Baptism of Fire

Part three of “Geralt not being a witcher”.

Although the story progresses very slowly and I don’t care about a couple sub plots, from the main saga I like this one the most (the next one may be better, reading it right now). There are some time jumps here, which sometimes feel all over the place (or time?), but to me they're not too distracting and provide some additional points of view.

The whole traveling through forests, meeting new people and making new friends, dealing with some tense situations, being on a frontline between the two armies… It feels like the author emphasizes the grimdark atmosphere more and more, as the series continues, by showing the consequences of medieval war and what scared and desperate people may do in that situation. (which also happens a lot in the next book, but I’m getting ahead of myself)

Yeah, also, Regis is just the best! And Geralt receives some upgrades in both gear and character. And the ending is really nice and even satisfying.

So it feels like the series is getting better with each book and worth continuing if you're on the fence about it. (the first half of The Tower of the Swallow is very good)

I still enjoyed the reading but the plot has come to a stop here. The previous books are packed with events, this one is just about a journey from point A to point B. It is about people met on the way, the consequences of war, and about Geralt finally coming to terms with his humanity. There is some further explanations about Ciri's past as well. The new characters introduced are once again well fleshed out. This kind of investment on details of secondary characters helps to make the reader care later on when something bad happens to them, they are not just some random NPCs.

Ciri's arc is very uninteresting. The first two books centered around her training as a witcher, a sorceress and the mysterious destiny she is supposed to fulfill, either as a savior or destroyer of the world. This book focus on her time as a bandit, doing regular bandit stuff.

While Ciri is busy being evil and having gay sex, Geralt is rescuing survivors of the war, in his travel towards where he thinks Ciri is. He is advised by everyone that that going into ongoing battlefields is crazy, but he is a simple man, and his mind is made. His friends decide to tag along, in spite of his protests. And there is many of these protests.

He is accompanied by a new character, Mulva, a human that is indebted to the dryads of Brokylon. She is very good with a bow and has been helping the Scoia'tael in the war against the northern kings, at the request of the queen of the dryads. Dandelion also appears, and insists on going with him. There is also a group of dwarves that are fleeing the war, a renegade Nilfgaardian who Geralt had previously spared his life, but vowed to kill him if he saw him again, and a surgeon, who Geralt also threatens to kill because he turns out to be vampire, although a friendly one that does not drink blood.. Geralt's stuberness might be infuriating, but it is on par with his personality.

The counsel of mages have been destroyed, now Philippa Eilheart decides to create a sisterhood of sorceress, because she decides that men are the problem. This new society is goal is to ignore politics completely and focus only on magic itself, whatever that might mean. An no, they don't elaborate on that.

Now this is obviously utterly stupid. One: gender discrimination makes no sense. Two: ignoring politics is impossible. Three: magic without a purpose is useless. If you think that sorceress are among the brightest minds in the world, this would be a completely let down. I'm however attributing this new order as a pretext into a greater thing. Probably each of the members have their own agenda, specially Philippa.

But for now, their main focus is to find princess Cirilla of Cintra, to marry her to a northern king and to exact control over her destiny. The marriage of a sorceress to a king is something unheard of, because people are too distrustful of magic. But were they to succeed, and have Ciri's completely loyalty, that would be good for the future of magic.

Yennefer's fate is revealed. She was rescued by the elven sorceress Francesca Findabair by turning her into a jade statue. She believes Yenneffer will play an important role in Ciri's destiny and wants to be in good terms with both of them. Francesca also invites Yennefer to be a part of the sorceress sisterhood, but upon discovering their plans for Ciri, Yennefer escapes from their grasp, not wanting to have any part in this sort of manipulation os people lives anymore.

There are some developments along the geopolitical landscape as well. A “free” elven kingdom was created, as free as one can be while indebted to the ones who gave you the land and continue to charge a great price for their “altruistic” help. Dikjstra is now the acting ruler of Redania, and he is nearly the only one still on the fight against the Nilfgaard invasion. The other fighting force is presented at the end of the book.

