In my last post about the subject, I said I was "on the fence" about the series. Well, this book is different to the other two, but didn't push me either way.
The first two books are collections of interconnected short stories. This one takes the form of a novel, although there are still some distinct "arcs" happening separately.
It feels a lot better written than the first two. The dialogue is great - I especially enjoyed the quarrel between elves, dwarves, bards, druids, etc., in the beginning of the book.
On the other hand, the pace suffers a bit. The last half of the book is especially slow. I don't mind some character development, but it failed to pique my interest. Maybe some scenes bored me because I've been playing the last videogame so I have a good idea on what happens to some important characters.
The world-building... well, like the other books, it is still interesting but full of Poughkeepsie. The bards go to bard universities with the doctors, the structure of espionage is really modern, etc.
The action scenes are decent, but a bit sparse. The twists at the end of each arc are good and not entirely predictable... yet. Geralt suffers a bit, but honestly not enough to make me feel like he ccan be defeated.
Some of it still feels like soap opera. Some of it is cringey. The hero still gets all women - and they are all quite beautiful, it seems. There is some intrigue, but it feels a bit gratuitous. There are still lots of cool ideas to use in your D&D games. Not a lot of cool monsters in this one, tough...
Frankly, I think I like the first two books more. The writing and dialogue felt better on this one, and but the first ones had more interesting bits.
The books are short and fast-paced enough that reading them is rarely a chore. Not sure I'll read the next one, but, as long as you're interested, I'll let you know!
I always wondered how much of the Witcher's postmodern charm carries over to English translation. I mean, a lot od these books' appeal comes from the tongue-in-cheek commentary on 1990s Poland, from politics through religion, popculture, all the way to history and folklore.
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