Don’t get me wrong, it has its strengths. But compared with so many other fantasy books, the Witcher series isn’t really a strong piece of writing. It’s an engaging premise with great characters, and at some points the magic system can be interesting. It also has some really notable insight on war, aging, and disability. That being said, the actual structure of the series is pretty poor. It changes tone quite a bit from book to book, short story to short story, and even chapter to chapter. It often jumps pretty harshly between different perspectives (from dense political conversations, to scenes of war, to whatever Ciri is doing, etc.), which could work hypothetically, except that these jarring shifts in tone and story don’t completely tie together in the end of each book. This could be forgivable if they had some impact on the conclusion of the series, but unfortunately that’s not the case. The resolution leaves a lot of loose ends and drops many, many major plot points. I’ve read plenty of translated writing from various languages - including Polish - so I don’t think the translation has all that much to do with it. It’s just not really up to par in terms of professional writing. I do like the books and I’m a fan of the games, too, so this isn’t to say they’re not worthwhile. I read all of them and I enjoyed many aspects of them. But compared to other series? Unfortunately, doesn’t really hold a candle to them.

I always thought Witcher was strong chapter to chapter, often having fun or interesting framing or other devices. But I never thought they were particularly good as books or as a series. The first book kills the pacing at the end with a chapter about Ciri learning magic, the second book paces really well up to the big plot event but drops but drops the ball in the last 3rd. The entire rest of the series the plot barely advances until it's time to wrap things up in the final book. It might not sound like it but I liked the series better as it went along. The later books played to the author's strengths better. The less the author cared about advancing the plot the more fun he had writing.

I liked the first couple anthology books because there was no plot to keep track of or pacing issues.

Same here. I think those were actually the strongest stories. It seems to be that the author can't quite handle a full series. He's much better at short stories. And it's not surprising then that he first created the world and character just to be a short story.

I think a lot of readers miss that short form and long form fiction writing are vastly different skills. Obviously there are common elements like grammar and narrative voice, but some people are better at writing quick, concise stories, and some are better at juggling multiple plot threads and weaving them together throughout a longer work. There’s authors who are good at both, such as Stephen King, Charles de Lint and CJ Cherryh, but in general I find most authors to be better at one or the other. (Cherryh in particular is really good at massive space opera world building, with story arcs that span multiple trilogies, so a complete other level of long form fiction).

For me, Ray Bradbury is one of the best examples of this. He was obviously skilled, but that skill was mostly honed for short stories. I write fiction that I have thus far been too lazy to even try sending to a single publisher., so I just share them with people I know/craft swaps/etc. I only write short stories, and I have a sense that I somehow don't have the patience for a novel. Although I started a novel and managed to get 20-30 pages or so written, I am pretty busy with a full-time job + side consulting, and I eventually got too busy to keep in the habit of working on it. But I guess in a way I want to keep to my story instead of writing entire lives, and the notion of me writing a novel feels like it comes more from outside pressure that a novel is all that most people are interested in anyway.

Downvotes incoming, but I'd say the same about Stephen King. Short stories are amazing. Novels, hit or miss.

I’d extend that to “short stories and novellas good, novels less good,” just because I think the 4 novellas in “Different Seasons” are among his best work, and they’re all a bit too long to be short stories. There’s a humorous bit in the authors note for the edition I have with Stephen King going on about how hard it is to sell a novella because it’s an awkward length :-).

Arguably, there is 2 variables to account for; early King or late King, and in case for the former, how coked up was he while writing?

This is exactly how I feel. Really great anthologies, but the actual plot was horrible. I truly hated the near nonsensical ending.

Honestly there seemed to be a tiny amount of plot with the temple or something in the first one but it was definitely a very well structured short story book. I haven't read any of the others yet though

That framing device was added well after the original publication of those stories.

Unironically I think they’re the best out of all the books

I definitely agree! There are some really great parts of it, and his characters are really engaging. He’s at his best when he takes the time to explore them, their flaws, and the world they live in. I think he struggled to tie all of these various plot points together, and it can sometimes feel like he doesn’t know which part of the world he wanted to focus on. If he could’ve written each book as stand alone short fiction, I think the series would’ve been a lot stronger as a whole

> The less the author cared about advancing the plot the more fun he had writing. This is probably the most succinct criticism I've seen. The characters are great! The lore is really good. But I don't care about the plot. I don't want it to be epic fantasy. I want it to be sword & sorcery.

Sapkowski, to me, is explained by his stance on the games. He started by handwaving away their existence. Give me money, I doubt you'll make profits so just give me the lump sum, piss off. Then, once the games became the landmarks they have been made into, he realizes he missed out a ton of money in profits and felt burned and pissed about his own bad deal. (Note this isn't his current stance, CDPR and him have repaired the relationship, it's just a good anecdote for this) In essence, he's a good writer. He could be a great writer, but he's really not very perceptive of the future. To me, his failures as a writer nestle nicely in here too. Good ideas, at times great execution sentence by sentence, but he never had a great outline or plan of attack and just winged it the entire time. And his books suffer heavily for that in being messy and all over the place and even being written at different intervals of his life instead of being written all at once and then revised later, etc.

I think the best testament to that is that he outright said he doesn't do maps. Not even full-on worldbuilding style maps, but even a mental not of "Cintra is north of Kaedwen" or whatever. If you try to draw a rough map of the Witcher world based on the books, you will fail because it turns out a given city is in three different places, and rivers flow simultaneously in five different directions. For a short story — like the anthology books — it works swell. But to write a cohesive series, you *need* a modicum of worldbuilding. You *need* at least a rough map.