Best Witcher novel so far - Sapkowski had outdone himself (literally, I thought no one could write better, but forgot that Sapkowski himself can write better than Sapkowski).
Also, one of the best fantasy novels I have ever read.
Actually, for my taste, one of the best novels in general ever read be me, whatever the genre. It has them all, anyway: military (war), espionage, friendship, love, courtly intrigues, politics... and a surprising amount of very good and funny humor (of the ”tongue in the cheek” kind).
I must also say I was amazed by the high quality translation: it reads as a very well-written book in English - the fact it was actually written in a very different language is incredible (în comparație cu traducerea execrabilă în română - par alte cărți, unele proaste și de necitit).
PS for the gamers: so far this is the most relevant Witcher novel for understanding the game: it explains the background of many characters and also the political conflicts and some hate relationships. After this book, I understand W3WH completely differently.

This book has that vibe of a good old Dungeons and Dragons adventure. After The Witcher left Brokilon forest, where he was being healed, he takes the road to search for Ciri. And although he tried hard to be alone he is joined by people along the way. This book has the best group of characters travelling together: Milva (a hunter and bad-ass archer), Dandelion (the curious and talented bard), Regis (a weird druid who we later find out is an old vampire ), Zoltan Chivay and his group (a resourceful dwarf who is leading other dwarves and gnome) and Cahir from Nilfgaard (although he says he isn't).

I love to see the Witcher discussing metallurgy and sword making with his dwarf friend Zoltan and the gnome. I was smiling so much after I read it. I loved it. It was exciting, it had some gore, violence, but also friendship and happy moments.

It's been a while since I haven't enjoyed the ending of a book so much. And it's actually a sort of a cliffhanger but that didn't bother me.??The tale will go on.??

This one was tough to nail down. At times briskly paced, other times downright glacial. I almost gave up on this book a number of times and put it aside to read others.

The Yennifer stuff was basically a large exposition and lore dump and I felt every second of it. The last chapter was very strong, though, tying everything together.

Like the other witcher books before it this one was also a really enjoyable read.

Andrzej Sapowski has created a fairy tale world that can be enjoyed by all fantasy fans alike.

While not perfect. I found somethings I did not like. Such as how certain philisophical positions were handled in terms of the writing it was a good read over all.

You can see a more detailed review on my youtube channel drews book reviews so check it out there

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Baptism of Fire

With the fall of the Wizard Council, Ciri has disappeared, rumored to be captured by Nilfgaard. Near-death from his injuries, Geralt is unable to search for her. As he recovers with the dryads the world enters a time of political upheaval. War breaks out and the sorcerers are left to pick up the pieces of their order.

Baptism of Fire takes a step back from the witcher's storyline for the majority of the book. As Geralt lies injured and recovering, Sapkowski gives a detailed overview of the world's politics. I am not one for politics and had a difficult time remembering all the people mentioned as conspirators and spies. The story also came to a standstill as all the politics were divulged.

Of course, when the focus turned to Geralt, the pace picked up. Being injured he is limited in his actions, but it also gave time for readers to see how he is changing. And with the world growing darker, the comparison to himself and the humans around him is clear to see. Even injured he will not stand to see the innocent torn down. Sapkowski also made sure to give Geralt entertaining traveling companions. Dandelion is always a joy to read on-page, and a few dwarves were thrown into the mix as well.

I was surprised to hear the title of the book said multiple times in the story. At one point baptism of fire was used three times in one paragraph. I'm not sure what the point of this was. The meaning behind the title was explained well enough the first time it was used. So much of this book pointed to it being filler. At one point the entire history of Ciri's bloodline is even explained. If I had not invested so much time in this series already, and knew how good it could be, I may have DNFed this book.

I know this series has potential and can be an entertaining read. I still have hopes for the next book to be worthwhile. I love Geralt's character, and I can't wait to see what Ciri's ultimate destiny will be.

So I think this top portion will be the basis for my review for all five of the Witcher series (excluding The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny–Kind of, you'll see...)

