i just found out geralt names his horse roach in this. is it a reference to vernon roche of the previous title

In the books all his horses are named Roach.

ty, so more likely other way around :)

http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Roach

ty....this is a real shame as not only does it confuse it w/ vernon roche, but its such an ugly name in english & i guess its not supposed to be. calling the horse "roach" seems like an insult, when the above poster said he called all his horses that i thought maybe it was intended, he didnt want to get close to them bc they died so often so he just called them roach. :/

Maybe he likes to smoke pot, and when he doesn't have any and can't find any in the wilderness at least his horse reminds him of it.

It's not an insult, rather sort of a pet name - also, one that's specifically female. (Again, I'm talking about the polish original word; these aspects seem to be lost in the english translation)

Erm, you mean Geralt called all the roaches horse? :P

The name of his horse is "Ablette" in french. It's a fish.

If translate it in english it's give me "A Bleak" (The fish)
So, maybe "A roach" his a fish name too no ?

no, a roach in english is a cockroach, a pest bug. not sure what the french word is, but they are basically considered the lowest form of living thing. so i think its quite a bad translation we got (english).

Actually, it's a literal translation: a roach is also a fish, and exactly the one we've been talking about in the other languages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_roach

Yea "Roach" as a name for a horse is a bit odd :P

I thought it was somehow related to the character in W2 as well. Confusing...

You do know that the author who created The Witcher back in the 90's had already named Geralt's horse Roach. CDPR has been good about staying true to the creator of The Witcher, renaming Geralt's horse would have been a mistake. Also, I don't think either Andrejz or CDPR was going for a "pretty" book or game with nice characters and lovely sounding dialogue. In fact, I believe they both went in the exact opposite direction.

I can say that the first two books are slightly less graphic than the games. However, CDPR's adaptations have been brilliant.

i am saying the literal translation does not work in my opinion. in the witcher world he calls the horse by an affectionate feminine name for a fish. to americans & brits it does not soudn affectionate at all, it is quite the opposite, a crude & ugly name.

and there might be a "roach fish" but again that is not how we think of roaches...they are bugs, period.