#good question that gets answered with 'have you read brandon sanderson' wayyy too often

[hanzajesthanza]

Do you have book recommendations for people who love The Witcher and would like to dive into other books?

an assortment, but one i'm still chewing my way through. this is less of a list and more like a mind map or choose your own adventure, there are different paths you can take, you can weave between them... these are all merely suggestions which may influence one's future...

more sapko rahhh

aka my chosen path when starting out from the crossroads. was it the correct one. idk

first and foremost, the hussite trilogy. it has an english translation out already so there's no stopping you... well except your ability to read (it's me, i need to reread it for comprehension this time).

but actually the most underrated is non-witcher related short stories, you can find these in the maladie anthology or online. yep, they're on his site for free. (and some of the witcher ones too).

and also even more underrated is his nonfiction, because he is a funny fucker and also an informative one at the same time. piróg (essay), świat króla artura, rękopis znaleziony w smoczej jaskini. and articles he wrote for nowa fantastyka and elsewhere.

influential authors not of strictly fantasy

i say authors because he has said authors... first up on the list, however, are specific titles that he's mentioned by name as influences.

the trilogy, sienkiewicz

the big sleep, chandler

the master and margarita, bulgakov

the name of the rose, eco

already hitting hard with these. but here's more. just in case

I am the result of my readings of Alexandre Dumas, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Raymond Chandler, Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance, Jules Verne, Arturo Pérez-Reverte… They have created me as a writer.

I adore reading and read everything. From the authors of the so-called mainstream I would highlight the Polish historical novelists Sienkiewicz, Gołubiew and Bunsсh. And also - Hemingway, Chandler, Bulgakov and Umberto Eco. From the authors of science fiction … In the first place Stanislav Lem, then Dick, Vance, Silverberg. From the authors of fantasy I like Tolkien, Le Guin, Eddings, Zelazny and again, Jack Vance.

Favorite books? A full list would take up too much space. I will list only a few favorite authors: Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, Umberto Eco, William Shakespeare, Henrik Sienkiewicz, Erich Maria Remarque, Alexander Dumas-father, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, Mika Valtari, Arturo Perez-Reverte (...) JRR Tolkien, Roger Zelazny, Ursula Le Guin, Fritz Leiber, Stanisław Lem, Jack Vance, Neil Gaimen.

As a child, I read - among others - Alexandre Dumas (both father and son), Victor Hugo, Henry Sienkiewicz, Karl May, Jules Verne, Herbert George Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling. In adolescence, I moved to Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Joseph Conrad, Leo Tolstoy, Miguel Servante, Michael Sokolov, Raymond Chandler, Lewis Carroll, Stanislaw Lem, Theodore Greenwich, Carol Bunch, Antonia Golubev, Miku Valtari, Erich Maria Remarque, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, the Strugatsky brothers. In my youth I discovered for myself - among others - Tolkien, Clive Lewis, Terence White, Howard Lovecraft, Mikhail Bulgakov, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Umberto Eco, Stephen King, Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Ursula Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Jack Vance, Peter Bigle, Stephen Donaldson, John Crowley, Terry Pratchett. 

There are many such books [that I return to]. I sometimes joke that I read Sienkiewicz's trilogy at least once a year, because Polish is very difficult and you have to practice a lot. But the joke is not far from the truth in my case. I was raised on the "Trilogy". I have a good conversation with Marcin Wolski, also a fan and expert, when we meet, we throw Sienkiewicz quotes and riddles at each other.

Audience: Pan Andrzej, who is your favorite writer? A. Sapkowski: I have to think. (Pause.) Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway. (...) Audience: And from Slavic literature? A. Sapkowski: Bulgakov. The answer is simple: Bulgakov.

I will say maybe not about my favorite readings, but about my masters. It's Hemingway, Bulgakov, Chandler and Eco. I love them, but I know that I will never compare to them.

Secundo: comparing me to my beloved Eco, is very pleasant, but I do not like and do not want to listen to undeserved compliments.

i think that's enough to last a lifetime. several lifetimes. really just pick an author and see if they have interesting books and then read them if they call out to you

(sorry for any potential misspellings of names, i am cutting and pasting from the translated interviews, and names get translated from spanish to polish to russian to english and back again so you can understand how it might turn out weird)

fantasy

did you guys know that andrzej sapkowski literally wrote a fantasy book recs list for us all, and it's Literally One Hundred books long? and this was when i wasn't even a year old yet?

the list is even online and saved via the wikipedia article about manuscript discovered in a dragon's cave

however one hundred is a bit overwhelming. so instead, influences he's mentioned by name in interviews:

lord of the rings (about ten million times over)

amber

earthsea

the dying earth

jack of shadows

literary

the bible

greek mythology (and i would recommend the tragic plays)

dante

shakespeare

polish romanticism

arthurian legend

technically counts as both literary and fantasy but considering sapkowski's obsession with it i think it deserves to be its own thing

like with any legendary body, there's more like a collection of works and no official reading order, lol, so from what i gather and what i've been doing is reading in bits and pieces, various knight stories... but if you want more direction then just look at wikipedia for a semblance of a reading guide. but modern versions he's raved about include the once and future king and the mists of avalon so maybe start there too