Say it with me now, print it on a t-shirt: I should have written this review right after finishing the book.
Or, I guess if it were on a t-shirt it would be better like: FINISH THE BOOK, WRITE THE REVIEW, DO IT NOW, NO NOW NOT TOMORROW, NO PUT DOWN THE BAG OF CHIPS, DON’T WATCH THAT EPISODE, YOU WILL REGRET THIS LATER!!! Something like that. Maybe that’s too much text for a t-shirt. Probably too niche of a market, anyway.
I remember liking this book back when I read it mid-July, but specifics are mostly escaping me now. The biggest thing I remember about reading it was that it felt weirdly like a short story collection, or at least reminiscent of one in how episodic it felt. This makes sense to me as the first two books in the series were short story collections, so that’s sort of the mode Sapkowski was in. Also, writing these long, detailed, dialogue-heavy scenes and then just completely moving onto something else seems to be part of his style.
It’s also not Sapkowski’s style to hand you all the answers. You have to piece a lot of what’s going on in the larger Witcher world yourself, the political situation is incredibly fraught, and we only get context bit by bit as the book goes on, learning gradually what the stakes are for not only Geralt and Ciri and Yennefer, etc, but for the larger socio-cultural landscape they occupy. The title hints toward the most poignant section of the book, and also how the conflict is likely to bear out, and who it will hurt the most.
There’s a lot more of Ciri here, and I continue to like her as a presence, mostly for what she does to Geralt and Yennefer, as she bonds with them and changes their priorities. I should probably get to books two and three (the ones I own) sooner rather than later, so I don’t forget even more of what’s relevant to the story.