Sword of Destiny

It is fabulous to read these stories after playing the Witcher games and seeing the series. My head canon is now a strange and wonderful mix of faded game memories, series visuals and book details. Having the show fresh in my head was helpful, most notably I think for the final story "Something More". I can't be sure but I feel like having the show as background made it easier to follow. It also helped some differences stand out.

Some of the writing felt pretty awkward, but whether that's due the original text or the translation I can't say. It was never enough to jolt me out of the story, just minor speed bumps.

I found though not a lot 'happens' in this book, it is really quite sad so I rated it a bit higher than I normally would just because I wasn't expecting to have a bad case of the feels. A pleasant and tearful surprise.

Characters I felt were sort of 'meh' from the other books really redeem themselves or just have a lot of reality and life breathed into them. A really great collection of stories.

Much the same as the first book, short stories tied together in a pleasant bundle. Adventure, romance, magic, monsters, destiny, hallucinogens.

WHAT’S REALLY NICE THOUGH is that the women have thoughts, agency, & aren’t just there to turn an ankle & be saved. Everyone- man, woman, child, half-elf, & strigia, they’re all as capable of good or evil as each other. The protagonist is as fallible & prone to hubris as any other. Dandelion, as ever, a delight.

My favourite bit;

“And then, by the Gods, they did it, she and he.

And everything was all right.”

lol, adorable. And this chapter/story’s YA chastity was more than made up for by the Beltane encounter, phwoar. I’m excited to read more of the linear story in the next.

I have finally back tracked and read the actual #2 in this series. Now, Blood of Elves makes much more sense.

I think that Sapkowski is at his best when writing these short story collections about Geralt of Rivia. The pacing was much better than in his full length pieces for the series, and I found each story illuminated important aspects of Gerald’s personality, sense of purpose, and background. I particularly enjoyed the chapters concerning the “Doppler” and the encounter with dryads.

Death is the other blade of the two-edged sword. I am the first blade. And the second is death, which dogs my footsteps.

I enjoyed this a lot more than The Last Wish, as it felt like the stories were more cohesive and focused on Ciri or Yennefer. I will continue with the series and see how the 'main' stories compare to the first few.

After feeling somewhat lukewarm on The Last Wish, to have this second anthology of short stories blow me away as expertly as they did was a wonderful surprise. Every problem I had with Last Wish has been resolved.

These stories are much, mush more introspective. They’re more character and relationship studies. While the world is still just as gritty and harsh as before, the pathos contained through Geralt, Dandelion, Yennefer and a young Ciri are all heartbreakingly touching.

I’ll start with the numbered series of books now, but I suspect that this will stay as my favorite of the Witcher books.

Brilliant as always, and a pleasure to fill the gaps in Geralt and Ciri's story.

More short stories. Again, not bad, but not great. At least they seem slightly more related to each other this time. I'm a bit surprised that the series seems to be almost as much about Ciri as Geralt, considering that she only got pulled into the story on the last game of the series.