Blood of Elves

This was such an enjoyable dip into a richly imagined fantasy world. My partner’s interest in the games got us watching the Netflix adaptation, and reading the books felt like the logical next step. This mass-market paperback sold me completely. I’m ready for the full boxed set. The storyline shares some beats with the show, but there’s enough distinction to keep it feeling fresh. Ciri is young, impulsive, and incredibly relatable. Geralt is dark and brooding but also caring. I love their interactions with each other and beyond. The world-building is immersive, brimming with the detail that fuels endless exploration and adaptation. It’s easy to see why this universe has inspired games, shows, and surely an abundance of show more fanfiction. The writing has a unique voice, balancing humour and heart. It’s hard to tell how much credit belongs to Sapkowski versus the translator, but the result is fantastic. I’ll be getting into the earlier short story collections and continuing the series as soon as I get my hands on them. So far, the books are absolutely worth the read. show less

It's funny, halfway through I would've given this a solid three stars, but it ended on such a high note that it colored my opinion of the rest of the book.

More than anything, Blood of Elves is chock full: of characters, of plots, of setup. At times it can feel like you're running behind Andrzej Sapkowski, trying frantically to grab hold of his coat, while he sprints ahead of you tossing exposition over his shoulder. And yet, despite the abundance of new characters and crucial mysteries, there is remarkably little movement. Not much actually... changes? It is a novel's worth of setup--getting the pieces into place so that they can start to move, hopefully, in the later installments.

And you can definitely tell that this is Sapkowski's show more first Witcher novel, because his instinct for the first half is still to chop the action up into temporally, spacially, even tonally distinct episodes (Triss and the witchers raising Ciri at Kaer Morhen, Geralt patrolling the delta on a barge). He has a propensity to introduce fascinating, seemingly very important characters--Philippa Eilhart, Djikstra, Vilgefortz of Roggeveen--give them one scene and then drop them from the narrative entirely, something which feels like a holdover from the short story format.

My last gripe is that this book really should have come with a map. I'm frankly baffled that it didn't. Maybe Sapkowski hadn't finalized the geography yet, but it certainly seems final here... At the opening of Chapter 6, several monarchs have a very consequential discussion in which they formulate a plan to break their armistice with Nilfgaard and there is so much geopolitical detail that I had to cross-reference fanmade maps with maps from the various games to figure out where Redania was in relation to the Yoruga or whatever. Crazy-making. A lot of this book's plot has to do with the formation of and tension between alliances so please, give a girl a map.

To end this review on a high note as well, I was a huge fan of Blood of Elves' final section, in which Ciri meets Yennefer and begins an education in magic. Yennefer is my favorite character of these books so far and this chapter displays all the best parts of her: honesty, pride, razor-sharp wit, unwavering strength, a surprising tenderness and depth of feeling. Geralt's absence here is absolutely crucial--they both love him and are deeply important to him but here they're able to bond without his influence. I hope for more scenes between the two of them, and I hope the next book has some of the momentum this one lacked! show less

The thing I was most struck by in Blood of Elves -- aside from the character work, which remains my favorite aspect of this series -- is its structure. Despite being a novel in every sense of the word, Sapkowski's chapters are segmented in such a way that they feel like short stories. The timelines aren't as bifurcated as they are in the prior two entries, but they also don't flow together in the way you expect.

The Kaer Morhen and Ciri/Yen chapters were my favorite. I especially loved watching Ciri and Yen's relationship blossom.

This was a lot slower paced than I was expecting. There is plenty of blood and magic involved, but the book's general tenor feels more like set-up than bombast. But I liked that. The characters are what drew me show more in, and as long as that focus remains, I'll be a happy reader. show less

4.5 stelle.

"La magia ti tende la mano, Ciri. A te, strana bambina, Sorpresa, Figlia del sangue Antico, il Sangue degli elfi. Strana bambina intessuta di Movimento e Cambiamento, Distruzione e Rinascita. Destinata e tu stessa destino. La magia ti tende la mano da dietro la porta chiusa. A te, granellino di sabbia begli ingranaggi dell'orologio della Sorte. Tende le sue grinfie verso di te il Caos, che non sa ancora se diventerai uno strumento o un ostacolo ai suoi piani. Ciò che ti mostra in sogno è appunto questa incertezza. Il Caos ha paura di te, Bambina Sorpresa. E vuole fa sì che sia tu ad averne."

