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A review by dmwhipp
Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski
2.0
Geralt of Rivia, a monster assassin with supernatural abilities aka Witcher, is tasked with protecting and helping to train the prophesied child Ciri. Orphaned after her parents died in a shipwreck, Ciri is a princess of Cintra and the heir to the throne after a brutal war with the Nilfgaardians killed her grandmother.
Well. Perhaps I should have read The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny before reading this book. Honestly, the controversy about what order in which to read these stories was more interesting than this story itself. As far as The Blood of Elves goes, I found the characters soulless with the women in particular rather dull, subject to the whims of their sexual desires or hampered by their menstrual cycles. For the life of me I couldn’t discern why Geralt held such attraction to females since it was never explained. For that matter, it’s strange how he’s the main character, yet virtually nothing is shared about him or his background. And for a monster hunter with magical abilities, it was interesting that he killed not a single monster in this entire book.
With a book containing elves, dwarves, gnomes, humans, magical creatures, et cetera, this was often surprisingly dull. Large chunks featured mostly interchangeable characters with hard-to-remember names discussing political, military, and marital strategies for a coming war that would allow their factions to remain in power.
I have the Last Wish on my Kindle, but after slogging through this I’m definitely in no rush to read that or to watch the Netflix series. Not impressed.
Well. Perhaps I should have read The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny before reading this book. Honestly, the controversy about what order in which to read these stories was more interesting than this story itself. As far as The Blood of Elves goes, I found the characters soulless with the women in particular rather dull, subject to the whims of their sexual desires or hampered by their menstrual cycles. For the life of me I couldn’t discern why Geralt held such attraction to females since it was never explained. For that matter, it’s strange how he’s the main character, yet virtually nothing is shared about him or his background. And for a monster hunter with magical abilities, it was interesting that he killed not a single monster in this entire book.
With a book containing elves, dwarves, gnomes, humans, magical creatures, et cetera, this was often surprisingly dull. Large chunks featured mostly interchangeable characters with hard-to-remember names discussing political, military, and marital strategies for a coming war that would allow their factions to remain in power.
I have the Last Wish on my Kindle, but after slogging through this I’m definitely in no rush to read that or to watch the Netflix series. Not impressed.