This novel is the first of the Witcher series. I heard a lot of praise about this series and decided to take the first book.
In the medieval world, there are many magical creatures living with people, mostly dangerous, who love to eat people. And in order to fight them, witchers were created, hybrids of monsters and people, and they are also afraid of them, like ordinary monsters.
Andrzej Sapkowski has written out the world of his universe very well and in more detail. He described how this creature behaves, what kind of potion works, how politics works in this world.
The plot here is insignificant, the first part is a collection of short stories, between which there are chapters "The Voice of Reason" (they tell how Geralt is resting in … a monastery? (I don't remember). There are six of them here (and they are not small). Each story is good in its own degree. For example, the first story introduces us well to the work of the Witcher and Geralt himself. The best story here is obviously "The Lesser Evil". A tragic and sad story that tells how Geralt tried to drive the robbers out of the city until they staged a massacre. This story describes the words well: "We are not like that, life is like that."
I think the fifth story is weak. Despite the good beginning, where Geralt explains to his friend about the superstition of the people, the story turned out to be boring. I literally didn't remember what was going on in it, which is why I had to reread it.
Now about the characters.
Geralt of Rivia turned out to be interesting. He may be rude, but he is sympathetic. And I feel sorry for him, because he is a witcher, but he is not bad himself. His friend Dandelion is the only one who sees him as a human being. And he's funny himself. And their friendship is very strong.
The rest also turned out to be very well-written Persians, even if they will be the heroes of the same chapter. For example, Renfri turned out to be a tragic character that you feel sorry for.
The author's writing style seemed to me 50/50. It was hard for me to read it and the author used outdated words, but his descriptions were detailed and the fight scenes were good.
It's a good collection of short stories. Most of them are interesting, the characters are well made, the world is interesting and the writing style is quite good (I read it in Russian translation).
by mystery5009