The Lady of the Lake

spoilers!!

Is it just me, or was everything that ever happened and every bit of character development that occurred over the last 4 books totally and completely for nothing? I am thoroughly underwhelmed by how this series ended.

Geralt, our bad-ass, sarcastic, and determined Witcher? Yeah, makes sense that he will actually be one of the blandest characters and will proceed to ultimately “die” in the lamest, most un-heroic way possible and settle for domesticity. Yennefer, again, another bad-ass, determined character, contributes nothing interesting but being able to throw shields up during fights and then just kind of sucks at other attempts at magic. Ciri, the character in which the last 4 books have built up to be someone powerful and important? She escapes her many foes trying to use and abuse her, only to never regain any sort of power or do anything important for the world. She only manages some heroics at the end with Geralt and Yen because of her dumb unicorn, and then she just kind of blips out to also settle for domesticity? So out of character, so anticlimactic.

And why God, why, did I have to follow any part of Jarre or Iola's story? So boring and it was time that could have been spent on our main characters so their storyline didn't suck.

I'm not sure I can even express the disappointment of how Geralt's party all die in unbelievably lame ways. Or how I'm supposed to believe Emehr, after tearing the world apart in war to find Ciri, just gives her up because he saw that she was sad??

Otherwise, there was some decent writing and plenty of scenes that were fun to read. This was on it's way to being my favorite fantasy series. I absolutely love the world and characters. I look forward to the Netflix show hopefully salvaging the wreckage of this final book. In the mean time, I will continue to play the Witcher 3 and pretend that it is canon, hopefully erasing the unfortunate storyline of this final book.

2.5 stars.

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 The Lady of the Lake especially, I find that in each novel he kind of played with different ways of storytelling and this one starting with the knight of Arthur finding her really threw me off. It also then didn't resolve itself for 500 pages. I think at one point I thought it was a ploy and that he was actually one of the elves in the other world? I don't know, but it was kind of weird. In general, that whole world hopping bit was a little dragged out for me.
Alternatively, in terms of this being the ultimate finale, I loved the level of gore and action. I thought the Battle of Brenna was outstanding writing. The jumping between the battle and the future with survivors of the battle writing about it really worked for me.
I will say though another negative for me was the deaths at Stygga Castle. I know the bad luck surrounding the Witcher and those that follow him, but this kind of heartless, unforgiving killing off of main characters didn't exactly work for me. It's not like reading A Song of Fire and Ice where it's expected, therefore the lack of emotion I felt around them dying was a little lackluster. Also, I mean come on, we get all the way to the end and everyone dies EXCEPT Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer? In that sense it seemed a little cheesy.
A giant positive for me was that I did not see the twist of Duny being the emperor at all. I don't know if I was supposed to (?) but WOW. Ciri's dad the whole time? WOW incest is so absolutely gross. Glad it didn't go there...

I did like the kind of hazy ending myself. Did Yenn and Geralt die? Did they live? No! They got married and several other people we know are dead were said to be in attendance!
I know what the game series wants us to believe.

This may be a long review, because I have a lot of feelings about this book, and this series as a whole. I won't go too far into the plot because this is the last book of the series, and I don't want to spoil anything.

This series as a whole has been a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed the short stories. Then, when we got into the full books, they were hit or miss. There were some books that I thought were really captivating, and some that were complete wastes of time to read. This one falls in the middle of that spectrum. First, there were so many potential triggers in this book. There were multiple sexual assault scenes that got graphic. Every time, I was completely pulled out of the story and disgusted. They didn't add to the plot at all. In my opinion, the detracted from it greatly. They were unnecessary.

However, there were certain parts of the book that I felt were so great. The plot was fast paced, and the characters were put in interesting situations. Then, all of a sudden, a chapter would be thrown in that completely killed the pace and was incredibly boring. Every chapter had a different “vibe” to it that could be quite jarring.

Overall, I love the story of the Geralt and Ciri and Yennefer and all of their friends. I think a lot of that stems from my love of the game, however. I don't know if these books are worth it to read. I don't think that the good parts are good enough to outweigh how much shit you have to get through to get to them. I am very excited to continue watching the show and seeing how they adapt it, and hopefully improve it.

TW (there's so many): ableism, alcohol, amputation, animal abuse, animal death, assault, attempted rape, blood, bones, child abuse, death, drugs, famine, fire, genocide, gore, hospitalization, incest, kidnapping, misogyny, murder, pedophilia, physical abuse, rape, sexually explicit scenes, skeletons, torture, violence, war, forced artificial insemination

The last book of The Witcher saga! I loved the first half of the book with its parallel universes and the fact that the story of The Witcher is viewed as a type of distant land fairy tale. One thing that this author can do is create complex characters, meaning, no one is ever lawful good, everybody is chaotic (neutral, good or evil). Themes like misogyny, slavery and racial discrimination are all present in the story.

We discover that there are elves and humans living in different dimensions but everybody is trapped in their own worlds, except for some with unique powers who can travel between timelines.
Everybody is looking for Ciri because of her extraordinary powers. Elves can be as evil as humans and sorceresses. And Ciri is on her own quest to escape what everybody think is her destiny.

I took a few days to grasp the ending, which can be interpreted in different ways.?? Both The Witcher and Yennefer die and after their deaths Ciri leaves everything behind and go to a parallel universe where Galahad from the Arthurian legends lives. The book begins with Ciri talking to Galahad and so the whole book is the retelling of her story to him. ??
I think the story is brilliantly written, with varying points of view, snippets of Dandelion's memoir “Half a Century of Poetry”, a huge battle being described through its actual combatants suffering and the healers in a war field hospital.

But people die. Lots of characters die. And that's what makes this series “dark fantasy” in my opinion. It has the feel of a fairy tale without the happy ending. Or maybe the ending is happy depending on how you interpret the ending. I had mixed feelings in the end, but in my head the ending had this dramatic sad tone.

Excellent series overall with rich world building and interesting characters. It was a nice ride!??