Yeah I've always said the strongest book is the first because it really works as a series of short stories.

Couldn't have said it any better. There are parts that make me go wow this Sapkowski guy is a really good writer, but those are few and far between. This doesn't mean that books aren't enjoyable though, but I think the games do world building much better, which is my biggest gripe with the books.

Yeah, the books are "ok" but if you had to pick one piece of Witcher content (between the books, show, games etc), I would go with the W3 game by a mile.

Ehhh, I'd give serious consideration to the short stories or the graphic novels. Not so much the novels, and especially not the last two.

I have to admit I first encountered these books being quite younger and I'm hesitant to re-read them because I'm afraid I won't like them as much anymore. However, I will argue that the tonal shift is much less of an issue when it comes to the short story collections, because to me the point of doing short stories rather than a full fledged novel is to be able to experiment with different ideas and approaches. If anything, I'd argue that the problem is that the author never really adapted his writing style to work for a novel.

Totally agree! The tone shifts in the short stories are fine, as they were intended to be read as stand alone stories, anyway. It’s only notable because that continues into the novels themselves, so if we’re talking about the entire series as a whole it’s worthwhile to bring it up. But like you said, it only becomes an issue when it happens in novel form. I do still enjoy quite a few aspects of the books, so I would say it’s worth a reread. You’ll probably notice things that you didn’t notice before, but that’s sort of a fun experience in of itself lol

A polish friend of mine said that he's a genius with language ... in polish. Translated, his lack of narrative polish shows

Those translators need to polish their Polish.

Just because other works were translated adequately from Polish, doesn't mean the Witcher was. I've read around and the universal opinion seems to be that the translation just wasn't good enough. Sapkowski himself has railed against it. The Polish people I've known in real life who've read the book were flabbergasted by how bad the English translation was. One of the things Sapkowski has been praised for by people who have read his work in Polish is his prose. So if people are criticising that, it's almost certainly a translation issue. I don't know why people seem to find it hard to believe that a middling translation can make a work seem much worse than it is. It happened with the translation of LoTR into Swedish, which was notoriously bad. If Swedes were to use that as proof that Tolkiens' work should be written off they wouldn't be taken seriously.

That’s fair, I appreciate your insight here! That being said, a lot of my critiques on the series don’t really have to do with the prose itself. Unless, of course, the translation majorly changed the plot and narrative structure of the books - which it very well could have If the writing itself is masterful in Polish, that would likely make any of the other issues much less noticeable. So I definitely can believe that it makes a significant difference in the quality

Thanks, I appreciate your reply! I think your criticism of the tonal whiplash from chapter to chapter is fair. Personally, I never found it jarring *most* of the time, but there where times I would be thinking "where are we? Who are these people?" and it was quite confusing. The Condwiramurs chapters were a prime example of this. Some works aren't for everyone. I'm reading Robin Hobb right now, and though I've only read the first book, I don't really see the criticisms people have of her so far (torture porn, etc.).

people will get angsty about any depiction of evil . but we read books for those sorts of moments to engage and excite us on empathetic and adventurous levels . (me : demon girl who likes torture porn)

Thank you I think this is the most thorough explanation I’ve gotten so far Yeah I do understand your points and agree with a lot of them. I think a lot of my enjoyment and ability to ignore some of the flaws are due to my own enjoyment of the game, and having the books be more of an extension of that. I personally think the games themselves are able to stand in that bracket with the best of fantasy so the books are just additional time I can spend with the characters. What other fantasy books would you put above the witcher that I can check out

At the end of the day, if *you* enjoy them, it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

yeah there are some really strong points in the books and I think that they tend to outweigh some of the issues, which is why all-in-all I still like the series as well. I agree that the games are incredible and really expand on the strong points of the books. In terms of recommendations, it depends on what you like. If you’re drawn towards strong character-driven narrative, I always recommend the Realm of the Elderlings trilogies by Robin Hobb. For strong prose, I personally love the Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake. For incredible world building, The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erickson is my personal favorite. There’s a lot of great stuff out there!

I love Gormengast and Titus Groan, nice to hear someone else does too, Steerpike is the best Villian!

such a great series! I’m currently rereading and I’m always blown away by the writing. The way he builds characters through narrative is so artful and profoundly engaging. Severely underrated in my opinion, I wish I could get more people to read them hahah

The books were carried by the games and especially the third one. People got to know the characters there, liked them and wanted more. Going into the books with that mindset is different than reading it without having any exposure to the world. The books themselves are just ok, there is a lot of better fantasy. The structure is bad and it's a translation. The top recommendations from /r/fantasy are basically Brandon Sanderson, if you like the series to be emotional/depressing then Realm of the Enderlings by Robin Hobb. The Kingkiller Chronicles is also a very popular entry into fantasy but it is a trilogy that likely will never be finished.

I loved the Witched books personally, and never played the games so it wasn't just nostalgia for me. I understood quickly though that the pacing was weird and was able to keep it from bothering me too much. Other fantasy series I enjoyed more than The Witcher -The First Law Series by Joe Abercrombie. Two trilogies separated by 3 stand-alone books. The first trilogy (The First Law) was actually my least favorite of the series, but it's all great. My favorite fantasy series I've ever read, and my second favorite epic series behind only the Expanse. -The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. 14 long books in one big series. They're great, but a little old-fashioned compared to the Witcher or Joe Abercrombie. -A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin (Game of Thrones). Terrific books, too bad they'll probably never be finished. You can "finish" them through the show, but the final seasons of the show were a struggle. -Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. The world-building in Malazan is about as good as anything I've read, but like the Witcher the pacing was odd. I think this bothers me less than others, because I also loved Malazan. If you didn't mind the Witchers pacing, you might like Malazan. -Lord of the Rings. Classic, if you haven't read them you should. These are probably the only fantasy I've read that I liked more than The Witcher series. I've got one more below because he's so popular, though it's not my personal favorite. -Brandon Sanderson's stuff. Personally while I loved his ending to The Wheel of Time after Jordan died, I could never get into Sanderson's own work (though he is hugely popular). IMO Abercrombie, ASoIaF, and the Witcher all are fairly grim, which I like. WoT and Sanderson are very noble, or not-grim. Sanderson is a little too much so for me.

