It's so strange to see how this compares to the earlier short stories which are superior in every way. So little seems to happen in this beyond set pieces of politics and philosophing. And whilst I enjoy fantasy being used for social satire, there needs to be more to hold an entire novel together. What made Witcher so great was the monster hunting and the twists on classic fairy tales, but even that is ejected. At one point, Geralt is set up to tangle with a vicious river monster, but that gets quickly glossed over as he instead whinges that he's told old for all that. I understand he's not meant to be a classic hero and his whole deal is his neutrality, but he's not as easy a protaganist to get behind in the novel like he once was.

It's still something I enjoyed to a certain extent, but I was surprised to see it take out most of what made the series so good and leave behind just the bland medieval setting and banterous dialogue to mark any semblance of what came before.

It's like playing the cutscenes in the video game and bypassing the actual gameplay ( )

The final chapter is the best non-Geralt chapter so far. I thought that I was so used to the short stories structure of the first two books and that this would be weird, but it wasn't and it was kinda nice to have one story. And it definitely feels like the first book in the series even though it's the third. 3.8/5 ( )

3,5/5

This one was kinda tough for a bunch of reasons. I believe that the secret to read a book well is to figure out it's rythm and adapt to it. By that I mean the way the story flows and works. Is there a lot of action or more quiet scenes? Are those quiet scenes filled with quick dialogue of long speeches? Can you feel/predict when something bad is about to happens? There's a whole lot to learn about it, but even when you figure it out, it's not always easy. Sometimes I'll figure out the rythm right away, but find it unbearable. It's really not an exact science, but it's something that works for me.

I bring this up because the rythm of the Witcher books is the most critical thing about the series for me. It's pretty odd, the descriptions are long and somewhat winded, but sometimes they are really fast. A lot of the book is filled with conversations that go from quick exchange of wits to incredibly long winded speeches in a matter of two pages. Geralt, the main character of the series, is only in about 50% of this book. So my desire to keep reading can also fluctuate wildly based on which part of the book I'm in. Even though this is the first one in the series here that isn't just a bunch of short stories, it still sort of feels very similar to it. Each chapter is by itself a short story in a narrow timeframe for Geralt and Ciri.

That out of the way, I can say that I enjoyed this book quite a bit, even if not as much as I expected. A long time is used on political and strategical ramblings about war, and very important things happen in very short and confuse sentences, so it requires a lot of attention. There's not much action in it and that doesn't bother me, but I do wish we had more Geralt around in the book, a long time is spent following the conversations of seemingly random, albeit important, characters. Due to this, the ending left me with conflicting feelings: I wished it would go on a bit longer, but I was also quite happy to reach the ending.

The characters are always a fun part, at least most of them are. Javier is better when interacting directly with Geralt, because we can see just how much he cares for his friend, even in his own weird little way. Geralt is pretty amazing, it never ceases to amaze me how much nicer and sillier he is compared to other Witches media. Book Geralt is somewhat sad, but also incredibly naive and nice to the people around him that give him the time of day. Ciri is pretty great to, her fiery and lively personality serves to add a necessary fire to certain scenes.

And something that I thought when reading the last book in the series also stands true to this one: I really hate book Yennefer. Everything about her is vaguely annoying, she likes to play with people and torment them just... because. That holds specially true when it comes to Geralt. I get that they are supposed to be in this weird and difficult relationship, but oh my god, she treats him like shit all the time. She throws him away and then complains when he doesn't constantly go after her 24/7. I thought at first that all sorceresses were sorta like this, BUT NO, this book shows that she's just like that! So yeah, I truly hate her.

All in all, it's not a bad book, but it could certainly be better. I will continue reading the series, but I do hope the next one hypes me more. And that it has less Yennefer. ( )

Best fantasy ever. It's worth reading the prequels as it will give you better context. ( )

So richtig begeistert hat mich der erste Teil nicht, manche Passagen haben sich doch sehr gezogen. Das letzte Kapitel macht allerdings wieder Lust auf mehr, ich werde die Serie also noch weiterlesen! ( )