything post apocalyptic. Just different ideas and visions of what the world could come to is always interesting to me for some reason. I do wish I knew more about what led to where the world was, but I don't think the story suffered from it at all. I haven't read tons of sci-fi, but older sci-fi like this and Dune just move at such a different pace as more modern fast paced sci-fi. Yet with this book, the pacing felt really good since the whole story takes place within a day. My understanding is that Dick is a sci-fi goat, so if you are a sci-fi fan, or love Blade Runner, definitely check it out.