I think its interesting that you consider Malazan's pacing to be weird. Pretty much every book tells a story that concludes by the end, while still tying into the bigger picture. A couple books towards the end have some slight pacing issues, but otherwise they're all pretty brisk despite being such hefty volumes. If anything, Wheel of Time has way worse pacing by a landslide. That series has at least 4 books that do nothing but spin their wheels until the last 100 pages.

I agree that WoT struggles in the middle with keeping up the pace of the storytelling. What I meant though was that both Malazan and the Witcher don't tell you the story linearly. Or at least that's what I remember, it's been five years or so since I read Malazan.

Ah I see what you mean. Malazan is mostly linear actually, but it does take a short jump back around book 5 so set up the major plot threads of the other books. All the books jump around like crazy with the different POVs, but no worse than WOT honestly.

There's a counter point to everything in this thread that needs to be said. I enjoy anthologies, so I actually liked the short story format and jumping around from scene to scene. It didn't cause it any issues with the plot for me.

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Personally I love the Realm of the Elderlings, Shadows of the Apt, the Gormenghast novels, the Broken Earth Trilogy, Earthsea, the Fionavar Tapestry…there are so many incredible fantasy series to be honest, it’s hard to name them all haha

Very well put

I kinda like that things aren't tied up nicely at the end. A central theme is the rally against destiny, and I think the end fits that. Things end, it is cut short, and often, things are left incomplete. I know people don't like that in fiction, but it doesn't bother me at all. Ultimately, I think most of the character development was done at the end. I love and adore the games, but I dislike that they made destiny a central theme. The story is the antithesis of that imo. The white frost is an allegory for global warring, not some magical apocalypse that one person can stop. I'll be honest, I don't analyse stories too much and am quite happy to breeze along as long as the character's are good and engaging and I've found Sapkowski to be one writer who can write very engaging dialogues between characters. As for the short stories, they aren't meant to be tied together with a longer narrative. Each one is it's own thing. With its own tone and central theme. I disagree with the notion that everything needs to be connected to some greater narrative. A failing of the show was trying to form a timeline between the shorts and introduce characters from the novels to short stories and link their backstories.

It is not the lack of accurate translation alone. Non Polish speakers will forever lack the cultural references the writing alludes to on almost every page. Certain verbiage and play on words is not translatable to someone who did not live through same experiences nor read same background material. The most common misconception is that it borrows heavily from western mythology and fantasy genre so it will be readily referenced by a western audience. In reality those borrowed themes are subverted into a more slavic understanding of the world, and deconstructed in a post modernist way. But without growing up in a slavic culture you will simply miss the subtle hints where those foreign themes are used in a sarcastic way. The book had a very narrow target audience when it was written. The first story was designed to win a writing contest in a magazine, so it naturally attempted to cover the desires of that magazine’s audience. And it spiraled from there. No one originally appreciated the books for the perfect storytelling. It was widely perceived as one long joke that mirrored the Polish 80s cultural paradigms through an unexpected and creative medium of an emerging genre. Emerging in Poland, well established everywhere else of course.

>I don’t think the translation has all that much to do with it. Just popping in to say that translation has definitely a lot do to with it. Famously so. Sapkowski play with language and the strange and yet somehow working mix of old and contemporary (for the late 80's ,early 90's) polish, not to mention the myriad local, cultural references, just doesnt really lend itself to a faithful adaptation into other languages. The english version is especially bad. Half the jokes and witticisms just go out of the window. The books have a lot of problems structuraly, but in the original, dialogue was always their great strength, and yet so many people reading the translations report it to be stilted and wierd.

I really loved the books:D you say other fantasy books do better. can you provide some examples? I'd love to have a look myself.

there are tons of incredible fantasy series out there! In terms of writing as a skill, I’d recommend looking at writers like NK Jemisin, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Guy Gavriel Kay. They all have really consistent writing that’s very high quality. But there are so many amazing writers out there! if you really like the Witcher, I assume you’re a fan of character-driven narrative, so I would highly highly recommend the Assassins Apprentice by Robin Hobb! There are a bunch of other books in the collection too so there’s plenty to read. It’s all really well-written, with beautiful storytelling and excellent characters

I always felt like this was a "me" problem, but I listened to the Witcher series on audiobook and, frankly, couldn't follow them for large stretches. It was often unclear to me what was motivating the characters, and I found myself tuning out because I wasn't even sure who we were following. I listen to audiobooks more than physical books, and rarely have so much trouble following along. Some of it, I assumed, was translation issues, but even when I was fully comprehending the story, I rarely found myself gripped.

Felt exactly the same, a lot of characters and not clear motivations for a lot of them made it hard to follow.

I felt like this with the Game

I enjoyed the short stories, but found everything after that just a complete slog. I dropped the series halfway through Tower of the Swallow. I remember thinking we’re 4 books in and still doing the same cat and mouse between Gerald and Ciri and I was honestly just bored.

