A review by liz_ross
The Time Of Contempt, by Andrzej Sapkowski

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

"But do you know when stories stop being stories? The moment someone begins to believe in them."

I complained about this when I reviewed Blood of Elves, but it wasn't as clear as it will be now, because I wasn't sure if that was the problem and I actually ended up blaming the impossibility to know where the plot was going for not liking the book. Which was absolutely true, but now that I have two books to base my opinion on, I know for sure that the plotline problem is the result of a much bigger one.

Sapkowski's writing style is definitely not the best out there to write a novel. It is quite good if he is writing a short story, but for a novel... it is not a good choice. It makes the story weird. Sapkowski jumps from place to place, character to character, leaving you completly lost on what's going on, which is the reason why you have absolutely no idea where the plot is supposed to be leading you.

The saddest part is that everything about his descriptions is absolutely perfect, no matter if we are talking about people, places or situations. You can perfectly imagine it all, which means that if he wouldn't jump from character to character more often than not, the book would have everything to be amazing, becausd I am 100% sure that if that didn't happen the plotline would be much more clear and therefore easier to follow.

I am not saying it would be a 5 stars book, because that's not the only thing I dislike about this book, but it would get a higher rating. But let's not follow Sapkowski's example and keep jumping from place to place because I know from experience that it doesn't work.

So, confusing plot because we keep jumping from place to place like some mutant kangoroo. It was so frustrating  that I felt like giving up after reading only 2 chapters. But the book was so short that it felt like a waste to just give it up. Which turned out to be a quite good decision.

If you ask me to tell you when did the plotline started to make sense, I won't be able to tell you. I have no clue. All I know is that I was reading and suddnely I realized I wasn't jumping from place to place so often and I was starting to actually see the path the plot was taking. Which made things better, sure, but for a while wasn't enough.

And the reason for that was the political intrigue. When I said I wasn't jumping from place to place so often, it doesn't mean it didn't happen sometimes. It did. And some would say that since the reader has to put up with that, then at least the reader should be allowed to get some advantage out of that. Sapkowski doesn't agree. I love political intrigue, but only when it is done right. Having to walk blindly and getting backstabbed by both sides because I have no clue of what's going on is not at all my definition of political intrigue done right.

What does that has to do with the jumping from character to character? It's a smart question. The answer, EVERYTING. You see, this book has this character, which I can't decide if I like or not, because I do admire her, but at the same time it sometimes feels like she only exists so Sapkowski can say his books aren't mysognistic, which pisses me off. Her name is Yennifer and she is right in the middle of the political intrigue that is going on, which would make her Sapkowski's best choice to introduce us to the political intrigue. Instead, everything related to it is presented to us when it's  Gerald's story that we are following. The same Geralt who would rather be neutral and doesn't give a damn about politics. It doesn't take a genius to understand why using a character that doesn't care about politics to introduce us to the political intrigue is not a good idea. I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO AT LEAST HAVE ONE CLUE OF WHAT WAS GOING ON. ONE clue and I would have been happy, or at least better than I was walking through all that completly blind. 

Of course, that could have been Sapkowski's objective, to make us know as much as Geralt (which was nothing), but for me that doesn't work. Even if the reader doesn't know everything, there's a minimum of information that the reader needs to have access to in order to make some sense out of what's happening. 

Eventually, after being backstabbed more times than I would have liked, the political scheme became clear. And that, along with the fact that I no longer felt like a mutant kangoroo, allowed the story to be incredibly good. It got much more action (and trust me, if there's one thing Sapkowski absolutely knows how to do, it is writing an absolutely phenomenal fighting scene) and I found myself fully invested on it. 

Truth is, that only happened in the last two or three chapters, but that's the good thing about short books, sometimes two or three really good chapters are enough to make up for all the others. That's the case with this book. I absolutely loved these last chapters and now I can't wait to read the next book to know what will happen to Ciri and Geralt.

But my desire to know what will happen isn't just innocent curiosity to know what will happen next. It's also the need to make sure that important matters are approaced in the right, serious way that they should be. Sapkowski chose to make all that happen too close to the end to give him room to adress those matters in any way, but the way he mentioned them felt way too casual. I am hoping that feeling of casuality is wrong and that adressing it in the end of a book wasn't a mistake Sapkowski made and that he will talk about it again in the next book. 

Overall, I still think Sapkowski's writing style is not the best for a novel, but as the story develops and the several characters cross paths, making the jumpings less frequent, things get better and it's even possible to enjoy the story. 
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