The second in the series, I again enjoyed how this and [b:The Last Wish|40603587|The Last Wish (The Witcher, #0.5)|Andrzej Sapkowski|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529591917l/40603587.SX50.jpg|2293675] were just collections of short stories centered around a single character. It's a fast-paced style that is new to me. Secondary characters from the first book appear again, giving them more depth. And the stories are slightly more cohesive here. Example: Geralt does less monster slaying in this book, and is accordingly hard on cash most of the time. Details like that go a long way.

Cohabitation, morality, destiny, diversity, love, and the ramifications of killing were some topics in the stories. A Shard of Ice probably had the least happen in it, but was my favorite story. It took me by surprise and had a ton of character building. A testament to Sapkowski's range.

Compared to the Netflix adaptation:
- Many stories here appear in season one of the Netflix series. I hope they're able to work more of them into future seasons, because they were mostly great and would make for fun episodes in new settings. There wasn't too much time-jumping in these first two books—which is a huge difference from season one of the adaptation. And for being independent stories, they seemed fairly linear.