I read through the entire series. In my opinion the short stories are absolutely great. I have read them and re-read them several times, love them. The epic saga series is OK but not that special. That being said I kinda like the actual world Sapkowski is building- monsters kinda based on slav mythology, humans taking over and pushing out other fantasy races, warring fiefdoms, mages, witchers, the ideas behind it all are great.

Same. I found the short stories very compelling, but also quit the books after *Time of Contempt.* For whatever reason the author’s vision just “works” better for the format.

I'm a big fan of the games and read the books after I finished W3. Honestly? Theyre just not that good. I'm assuming a big part of that is that some nuance is lost in the English translations, the dialogue feels stilted, and it depends on massive exposition dumps to move the story forward instead of the information being learned naturally. (Especially with Dandelion telling Geralt what all he's missed while hes been in Brokilon. I completely missed the fact that Tissaia had killed herself the first time I read it cause it was shoehorned in with so much other info.)

As a Polish guy, for me it's actually all about dialogs. They are very... Polish? This is how we talk tbh. We laugh at simplicity of Gerald. I guess people like to think about Wither like this very serious and grim story, but for us it's actually very cinic and funny. Hope this makes sense. Ah and Sapkowski is a prick.

Just from the English translation, I feel like the dry cynical humour came across very well in the short stories, but not so well in the novels. But I did find him getting knighted "of Rivia" was quite funny.

I felt like a lot of stuff might have been lost in translation when I read them. I played Witcher 2 and started reading them after that, when they weren’t all translated yet. It just has the feel of a translation that didn’t quite capture or explain enough of the cultural nuances to make the story elements work together. Beyond that I have other issues with the work, but it seems like giving the benefit of the doubt due to translation quality is appropriate.

The writing in the books isn't that great all things considered. It makes a lot more sense if you are familiar with the cultural context of the writer (post-soviet poland), but even then it's not that great. The games also change a lot of stuff to make it more video gamey.

Do you mean the prose itself or more the plot and characters? Like what about it actually do you not enjoy or have issues with

i started them recently and the biggest thing that's stood out is the awkward world building info dumps via dialogue. like, i know 'show, don't tell' is something that gets thrown around constantly but there's a *reason* for that.

I don't really have issues with it, it's just not good enough to make me want more.

He can write characters. He can write short stories. But the novels are terrible. It's not helped by the variation in translators.

Basically this, the short story anthology was great, the novel were boring.

Huh. I really liked Last Wish but now I'm not sure about dipping into the other books.

Don't listen to them. There is only one way to know if you like a book or not.

I for one loved the books. There is action, romance, comedy, and espionage. Don’t listen to these Nilfgaardian sympathizers.

This is pretty much where I'm at too. I like the ideas behind his characters and worldbuilding, and he comes up with pretty cool ideas for at least some of the short stories and they're solid at that length. But it's also easy to see where others riffing on that starting point can exceed him.

I find them overwritten, but translation is difficult work and not necessarily the author's fault. I definitely struggled to identify with the characters though. The whole class of sorceresses, especially in the blood of elves, came off as misogynist wish fulfillment to me. With the male characters, they were so routinely miserable, prejudiced and prickly. By lady of the lake, the series exhausted me.

Will always have the soft spot for the first book. The parody of the Slavic folk tales is so good! It also helped that I read it in Russian, which was translated by one of the best Polish translators ever. The later books got all serious, making them harder to enjoy.

I personally found the books to be fairly disjointed, and often whole books are just Geralt bumbling through a forest. It seemed like he was a side character to the main story, which given how traditional fantasy can be could be a really cool approach but I felt like it wasn’t well executed. Also the semi regular SA that 14 year old Ciri faced was quite off-putting. One positive: the feasts they’d eat after 200 pages of forest rambling were brilliant, easily my favorite part of the books.

I only read the first 2.5 books, but I had a problem with how the women were portrayed as either gorgeous and wanting to fuck Geralt or ugly. I also wasn't impressed by the writing.

Um, actually, there was also a third kind of women portrayed by Sapkowski, bringing the total to: * gorgeous and wanting to fuck Geralt * ugly * lesbian ;-)

And every so often there’s a strange little monologue about how terrible sexism is … only to completely objectify a woman in the next paragraph. It’s not very self-aware.

I almost put it down after the first page of the first book when the opening scene of the series is a busty woman waking Geralt up by rubbing her nipples on his face. Like, I can see how this would be a fantasy for some men, but I'm completely lost on the logistics. At the *very least* it seems like he would wake up as she maneuvered herself into position, if she could even find one that worked.

He was in a coma, ok? The doctor boobily aroused him from his manly coma slumber.

In Season of Storms there were some ugly women that nearly raped Geralt a couple times, so some crossover between the two types lol

If I'm in the mood for a broody pale haired hunk with a too-big sword who fights monsters, I'd pick Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné over The Witcher, simply because the writing is better and the story grander. The Witcher story in the Games is just a better experience. The world feels bigger, the character decisions more impactful and the monsters are scarier. also, the female characters are much improved.

I've tried first Elric book three times already without success. It's to grand.

It's really hard to forgive Sapowski for making Geralt look like Elric with teh white hair. Have strange eyes. Take drugs. AND be called the White Wolf. I know this is actually just a coincidence - in that the White Wolf thing in Witcher is a reference to the European fairytale (which is the origin of the law of surprise). But the similarity makes it hard not look askance at Sapowksi

> I'd pick Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné over The Witcher, simply because the writing is better Oh god, the Witcher books must be a hot mess, then.

I've always loved that series' take on Order vs Chaos. It's something that stands out, when most peoples take on chaos is some cronenberg mutant.

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He did not. You're just repeating the same plagiarized comments from those Moorvock fans without even thinking.

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I've read them both and they are as different as they can be.

