A review by miclikesbooks
Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

See my video review here:  https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR7TrG5e/

Of The Witcher books I've read so far, this is the best one.
Finally, we set off on our epic quest! It only took 2 full novels until we could get the ball rollin'.  This book focuses primarily on Geralt as he searches for Ciri after the events of Time of Contempt.   Throughout his journey, he is joined by various characters that make a sort of dysfunctional fellowship that has no idea where they are headed, no idea how to work as a team, and no idea what will be coming next.
I love it.
The new characters are REALLY likeable.  There's Milva, the badass archer who is more at home amongst trees than people.  There's Regis, a barber surgeon whose intellectual pontification plays well with the rest of the party's working-class style
It's also VERY fun to have a party member who is a vampire, and seeing Geralt's reaction as a professional monster hunter. 
  The returning characters are also wonderful: Geralt is all stiff and brooding, but learns the value of teamwork (through soup-making of all things), Dandelion is still ridiculous, we learn what happened to Yennefer following the last book, and we have a surprise return of
Cahir, who is becoming one of my favorite characters.  He's noble, gentle, and (something that the TV series REALLY goofed up on) young.  I like that he was built up as this huge, scary monster, but really, he's just a kid.  Geralt's growing...acceptance? of him is one of the high points of the novel.
  We also get little updates on Ciri and her life with
the rats
since the last novel, which is all great.

One of my favorite things Sapkowski does is he introduces these little frame stories throughout, and rarely picks back up on them.  There's one point where it's an actual storyteller, telling the story to  a group of kids.  There are a few where it's a character being questioned and it moves back and forth between their answers and the actual events, and sometimes it's framed as dreams.

It's fun, adventurous, dark, clever, and I can't wait to read the next one. 5/5 stars for me.