Reviews with content warning for War - La dama del lago

I have spent a long time reading the witcher novels and to say this last book was a disappointment is an understatement. However, my favorite passages and chapters of all the witcher books came from this book. In general, I liked the writing and how some things were wrapped up but the fate of, almost, all beloved characters was just lousy. I also disliked that they introduced new characters and plot in this book, some even in the last 50 pages. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't read it but it was largely unsatisfying.

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efsimpkin's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Wow. What a finale to the Witcher series. This took a long time for me to read, mostly because the start of the book is very, very slow. I can’t really remember the significance of Geralt’s arc in Toussaint necessarily or the start of Ciri’s travels post-Tower and at the end of the day it didn’t really end up mattering that much.

I do need to say though that as a Merlin fan I really enjoyed all the Camelot references, lol.

In the middle of the book is where the plot starts to pick up and Sapkowski’s writing shines once more. There’s a chapter that uses multiple POVs to describe a battle scene and it’s masterful. Throughout, we get thrown between times and places with only scraps of information to tell us where we are but it is perfectly executed. The use of a recurring motif (I won’t spoil what it is) hit me like a tonne of bricks when I worked out what it was doing. The use of sometimes very simple dialogue or clever word games is brilliant and even more brilliant when you consider that it survived translation, so well done to French as well for his work there.

This is by far the darkest and saddest book in the series, I feel, and I think that’s what makes it beautiful in its own way. I spent the whole book wondering how it would align with the characters I know from TW3, and I only got that answer right at the end, which was excellent. I had been lightly spoiled for the ending previously which is a shame but I still deeply enjoyed the book.

I’m going to wait a good long while, until I’m feeling nostalgic, to read Season of Storms.

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saltylane's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Like all the other books in the Witcher series, this one jumps back and forth between perspectives, and gives a lot of information that isn’t completely necessary or interesting. The writing style is descriptive but not necessarily excessively so. The story itself has a lot of twists and turns and mysteries. I’d say the ending was rather bittersweet. Also, there were a lot of things that didn’t really make too much sense for the characters that have developed over the past handful of books. There were also just a handful of times whenever an action was starting to peak, and then it just dropped down because there was some kind of intervention that just happened to happen at that moment.

I didn’t necessarily expect a happy ending for everyone… But at least an ending that actually had conclusions that really mattered or that made sense would’ve been nice.

Overall, I rather enjoyed the series, despite its many flaws. With the switching perspectives, it did get confusing as to what was going on and what character was doing what. It often went to characters that I wasn’t really sure why they were even included… Unless they were just trying to close up plot lines? I don’t know; they didn’t really matter. It didn’t really seem very important that So-and-So died in such a way or succeeded in XYZ. Sure, sometimes it was nice to see what older characters that we hadn’t seen in a while were doing… But overall it wasn’t really important to the plot what was going on in their lives.

The reader for this audiobook is very talented! He really knows how to manipulate his voice to the different characters and stick with it consistently. The voice acting was also very good with emphasized emotions relevant to the scenes.

I’m really interested in seeing how the series on Netflix adapts all of the storylines. Hopefully it’s a little bit less convoluted…

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knkoch's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

5.0

This was a fitting end to the main series and the linear part of Geralt and Ciri’s story. It’s by far the longest, but it felt well-organized and thematically clear. I felt less confused or out on a limb than I have throughout some of the other books.

The changing storyteller aspect (telling parts of the story from later points in time, looking back, and/or from a distant storyteller) was occasionally irritating, as it felt like a way to slow down the most compelling parts of the narrative. But overall, it finally felt more appropriate to have so many narratives to jump between, as the many characters were better established by this point. By the final half, this reminded me strongly of The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the way several disparate groups or characters are working in different parts of the world during an enormous war. A nice fellowship developed here, too.

I’ve still got Season of Storms left, and then I’ll be all through with Witcher books! For awhile, at least. But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them and will be sad to turn that final page.

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hellbender's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A

4.0

big 👍🏼 for the chapter where ciri jumps between worlds; that was great. big 👎🏼 for all the times Ciri almost gets raped and exploited

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proudtobeabookaholic's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Häxkarlsflickan Ciri har vandrat genom en portal till en annan värld och en annan tid. Även här finns det de som vill bestämma över hennes liv, något hon aldrig tycks kunna komma ifrån. Under tiden letar både vänner och fiender efter henne, framför allt häxkarlen Geralt. Men kriget mot Nilfgaard är oundvikligt och alla kommer inte att överleva.

Jag blir lite förvirrad av hoppen mellan de olika historierna och de olika berättarna, det är lite svårt att få tag på den röda tråden. Ibland kommer jag heller inte ihåg vilka karaktärerna är - de är ju så otroligt många! Samtidigt är det här en bok jag kan läsa i lite då och då eftersom jag är bekant med världen och huvudkaraktärerna. Bitvis är boken spännande och intressant, men jag börjar nog bli klar med Witcher-världen. Blev lite förvånad när den här boken började kännas mer och mer som en avslutande del, med tanke på att det finns ytterligare en bok i serien, men det verkar som om den sista delen utspelar sig före huvudserien. Med andra ord så är "Damen i sjön" avslutande och jag behöver egentligen inte läsa "Ovädrets tid". Den verkar likna samlingarna med kortare berättelser som introducerade mig för den här världen och som jag, så här i efterhand, tror jag tyckt bäst om, så jag kommer att läsa den så småningom. Men det kanske dröjer ett tag...

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