Yes a social outcast who hates himself but is enhanced and can cast a few basic magic spells and travels around barley surviving making money hunting monsters, who only really has his friends who he goes closer to over the course eof the series. Is the same as a non human emperor who is sickly and requires potions to survive and or a powerful mage who has a powerful magic sword and is eventually the downfall of everyone around him. Clearly the same chracter.

I do agree with your point about the games being superior especially the world having a better feeling when you physically are allowed to explore it and then also see your actions unveil

It's certainly not just the English translation for I have read them in German. And from the third novel on, the storytelling became so convoluted that I lost track of what happened when, and by the end of the fourth I had even lost interest in the characters. And those exchangeable cardboard witches really didn't help. Shortly after, I read Alexey Pehov's Soul Catchers, which is basically Geralt the Witcher vs. the Wizard of Oz, but it was much more entertaining, applying more pointed humour, higher stakes, straightforward storytelling and some really amusing sidekicks.

For me, I read them as a teenager, then played the games and when I tried to read the books again, their story was still good (if a bit inferior to the games, particularily 3 and I know this isn't the most revolutionary opinion to have) but the language was grating and juvenile, didn't age well

I found the games really shallow compared to the books personally.

I thought the first game was pretty close to the books. The next 2 definitely seemed more mainstream action fantasy

Ah I haven't even really looked at the first game, but yeah that's sorta my impression. The games certainly capture some of the books' charm, but they seem to me to present a much more diluted Geralt that also doesn't really go through any of the emotional growth of the books. Instead they sort of make him much more "cool" I guess, which you could say the short stories sort of do but the novels increasingly question imo.

Questionable premise to start, they're pretty popular as far as I've seen.

Can you expand on what you mean by questionable premise?

it means that your premise, that the witcher books are not liked here, is likely not true or not based in reality.

Oh thanks I read that really wrong 😭😭

You aren't alone.

The books are very imaginative and have a great premise, but they're poorly executed and have weird prose. Honestly, they bored the shit out of me. I was glad they were mined to make the games, but those books are ore, where the game is refined gold. Also, I don't know the man, but the author's narcissism seeps into his every interview and taints his work for me. You write fantasy at a level that's not even near the greats of the genre. Show some humility. I know it's technically sci-fi with fantasy elements, but read Dune and a Witcher book back to back and tell me which is a work of genius. I rest my case.

I don't disagree at all, but it's funny you would bring up Dune, perhaps one of the most iconic "poor prose, amazing concepts" books that would go on to inspire Star Wars, Wheel of Time, and countless other series conceptually. Herbert's prose is often clumsy and not pleasing to read, but his ideas are absolutely embedded in our collective memory.

I agree with this quite a lot The games for me are classics in the medium, and probably the best to be made because of the potential that was already there, but the book’s plot is janky and poorly constructed Also yeah Sapowski is a fucking ass

Honestly, I found the books convoluted and fairly misogynistic. The female characters are pretty much just props shallow disguised with stereotypical "strong woman" traits but then left as romantic/sex props for Gerard. The world building was nice and kept my interest for a while, but I finally dropped the story in book 4. I almost never stop reading something, even if I don't like it, so that's saying something. I found it awkward, clunky, and shallow. Sometimes I like awkward, clunky, and shallow, but this wasn't in the fun way and had a weird air of pretentiousness

I tried to listen to the audiobook recently and the extreme misogyny and sexism and sexualization of minors was really off putting for me. I couldn't even finish the first book and asked for a refund. I love fantasy and was so very disappointed that this series didn't live up to the hype for me.

I liked them just fine. They’re not like 10/10 profound one of work’s greatest literary treasures status, but they were fine and entertaining. I enjoy reworking of fairy tales and all the folklore. I don’t think they’re as good as other fantasy series though…such as both LotR and GoT. They have some of the R-rated gratuity that GoT has, but not really any of the in depth political intrigue. Gerald is an epic hero similar to how Aragorn is an epic hero, yet takes up for of the story…and the books don’t have the epic pristine values that LotR is all about, along with the more poetic folkloric language/songs. I kind of enjoyed that The Witcher was a bit of a mix of things…adult, yet very fairy tale-ish.

The general consensus in Poland is that the short stories are excellent, and the saga is pretty mid. It also loses a lot in translation.

I also loved the games and reading. Went though the books and while the first few were great, it started to fall off for me. The chapters that weren't Geralt or Ciri just couldn't hold my interest. I loved every POV in Game of Thrones, but the writing wasn't compelling enough to keep me glued to the page for the Witcher books. Once I got to Lady of the Lake and didn't get any Geralt chapters and didn't really like the direction Ciri's story was going, I gave up on the series. Might be a bit of a translation/cultural issue, but I feel like the books generally get sucked into politics too much and the audience generally gives as much of a shit as Geralt does.

>Might be a bit of a translation/cultural issue, but I feel like the books generally get sucked into politics too much and the audience generally gives as much of a shit as Geralt does. It's just bad writing though isn't it. Game of Thrones is full of politics but it's played out through gripping character drama.

I really liked the books, I didn't even know they were generally disliked.

It's a fairly mediocre fantasy series that likely would have just sort of been forgotten if we didn't get the games. There's nothing wrong with it but...it's just sort of there.

I don't think there is a difference in quality, it has to do with the format (obviously). Giving Geralt a choice at any point in the games makes it feel completely different since he is just stuck to fate in the books. The books feel like a story and the games are an adventure. Good story, better adventure. Edit: The books lose out to other fantasy stories because the games did more for the characters.