Dopo il precedente volume che non era altro che la seconda raccolta di racconti e che non mi aveva convinto molto, non sapevo cosa show more aspettarmi da questo primo romanzo.
Partendo dal presupposto che questo libro non ha una fine, come ha scritto Lys nella sua recensione, e gli eventi vengono messi in pausa, un po' come nei libri di ASOIAF di Martin, il Sangue degli Elfi è riuscito comunque a conquistarmi.
In questo primo romanzo vengono poste le basi per una buona trama, dei personaggi ben caratterrizzati e un worldbuilding che, seppur sia pennellato a tratti e risulta di tanto in tanto vago, trovo sia originale ed efficace.

Cerco di esaminare ogni punto un po' più approfonditamente.
Personaggi: più che Geralt, che abbiamo conosciuto tramite dei flash nelle raccolte di racconti, qui la protagonista è Ciri che sta iniziando il suo addestramento come stringa/maga.
Solitamente sui personaggi femminili ho sempre delle riserve, non riesco ad entrare in empatia..questa volta invece ho amato questo personaggio dall'inizio alla fine.
Tenera e tenace, trasparente e curiosa, Ciri ha un rapporto speciale con lo strigo e profondo con la maga Yennefer.
Come personaggi secondari ritroviamo di nuovo il nostro Ranuncolo (Dandelion, in inglese) e la maga Triss.
Per quanto riguarda i cattivi, mi riesce difficile tirare una riga di confine, perché ognuno fa i suoi interessi e tira acqua al proprio mulino per ottenere sempre più potere. Dovrei leggere i seguiti per capire se ci sono particolari evoluzioni.

Trama:
Sullo sfondo dell'addestramento di Ciri ci sono intrighi, spie, una imminente guerra e gente che la vuole morta o addirittura vuole vedere morti tutti. Risultato: forse lo vedremo nel seguito. Per ora ci sono le premesse.

Worldbuilding:
Gli strighi, o meglio i Witchers, sono unici, non sono propriamente stregoni, né maghi, né guerrieri, ma sono mutanti che hanno in sé più caratteristiche.
L'ambientazione è un po' vaga. Non c'è una mappa per ora, ma vengono nominate città, un Nord e un Sud, secondo me quel che basta ai fini della narrazione. Siamo in un mondo medievaleggiante, ma non rientra nei canoni della nostra storia e vi sono svariate razze, alcune conosciute, come umani, nani ed elfi ed altre inventate oppure risalenti al folklore slavo (non ne ho idea) come le driadi e svariati "bestie/animali" umanoidi o meno.

Consigliato a tutti. Dovete conoscere Sapkowski, o meglio quel figo di Geralt, l'adorabile Cori, quello strampalato di Ranuncolo e la potente maga Yennefer. show less

It had a decent opening, but this book is so droll. It's hard to care about literally anyone in it, and the events of the story are very uninteresting. The author does a decent job of showing political intrigue, but it's like... I don't care about anything going on, and everyone involved is just terrible.

There are ways to write terrible characters that you still care about, or at least care to watch the stories of. This is not one of them. Dandelion getting kidnapped and tortured and then how that resolved was an excellent little scene, and great character interaction with someone who, up to this point, I didn't care about much because their story is horribly written. And heck, Dandelion is not a great character in the books by any show more stretch of the imagination. He has some sweet interactions with Geralt, and one heart-to-heart with that other character that are quite touching. But outside of that, he's not great. He's a chauvinistic, sexist asshole who at times demonstrates that he has empathy. However, the scenes I mentioned above make him interesting to read about and his story compelling.

I don't know of many fantasy worlds that spend so much time saying the world is ending, where I am saying to myself, "Good". This one is just so miserable.

It's also got one of the creepier magic test systems. Basically everyone in this universe is a pervert.

Oh yeah, Geralt's in this story. Who cares? He's not fun, he's not interesting, he's weird at best, and... Yeah. I do think it's interesting that the first game didn't get Triss sexually assaulting Geralt out of nowhere, and that the book actually handled it a lot better, because yeah, actually, Triss sexually assaulted Geralt, and shockingly he did not like it, was traumatized by it, and was not interested in being in a relationship with her after the fact. But he does still help her when she's hurting. Yarpen Zigrin actually has a great conversation with Ciri about this, which is another highlight of the book.

