Over at Black Gate — which I have been absent from for a few weeks — I’ve posted a little news item about the first-ever winner of the David Gemmell Legend Award (which I also talked about on this blog), Andrezej Sapkowski. Yes, I had never heard of him either, but I couldn’t be happier than to see the award go to an author who, despite being a best-seller for at least a decade in his native Poland, is only just now breaking through the translation barriers to arrive on US and UK store shelves.
Having not read him, I can’t comment on the thematic parallels between Sapkowski and Gemmell, but I do know that Gemmell’s work faced a kind of barrier in leaping the Atlantic to break into US release.
Nice to see the award and the fan vote prove out in such a surprising and interesting way, and I think I might just pick up a copy of the winning novel, Blood of Elves, next time I’m at the bookstore.