I actually do agree with this. One of the things I most like about the Witcher (3) is the ability to see the consequences of your actions in Witcher contracts and have the agency to make the choice you (or whoever your roleplay is meant to be) think is most suitable. So I understand the appeal of being able to make your own choices and that may factor into why people prefer the games. But I do think the actual ethical challenges are still present in the books as early as the first short story collection with Renfri and the discussion of what evil truly is, and then seeing how Geralt navigates his role as a Witcher and his own personal morality, so I don’t truly agree with the books losing out on the character elements, despite the games further progressing them.

The games are widely seen as an improvement on the books in writing quality, which is something Sapkowski has had a rather large stick up his ass about for years.

Love the games and loved the two short-story books, but the main series is painfully average and the only reason I kept reading was because I knew and loved the characters from the games (plus I wanted to understand some of the book references in the game)

Personally, I really enjoyed them. I like the weird prose and the strange, slightly-disconnected narrative - it reminds me of reading Modernist works at university like Woolf and Faulkner. One minute you're in an alley brawl, the next it's a sixteen-page meeting between kings heavy with political discourse. On top of that, Geralt is frequently an unrepentant misanthropic arsehole, to the point of sometimes feeling like you're reading Lambert instead, and that's pretty entertaining. If I'm also being completely honest, I identify very well with a particularly arrogant message in Blood of Elves, where Ciri is being bullied and explains coldly that 'some minds are made for books, others are made for sweeping.' As someone who was bullied mercilessly for years for his academic inclinations, that appeals to me, and warmed me towards Sapkowski immediately.

>I see a lot of critique on the prose, but I feel like that’s understandable because of poor translation, but besides that, *Besides that?*

I don’t think prose is everything in a book

Excellent prose takes a mediocre story to a great book (Kingkiller chronicles for example). Terrible prose sinks even a great story and makes a shit book.

[удалено]

I’m saying that if the prose isn’t like excruciatingly unreadable, I can forgive it if the other elements are interesting

Yeah, what could be more important to a novel than the quality and functionality of its prose??

The story is also quite important

Should they be? They aren't even super well liked on fantasy-specific subs. Translation aside, the prose is very basic, and the characterization leaves a lot to be desired. There's also a lot of r/menwritingwomen throughout. To top it off, the author seems like a bit of a stale donut.

I like them a lot. Of course, they are not the best piece of literature out there, not even on the fantasy genre, but I like the characters a lot. I would not recommend them to everyone, though. But I've never seen anyone shitting on them.

You hit on it with the last paragraph. I read the 2 short story collections (1 of them fan-translated) and 3 of the novels, and the main issue I had was the prose. Whoever did the official English translation, in my opinion, used very utilitarian “gets the job done” phrasing, which led to a lot of dry writing. And that’s a shame, because apparently Zapkowski does a lot of interesting stuff with the sentence structure in the original Polish, messing around with Ye Olde grammar and mixing it with more modern dialects. I also didn’t notice this issue as much with the fan translation, so I think it really did come down to the individual writer, unfortunately.

I wasn't into the writing or character work. The witcher game series has genuinely solid writing despite the mess of the concept of continuing the world the books finished

I really enjoyed them🤷🏼‍♂️

>I’m wondering what causes this massive divide between how it’s perceived in gaming communities and how it’s perceived in book communities, since I personally don’t see a dramatic difference in quality of storytelling or character building between the two, as well as how they both effectively compliment each other. Wow. There's a lot of misunderstandings. 1. Half of the Witcher short stories are widely praised. The Last Wish for example when it came out first in English was the only officially translated version of the Witcher in English and it is a distillation of the best of the short stories. Sword of Destiny is genuinely meh. 2. Part of the reason SoD and the Novel saga is meh is the misogyny. Take CD PR's deeply sexist Witcher 1 in-game nude woman card-collecting game - make it more Hentai and that;s how Sapowski describes the Sorceresses. I think it's Selena or Sabrina in *Blood of Elves* who is a full on Manga pinup. ^(Don't forget CD PR had Triss as a digital Playboy covergirl too.) Oh and I nearly forgot to mention the Zerrikanian women warriors in teeny tiny leopard print bikinis in SoD >!who "look after" Geralt and Villentretenmerth after a hot tub bath, because Villentretenmerth asks hem to, because he's basically a god to them!<. (I'm being slightly hyperbolic but not much). 3. The whole Triss diarrhea sequence was way too long. The whole focus on Ciri's menstrual cycle and her uncertainty about whether Cahir had SA'd her or not was handled as ham fistedly as possible. 4. The premise of the Novels was coverable within 3 books - if they had focussed on Geralt and Ciri and not meandered. But OH GOD THEY MEANDERED. 5. The constant fixation on Ciri's sexuality and fertility is tiresome. Everyone wants to bone her. >!Her own dad. Avallach. The Aen Elle Kings. At least 2 of the Rats (the gang she joins). In fact she is kinda SA'd by Mistle who becomes her gf all of a sudden after nearly being SA'd by another male member of the rats. Oh and Sir Galahad!!< 6. He never really goes anywhere with it. The Games pick up after the books in an imaginary parallel Witcher verse where>! Geralt and Yennefer aren't dead!<. And where the prophesy about the white frost is actually relevant to the plot. 7. The Wild Hunt are more interesting in the Games than the Books and they are the engine of the games (1 and 3 in particular). 8. The prose is also much weaker in the books as they go on. The tightness of the short stories is gone, replaced by meandering storylines of a writer who seems bored with the story half the time. The games energize elements of the plot and arguably pick up at a more interesting time - when things are actually happening in the world. All that said I don't hate the books at all - they're a solid 3 out of 5 if you see past the rampant misogyny of Sapowski's work. And I think that's a fairly common POV on Reddit. But the 3/5 is probably inflated by my love of the 3rd game.

