Genre: Fantasy
Series: Bonus Witcher book
Page Count: 419
Publication Year: Originally published 2013, my version was released 2018
Publisher: Orbit
Special Notes: Translated from Polish by David French
Summary: Geralt loses his swords and goes on some other adventures.
So, a while back I basically said I was quitting the Witcher series. The main story had proved stagnant and the only way I’d return was to read the bits I missed from Dandelion’s perspective. Then the tv show came out and the world of the Witcher surrounded me. I thought, “You know what? There’s one more book that doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot or Ciri. Maybe I’ll give that one a shot.” And I did. With mixed results.
I know there are questions on when to read this book in the series. You can’t really go wrong with the publication order, in which case you’d read this one last. But chronologically it happens just before the short story in The Last Wish called “The Witcher.” I don’t know what the order is for all the short stories so to be safe you can read this after you’ve finished both short story books.
This book opens with Geralt in the midst of completing a monster hunt. He then goes to a city where his swords are stolen and the story goes from there. But it’s not as simple as that. He also works with sorcerers, goes on a boat ride through a bad swampy place and gets sucked into this royal wedding. Now, all that spawned from his being in the city where he lost the swords, but none of them are essential to the sword angle. I think losing the swords is short story, not novel, material. I’m going to talk more about this in my upcoming Are The Witcher Books Good? post (here it is), but in short, I think Sapkowski’s strength lies in short stories and not long series.
The missing swords are a weak connection between everything and it’s dragged out and not solved in a satisfactory way for me. The simple fix would’ve been to add one or two more quests and make a short story collection instead of flimsily stringing them all together. I like my stories to be more cohesive.
If I did treat it like a collection instead of a novel, it’s still not that great. The boat ride and job for the sorcerers didn’t work for me. I like the wedding though. That’s fun. And MINOR SPOILER AHEAD Geralt runs into a man who’s a witcher failure. (The mutation procedure that witchers go through to become witchers messed him up and he’s now a crazy killer.) I’d’ve liked to have seen that tidbit explored more. As it stands, it serves as a cool tie-in to one of the original short stories. END SPOILER
Two things I’d like to highlight about this book’s feel:
It was published fourteen years after the main series ended and two years after the second game was released. I think the reason this book doesn’t sit quite right is that so much time has passed since Sapkowski wrote anything for this world and perhaps the increase in popularity tweaked his perspective of it. There’s nothing definitive I can point to regarding this change, it just didn’t seem quite right.
The other point regards the presented themes. Abortion, racism, prejudice, overpopulation, messing with genetics, and to a degree (ha!), climate change, are all discussed. Some of those are mentioned in the other books, but now it’s borderline preachy and doesn’t mesh with the fantasy setting. Literally ten pages in and they’re talking about women having “the right” to abort babies and I’m like, “Why is this in here? This is supposed to be about monster hunting!” And of course the pro-life stance is not defended well and the “defender” is shown in a villainous light. I am so sick of modern politics invading my fiction.
It’s nice to see Geralt actually fighting monsters. I know this is a weird thing to say, but sometimes he’s is a bit too moralistic. I want my monster hunters to let the guts fall. In the main series, Geralt kinda quit being a witcher and went around talking with people and not accomplishing much. This book and the short stories are what I wanted more of in the main storyline regarding him.
I love Dandelion. He is one of my all time favorite characters in literature. He’s such a wonderfully flawed man and his friendship with Geralt is great. He is generous, charming, loyal, a fount of information, and he’s a good person to know and be liked by. For an example of his adorable friendship, he said of Geralt’s sudden appearance, “But when I saw you I knew you’d save me. I mean, I didn’t, but I was counting strongly on it…” And before that, Geralt’s talking with Dandelion’s cousin and he said, “We’ve never spoken face to face. Dandelion has always been with us and I didn’t want to bring up the subject with him there.” Geralt’s trying to hide Dandelion’s cousin’s questionable actions from him. Aaaahhhhh! Their bromance is the best!
Dandelion also has a brief part in the book from his perspective and it’s glorious and matches his personality perfectly. I would read an entire book (or series) from his POV. A sign of a truly great character is that every time they’re in a scene, I have to know what they’re doing and want to know what they think. Every time Dandelion appears I want to follow him and see what he does.
You know how villainous monologues are cheap and lame? Well, hold onto your book, ‘cause this one has a nine page monologue. Nine. Pages. Geralt does say that the guy loves the sound of his own voice but could I not have gotten the pertinent information some other way? Truly he is a villain for subjecting me to such a horror.
Sometimes the description is too detailed. I don’t need to know which artery or muscle is severed, and yet I’m told just that. I did like hearing the menu for the wedding, although some of it sounds questionable e.g. swans’ knees in honey. And do all the sorceresses smell of flowers and fruit? Yennefer smells of lilacs and gooseberries, and Coral has her freesias and apricots. Is that part of sorceress lore?
I did a little research on the epilogue and it turns out I’m not the only one confused by it. Is the person the girl talks to really the person she thinks it is? How would that work? And is the Revival something that happens in the last two books, which I didn’t read? I have no clue.
So, was this book worth my return? It really encapsulates my experience with the main series: parts are good, bad, unnecessary, or drawn out. Geralt sleeps with every available woman (three), Dandelion remains my favorite character, most of the other people leave little impression, I like the world, I dislike that there's no map, and I wish it was different. But Ciri is not in this book, which is a huge plus.
So, is it worth it? *sigh* It’s passable. If you want more of the world, this gives it to you. If you’re certain it’s not worth your time, I won’t try to convince you otherwise.
But Dandelion’s part is golden.
Check out my rating here.
You can read my first Witcher review, and then follow the other listed links to witness the series' decline.
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