I feel like it took me a long time to read these, when in actuality, I started the first one in January so that isn't really all that long. Some of the way I'm feeling may be based off a lapse in memory though because I read around 95 books around the reading of these so I may be hazy.

For starters, I think Andrzej Sapkowski is a phenomenal writer. Secondly, I think David French did an absolutely wonderful job translating these to English. And thirdly, I think the Gollancz paperbacks were amazing–great cover art, nice quality–I actually managed to read them all without breaking the spines.

Sapkowski has such a way about his writing that the dialogue in the novels can be truly captivating. He wields it so well that he has honestly created such a wonderful lush lore within his world that really carried the hundreds of pages he wrote. I think that overall, this attention to detail within every word uttered may actually have been in some ways at a detriment to his overarching story.

So to speak, his great characters, the companions of the Witcher, and even the enemies, all have this way of leaving you wanting more. However, if you were to pull away all of that and the world's lore, the series itself is kind of about... nothing. I did find myself more than once getting to the end of one of the novels and being like wait... nothing happened? Destiny has brought the Witcher and Ciri together, and yet they are also destined to never be together... it's just the kind of realization that stings. If you read the first book you can skip to the final book for the ending because the others are just more of the same. Luckily for me, as I've already stated, I enjoyed the dialogue and the world building, I drank that sh*t up. It's just kind of weird/funny to realize negative things like that about something you've rated pretty well. Despite all of that, I really enjoyed them.

In terms of Baptism of Fire specifically, I loved the introduction of Milva. I think she was a great dynamic character and since my younger days of falling in love with the Lord of the Rings, I love me an archer.
Also I love the pure absurdity of Geralt of Rivia–not really being from Rivia–then getting knighted by Queen Meve of Rivia... aka Geralt of Rivia is now legitimate and Geralt in the book itself reflects on that absurdity. That's just Sapkowski having fun and I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed the short stories, but when it comes to the full length novels my enjoyment consistently waned over each book. This is the second book where nothing much of consequence really happens. It's unfolding so slowly and I find that my interest in the overarching plot just hasn't been there. It doesn't help that I find the writing to be very clunky in the last couple novels and at times even hard to follow. 

I much preferred when it was a story about a Witcher slaying monsters, growing and coming to terms with his humanity. That's not what the series is in the end though and I think that this is where I'll get off the ride.

Наконец-то я закончил! Книга большая и, большей частью, нудная. Сапковский иногда очень демагожет в диалогах. Заседание Ложи чародеек меня очень утомил. Вторую половину книги читать было интереснее, но тоже не сказать, чтобы очень. Я читал только потому, что мне очень нравится игра и я хотел глубже погрузиться в мир Ведьмака. Что меня вообще удивило — самого Ведьмака в книгах не так уж и много. Он как бы главный персонаж, но и про других бывает очень много текста. В этой книге, например, много Мильвы и Региса, а Геральт — просто овощ, который идет своей дорогой.

Still a little too soon to tell, but this might be my least fave of the Witcher books thus far. After the climactic schism of events in Time of Contempt, Baptism of Fire already started on a disadvantage of matching the same epic scale. Baptism starts a bit slow to match Geralt's state from the previous outing, but feels light on the story aside from some team building for our Witcher, his trusty bard companion, and some familiar faces along the war torn path to Nilfgaard. In contrast to bouncing around a myriad different groups around the Continent, Baptism tends to primarily focus on Geralt and his new company of allies as they journey through danger towards Ciri. That said, those more curious about Ciri, will be very disappointed with this entry.

It's cool to see the forming of The Lodge, having played the games already allowing me to pinpoint the majority of the sorceresses. But the true surprise here was the introduction of a game fave character, Regis, of which I won't spoil any further for those who are not in the know.

This was NOT my favorite book in the Witcher series. There was a lot of floating around in stuff that just didn't really appeal to me. The beginning was okay and I liked the end (not bc it was the end but because they ran into vampires and explained how vampires work in this universe). The beginning had things about Ciri and Yen but it was like whenever it was getting good they would switch to a new chapter with a new plot. It was very annoying. I am looking forward to how this is set up for the next book however.