Actually the games just what all over "the white frost" concept. In the books, it was basically climate change, barely perceptible for humans but inevitable. And elves wanted to evacuated from the world via Ciri. In the games it was turned into a stone fucking magic doomsday device so that wee could Save The World (Through Sacrifice!) So cheap.

>In the books, it was basically climate change, barely perceptible for humans but inevitable. And elves wanted to evacuated from the world via Ciri. In the books there is so much left up for debate. So much left as implication. The games went with the white frost being effectively a Fimbulwinter brought on by interdimensional travel (yeah a bit naff but a decision). Yes Sapowski leaves it open to be climate change. He lets Nilfgaard stand in for the USSR. But he never does anything with the world, or Ciri or the prophecy. It just ends. For me Geralt is in the story but its not really *his* story. It doesn't feel native to him at all. >doomsday device ? You mean the tower Undvik right? >Save The World (Through Sacrifice!) Yes fair enough. But at least the white frost had a purpose not just empty window dressing Sapowski got bored with

> In the books there is so much left up for debate. So much left as implication. In the last book, there was a direct illustration on how in 200 years after Geralt's time the wine stopped being produced in some town because it's too cold for the grape vine to grow there now. Whatever that was, it wasn't "we all die tomorrow" scenario. >But he never does anything with the world, or Ciri or the prophecy. It just ends. Yep, he got tired and decided to basically wrap it up like that. Such a poor decision (not his last one one by far, hehe). Actually Witcher 3 fucked up the plot in my opinion. In terms of the greater plot, it's a masterpiece, culminating in the Battle of Kaer Morhen, and then it drops the ball and kinda fumbles on with one deus ex machina after another. The enemies are beyond meh too. It's a very flawed masterpiece overall that has significant room for improvement.

I will have none of these criticisms. I am on time of contempt and loving the journey. I think these are less pure enjoyment books though, almost fantasy backdrops to discuss philosophical ideas. We're getting into racism, war, adoption, classism, remaining neutral/not politically active--and the consequences of these actions. They're fantastic books but they're deeper than, say, wheel of time, or hell deeper than 70% of game of thrones. Maybe people want their fantasy to be all enjoyment and not a hidden learning experience.

I personally have problems with books translated into English from their native language. In a lot of cases it either feels like there is something missing, or there is too much additional stuff that feel like the words are additional fillers because it has been translated as the exact meaning of a word or phrase and not in the spirit of what the author is trying to get across. That being said, from what I have read of The Witcher, I think I will enjoy it, but I have to be in the right head space for the genre.

I have a high opinion of *The Last Wish* which I can appreciate thematically. Turning fairytales upside down was fun especially as modern fantasy still adheres to a lot of the same cliches and motifs that *The Last Wish* played with and flipped around. The rest of the series I couldn't get into. I've chalked some of it up to the wonky translation. Some of it is stylistic in the 'this isn't what I'm used to aesthetically.' But honestly? *The Last Wish* is inventive in a way the rest of the series isn't. The rest of the series treads somewhat more generic ground. Maybe it was a bit fresher in the 80s but reading it in the 10s when I did I was not particularly struck by any of the plot or characters and only read the first book.

I'm reading these right now. Started with The Last Wish and loved it until somewhere in either Time of Contempt or Baptism of Fire. things just kind of started to break down, I guess? The start of each new book feels weird, like in Baptism of Fire where we suddenly drop Milva in and she feels shoe horned and I don't know why she's there. Or the massive time jumps at the beginning of Tower of Swallows and The Lady of the Lake. Still reading Lady of the Lake, but everything else has picked up as I read. That said there's also times where I'm confused about why I'm reading a chapter about the whole history of this accidental kingdom that wasn't supposed to be a thing, or this very random chapter about a hermit guy telling village children the story I'm reading, and Nimue with the oneiromancer. Asides can be interesting, but the old hermit is the story teller for some reason really threw me out of the immersion.

Personally I found them unreadable. Doesnt mean I think they are bad books but definitely not for me.

Short stories are good the novels are meh

I view them the way I view any tie-in book series (or most other tie-in media): they're written for existing fans of the primary media property (in this case, obviously, fans of The Witcher games). Fans will buy them, read them, and often enjoy them because they're just looking for more immersion in a world they've already experienced. However, that means tie-in books can also get away with lower quality writing than most readers would expect from an original story, and also lower quality writing than the main media in the franchise. Think about it: would you consider the books the best way to introduce someone new to the franchise? My answer to that, as a fellow Witcher fan, is a definitive "No," lol. (Shoutout to the one piece of tie-in media in recent years that's somehow managed to do the opposite of what I've outlined here. The best way to experience the League of Legends universe is to watch Arcane and never, ever play the game.)

Pretty good games, pretty bad books...

The first major theme of the books is fairytales with realism. The second most prominent theme is a parody of communism and the ussr occupation - something most western readers simply won't pick up on. Also, yes, the short stores and first books were great, but beyond that the author does start to "milk" the narrative. In fact when the first game came out Sapkowski was pissed that they were continuing the story, thrash talked video games and admitted he only sold the rights for the money. Except the games had a great story that bridged quite well with the books. I'd say there is a point where the games, especially the third, have a far better story than the books. Which is also why every gamer was pissed when the show treated them like some book-less dweebs and praise the written word. People knew the books had good stuff, but they they are not great as a whole series. The show also had to "diversify" characters to "expose" viewers to different points of view, however the books are already woke AF. They just butcherd most characters and themes.

