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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I find myself torn on this one. On the one hand, it's very dry and full of disconnected snapshots of time that kind of hurt my brain and accomplish very little. There's so much time spent talking about the politics and the potential for war and only two actual fights (one a skirmish which was brilliantly done and one an alleyway brawl) and a bit of cool magical training. But while I admit to being bored I never quite got compelled to put the book down and give up. Plus lots of potential for fun future adventures
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The next in the series and the story has definitely taken on a darker narrative. The world is dimensional. The conversations demonstrate different world perspectives. It’s creating an interesting political tapestry.
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is a solid step up from the last novel/final short story entry of the series. It fulfilled most of the promises I had for the series (for now) and does a good job using the world building Sapkowski did in his short stories.
Racial tensions have been building between the elves, dwarves, and humans; which an invading army is using to their advantage by funding minority terrorist groups to weaken the Northern Kingdoms. Racists or a bloodthirsty empire? Tough decisions as both are clearly evil, but one must rule the continent. Meanwhile, Geralt is training Ciri and protecting her from this evil empire, the cult of sorceresses, and anybody else who knows she is important. We get a good setup by seeing the racial tensions nearly explode during one of Dandelion's concerts and the baddies come shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, we quickly learn Yennefer lives and is back in the story. I can't say why I despise this without getting into spoilers, but let's just say she tries to get a prepubescent girl to embrace her sexuality in this novel. Luckily, we are introduced to another sorceress, Triss.
Triss spends most of the novel helping Ciri during her training with the witchers. Since none of them know how to raise a girl, she helps Ciri deal with puberty while they intensely train her to be a monster hunter. Triss's banter with the witchers and Geralt's unease around her (she's another ex) add some good humor to this novel. She's also the one female (aside from Ciri) Geralt refuses to have sex with, despite her advances. This adds some likablilty to her as she is clearly more than her boobs, which already makes her a more qualified love interest than Yen. It was also fun seeing a squad of hardened monster hunters struggle to raise a little girl. They literally had no idea what to do with her and tried to ignore her femininity, which was hilarious.
Meanwhile, we get to see the toll the war has on the land and Geralt struggling to remain neutral. This becomes all the more apparent when he runs into those bad dwarves from the Sword of Destiny, who have since reformed into humanitarians whose sole purpose is to be kind to refugees. This redemption shakes Geralt and Ciri also tried pressuring him into aiding the war to help avenge her country and save innocents. It's a fun dynamic to see our hero not wanting to do the right thing because he knows it will hurt his loved ones. He knows every decision he makes will end in innocent death and we get to see him struggling not to choose who deserves life more. Yet, by refusing to help, he protects his kinda daughter from the war.
The novel itself has plenty of good stuff in humorous character interaction/training contrasted with the horrors of war. There is plenty of political intrigue as Geralt tries to learn why Nilfaard is after Ciri, with plenty of betrayals along the way and some awesome spies I won't spoil for you. If you like dark fantasy, grizzled heroes befriending and defending little girls, plus political intrigue, this is for you. BUT fair warning, the series only gets worse and better as things go on. Geralt will find it harder to keep it in his pants, more rapes will happen, but we'll get some of the best characters in fantasy, some awesome plot twists and increasingly complex politics. You'll know what I mean when we get to Time of Contempt (the worst) and Baptism of Fire (the best). If you loved this, continue on. If not, this is your last point to jump off before the true triggers start...
Racial tensions have been building between the elves, dwarves, and humans; which an invading army is using to their advantage by funding minority terrorist groups to weaken the Northern Kingdoms. Racists or a bloodthirsty empire? Tough decisions as both are clearly evil, but one must rule the continent. Meanwhile, Geralt is training Ciri and protecting her from this evil empire, the cult of sorceresses, and anybody else who knows she is important. We get a good setup by seeing the racial tensions nearly explode during one of Dandelion's concerts and the baddies come shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, we quickly learn Yennefer lives and is back in the story. I can't say why I despise this without getting into spoilers, but let's just say she tries to get a prepubescent girl to embrace her sexuality in this novel. Luckily, we are introduced to another sorceress, Triss.
Triss spends most of the novel helping Ciri during her training with the witchers. Since none of them know how to raise a girl, she helps Ciri deal with puberty while they intensely train her to be a monster hunter. Triss's banter with the witchers and Geralt's unease around her (she's another ex) add some good humor to this novel. She's also the one female (aside from Ciri) Geralt refuses to have sex with, despite her advances. This adds some likablilty to her as she is clearly more than her boobs, which already makes her a more qualified love interest than Yen. It was also fun seeing a squad of hardened monster hunters struggle to raise a little girl. They literally had no idea what to do with her and tried to ignore her femininity, which was hilarious.
Meanwhile, we get to see the toll the war has on the land and Geralt struggling to remain neutral. This becomes all the more apparent when he runs into those bad dwarves from the Sword of Destiny, who have since reformed into humanitarians whose sole purpose is to be kind to refugees. This redemption shakes Geralt and Ciri also tried pressuring him into aiding the war to help avenge her country and save innocents. It's a fun dynamic to see our hero not wanting to do the right thing because he knows it will hurt his loved ones. He knows every decision he makes will end in innocent death and we get to see him struggling not to choose who deserves life more. Yet, by refusing to help, he protects his kinda daughter from the war.
The novel itself has plenty of good stuff in humorous character interaction/training contrasted with the horrors of war. There is plenty of political intrigue as Geralt tries to learn why Nilfaard is after Ciri, with plenty of betrayals along the way and some awesome spies I won't spoil for you. If you like dark fantasy, grizzled heroes befriending and defending little girls, plus political intrigue, this is for you. BUT fair warning, the series only gets worse and better as things go on. Geralt will find it harder to keep it in his pants, more rapes will happen, but we'll get some of the best characters in fantasy, some awesome plot twists and increasingly complex politics. You'll know what I mean when we get to Time of Contempt (the worst) and Baptism of Fire (the best). If you loved this, continue on. If not, this is your last point to jump off before the true triggers start...
adventurous
mysterious
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book is very slow especially for a first of full book series imo. I would have probably given it 4 stars if it wasn’t so slow, it’s easy to follow the story line but sometimes there are spaces when u jump into a new timeline and have to adapt, I’d say this book would probably won’t be a good start into the Witcher series but I don’t think you should skip it even though you won’t miss much of the content. I really liked the mother daughter relationship between Ciri and yen at the end I love the way Ciri express her thoughts about yen and I love that they soften yen’s character which makes her even more likeable.
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes