Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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A weird ending for this series.

Lady of the Lake (The Witcher, #5) by Andrzej Sapkowski

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Basically . . . I don’t get it. The longest book in the series by quite a bit, Lady of the Lake is the weirdest possible ending for almost everything that has happened in this series so far, and I’m hard-pressed at the moment (and have been for the last two months) to see how it resolves much of anything that this series has been about for the last four books, plus two short story collections. I don’t know what to do with this book? […]

“They are not demons, not devils . . . Worse than that. They are people.”

The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher, #4) by Andrzej Sapkowski

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 27/30 This series is so weird. I’m fairly certain I have started a review of one of these books before with that exact same sentence. I think I meant it more positively on that one. I am up and down, up and down with these books. One I’ll be obsessed and inhale it, and the next will be a slog that doesn’t catch my attention. This one was unfortunately mostly the second thing for me, although I still liked […]

“Were I to attempt to be good to everyone, to the entire world and to all the creatures living in it, it would be a drop of fresh water in the salt sea. In other words, a wasted effort. Thus, I decided to do specific good; good which would not go to waste. I’m good to myself and my immediate circle.”

Baptism of Fire (The Witcher, #3) by Andrzej Sapkowski

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This series is so weird. This book doesn’t really have a beginning, middle, or end. Geralt spends the whole time hiding his feelings and being mad that people like him and want to help him. They spend the whole book on a fruitless quest. At one point we spend forty pages with all the characters getting drunk off weird mandrake root brew and chit-chatting, no forward plot movement at all. The main conflict of the book has no resolution, and the resolution that we are […]

“What say you, Dandelion? Is there still good sense in the world? Or do only contemptibility and contempt remain?”

The Time of Contempt (The Witcher, #2) by Andrzej Sapkowski

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I had a bit of a tough time with this one, after pretty much devouring the last two. It may have just been my mood at the time, or it may not have been. Shrug. Stylistically, this is pretty similar to Blood of Elves. Sapkowski continues to have a really episodic writing style. Each chapter features a new location with new POV characters, and each chapter features the characters engaged in one or more long conversations as a way to bring across plot. These books […]

“If the ability to make use of experience and draw conclusions decided, we would have forgotten what war is a long time ago. But those whose goal is war have never been held back, nor will be, by experience or analogy.”

Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1) by Andrzej Sapkowski

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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 […]

Toss a coin to your witcher. #CBRBingo – Adaptation

Sword of Destiny (The Witcher, #0.75) by Andrzej Sapkowski

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I have really turned around on this series! I feel like I need to re-read the first book now before moving onto the series proper, because I only experienced it in a grudging manner, and didn’t appreciate it for its good qualities. I will also be honest in that it was entirely the Netflix show that did the turning. I enjoyed it so much that it crystallized for me retroactively what people were seeing in the books. This second book in the Witcher series is […]



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