Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“If the ability to make use of experience and draw conclusions decided, we would have forgotten what war is a long time ago. But those whose goal is war have never been held back, nor will be, by experience or analogy.”

Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1) by Andrzej Sapkowski

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Say it with me now, print it on a t-shirt: I should have written this review right after finishing the book. Or, I guess if it were on a t-shirt it would be better like: FINISH THE BOOK, WRITE THE REVIEW, DO IT NOW, NO NOW NOT TOMORROW, NO PUT DOWN THE BAG OF CHIPS, DON’T WATCH THAT EPISODE, YOU WILL REGRET THIS LATER!!! Something like that. Maybe that’s too much text for a t-shirt. Probably too niche of a market, anyway. I remember liking […]

Toss a coin…etc

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

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3.5 #CBR12 Bingo: Repeat (since I’ve already covered the Adaptation square) Geralt of Rivia is a Witcher. This means he roams about the countryside, travelling from place to place, killing monsters for profit. To become a Witcher, he was taken from his family as a child, and long training, magic and special potions make him a strong, fast and highly efficient killer. Based on the stories in this collection, it seems that once, there were a lot more Witchers, now they are rare and unusual, and […]

Toss a coin to your witcher. #CBRBingo – Adaptation

Sword of Destiny (The Witcher, #0.75) by Andrzej Sapkowski

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I have really turned around on this series! I feel like I need to re-read the first book now before moving onto the series proper, because I only experienced it in a grudging manner, and didn’t appreciate it for its good qualities. I will also be honest in that it was entirely the Netflix show that did the turning. I enjoyed it so much that it crystallized for me retroactively what people were seeing in the books. This second book in the Witcher series is […]

It ends at the beginning but doesn’t add up

Season of Storms: A Novel of the Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

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This final Witcher novel was written over 10 years after The Lady of the Lake, the finale of the Witcher series, apparently because the Witcher video games had taken off and Sapkowski figured he could milk that cash cow one more time. Season of Storms is actually set before the rest of the series, which fits in with Sapkowski’s predilection for out of whack time lines. I can’t say that it really adds much to the series overall. There’s plenty of violence, treachery and gore, […]

Uneven end to the story of the Witcher

The Lady of the Lake: A Novel of The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

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Although there is an 8th book in the series, The Lady of the Lake is pretty much the end of the story of Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri, and in it things get weird. This novel is a combination of sci-fi time travel, military campaigns, and the usual fantasy stuff we have come to expect, with elves, dwarves, unicorns (!) and plenty of fighting and violence. Compared to the previous books, this one has sections that really drag on, usually featuring military campaigns and side characters […]

Endings and beginnings

The Tower of Swallows: A Novel of the Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

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Throughout the Witcher series, the message has been that something big is coming; the world will end and a new world will dawn, and Ciri, the child of the Elder Blood, will help bring this about. Geralt frequently states that he feels like something in him is changing as well, that something is coming to an end, and in this fourth novel (sixth book) of the Witcher series, the reader gets a sense of what he means. Geralt’s schtick has always been that, as a […]



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