Part of the problem might be that Sapkowski can't write women. There's actually a lot of women in this book for once, and they actually interact without men involved for the last fifth of the book or so. The whole thing is rather uncomfortable, actually (at least the bath scene comes to mind, and the usual cattiness that men think always exists when women are alone with each other). Part of that might be down to the translation. I don't know what was lost or changed. But the translation as it is, is not enjoyable. Triss in particular has a good chunk of POV early on in this book, and oof, it is painful to read.

Overall, not an enjoyable book. If you want dark fantasy with morally questionable characters dealing with trauma and political machinations and the downsides of questionable magic usage, read Sarah Monette's "Doctrine of Labyrinths". If you want a good series about magic-users raising and teaching children who can use magic in interesting ways, read Tamora Pierce's "Circle of Magic". Faith Erin Hicks' "The Nameless City" is a good fantasy city story about marginalization, pogroms by those in power, and when marginalized people turn on other marginalized people. Heck, all three protagonists in "The Adventure Zone: Balance" are terrible, but they're enjoyable to read about, and that's got magic and monsters and aliens and and conspiracies and world-ending shenanigans. Skip this book. show less

Maybe I'm a slave to TV after all. I watched the Witcher production before picking up any of the short stories or the novels. Even before playing the games! (And I admit I still haven't played the games.)

So obviously, my opinion is going to be somewhat SKEWED from the rest of the hoards of fans of Sapkowski. Or maybe improved. Who knows?

The fact is... I had a wonderful time reading this.

At no point did I ever feel underwhelmed, think that the pacing was off, or want to complain about the lack of huge battles or epic whatnot.

I knew this whole series was a character study first, a social commentary second, and a delightful worldbuilding/epic fantasy extravaganza third. And so, since I already loved the characters, I continued to love show more the characters, get awed about the full ramifications of the elves, the brewing war that would bring about much more than self-destruction, but the end of so much that was good in this flawed world, and was properly horrified by the other wars that had already happened.

One could say that these novels are the effects and substance of massive amounts of Aftermath. And the TV show reflects that. We know things are all about to end. Spectacularly. And it is this over-story that keeps me at the table that is still, primarily, a delicious feast of characters.

So I repeat. :) I loved this. I love them. :) show less

I have given up on series for much less than the issues found here.

Misogyny is kind of a staple of so much the fantasy genre that I am used to trying to give the author the benefit of the doubt - "he's a very old world white male from post war Poland, how progressive can he be?" - but the writing is so egregiously bad in this regard.... yuck. Others have reviewed this aspect much more articulately than I have here but Ciri, Triss, and Yenefer get treated to so much of the male gaze and so little character development.

Oh by the way, these three get the majority of the character development that does occur in this book(keep reading it's not as contradictory as it sounds). Any other character seems to have been sourced directly from show more central casting's 80's S&S department... including the main character who comes here as a cardboard cutout of a Conan/Krull/Beastmaster pastiche. The author ordered a BBEG directly from an 80's Sears Roebuck Catalog castle Greyskull. Need a bungling bad-guy foil to move the plot forward (at a glacial pace)? Order up sir! Did you want him with the Snidely Whiplash(TM) moustache or the facial scar? Both?! You scamp sir, coming right up. How about a gray-beard mentor/management figure that can demonstrate to us us how edgy our main character 'good-guy-but-bad-boy' really is... ugh.

The worldbuilding is only interesting in that it is done exclusively through massive info-dumps of dialogue. Who talks in paragraphs of information like that? Maybe you have that one friend who speaks in blocks of text but there is a reason you haven't invited them over for coffee in while- think about it. Elves, dwarves, gnomes are the indigenous 'savages' -really? How incredibly post-colonial of you sir.

Also, I m pretty sure Paul Krugman would have few bones to pick with you over your slipshod economics - which I understand you have a degree in? Please give us one good reason why the Nilfgarrdians have manufacturing/mass production and powerful magic? Presumably if you have one you don't really need the other. Further, if they a kicking everyone else's asses economically... What the actual EFF are they doing doing wasting time/energy/resources on war with people who are about to become client-states to an empire? JC on a roller-skate, for a series that prides itself on politics is this dumb!

I mean... other than that I thought it was OK. show less