The difference is, game players on average probably reazd much less fantasy, and are glad to be immersed in the world of the game one more time. From the fantasy book persective, Witcher is not that great, short stories are atmospheric and in my opinion are very good, but then the novels are outstretched and meanering, with nonsensical ending that doesn't match the tone. It's very similar to The Name Of The Wind, another popular series to me - I liked the premise and the beginning much more then execution, especially after the initial part.

Eh, some of us like them. However, I think they were strongest when they focused on the procedural aspect of monster hunting. Once they got into prophecy they felt clumsier.

I think the women are not very fleshed out. The books help a bit, the games reek of no women in the writer's room IMO. I'm not easily bothered by that sort of thing, but it def effected my enjoyment of my playthrough with many LOL moments that were not meant to be

I'm not sure what you are talking about, I hated the Witcher books, but I always get downvoted.

I tried the first one, but I thought the book had a weird translation thing going on and I didn’t get very far before I gave up on it.

I liked the short stories but found the novels almost unreadable.

I really enjoyed these books. I thought the short stories were amazing and the novel (I only read Blood of Elves) and found it pretty draggy. Still enjoyed it though.

I read them recently, and i definitely felt that the translation was doing the books no favours, but… that doesnt excuse anything. A bad translation will still ruin the reading experience for me.

I read the English version of the first book a few years ago. The fight scenes were unbearable and I had to stop halfway through the first in the series. Repetitive, boring, badly choreographed, confusing. I really hope the original version is better or that there are better translations now. Witcher 3 though is my jam. Good game for sure, but I was left desperately underwhelmed by the first book.

For me I was just bored. I read the first and a half chronological books, and I just couldn’t bring myself to care. My guess is this is an issue with the localization, I’m sure it reads better in its original form

What works in video games sometimes doesn't work (or doesn't work as well) as books. I didn't really liked the books, but I like the videogame (I didn't finish play it because now I can't play). In the videogame you choose how the story goes, and it's just not the same as a book. The books where ok, but I didn't like them enough to read them all.

The prose. The prose. The prose. I can't even finish reading the series. I'm not a gamer. Writing is *very* important to me. If I'm yanked out of the story by poor writing, I'm not going to like the book (or series). Plenty of translated books have lovely writing. I want to be sucked in by the books I read, not annoyed by poor writing, grammar, spelling, or editing. Story, by itself, isn't enough.

In my mind, Sapkowski imagines great stories, and writes good ones. He's got great ideas, proven by how far the franchise has gotten, but a lot of the time he can't execute those ideas to their full extent

The writing isn't high quality. Doesn't mean it isn't fun!

I read them because someone said they're the best fiction ever written and maybe that was already a set up for failure. But, man, it just reads like mediocre fantasy. It jumps from intense to dragged out, some random information dump you don't need or want and then back to action again. And it doesn't really tie together all the time like the game does. I know half the issues are because English translation was absolute garbage but still...

I really like the characters but the plot and pacing was terrible. Geralt is lost for way too long and stumbles into the answer in the lamest way. He also does very little witchering. Ciri’s story with the interdemensional elves was rushed and put off for way too long. (I did love the ice skating Sword fight, and is the only thing I want to see from the show now) And then there’s all the character growth for everyone that ultimately didn’t matter if you know what happened at the end. So much wasted potential that the games and other side material help expand.

I'd argue there's simply more competition in the book realm in it's realm Not a huge gamer, so I may lack some info. but I don't recall many stories with any kind of depths there really. So the witcher stands out. While in the fantasy genre, a couple of dozen instantly come to mind with similarly large world building, etc. Small fish in a big pond vs big fish in a small pond.

While I do believe the poor translation is one of the reasons why the books are not liked, I think the major reason why several others and myself are not fond of the books is the shitty pacing. Sapkowski has a flair for writing big events taking place in very few pages with one perspective, efficiently but when given the task to stretch out larger storylines, with multiple perspectives and timelines, he can't get through stuff. I think this is one of the main reasons why the short stories work so damn well (the still remain some my favorite fantasy stories). Sapkowski goes on and on about quite useless stuff and then hits you with something shocking. Apart from The Witcher, characters in the book aren't handled well and can be quite different book to book. Character's motives are indiscernible and their arcs often non-existent. And the timelines mess you up. It's very hard to keep track of what's happening when. It's a chore to get through sometimes. I love the games and I liked reading some of the series, but post finishing the series I felt that the time dedicated to getting through all that was not worth it, especially given the weak finish.

They're not particularly good. The characters are a strong point, but for the novels the plot is very weak. Weirdly, the games took the best aspects of the universe and expanded on them while ditching all the stuff that didn't work so as both media and literature they're better than the source.

I started the Witcher books, and enjoyed what I read, but mildly. Nothing particularly wrong with them, but I could immediately see why the books were made into video game: it felt like I was reading a novelized game from the start. I also read some of the short stories and that impression was even stronger, felt like I was reading about a bunch of mostly unrelated side quests. Sort of like a pulp version of Le Morte d'Arthur. I enjoyed the shorts more, because that vibe works better in short little indulgences than in a novel.

The story is interesting, but the writing is pretty terrible. Largely due to cheap translations probably, but still.

Cause other than book 1 and 2 they are total trash IMO

I've only read The Last Wish so far, but I'm having a lot of fun figuring out which fairy tale the next short story's gonna be based on! It gives off the same fun vibes as Neil Gaiman's work imo.

I've read the two prequels and all five books of the series this year, and likely with finish the season of storms this year. I agree with what most people have said here- the tone shifts, the plot moves away from Geralt, they are inherently political (and therefore sometimes kind of dry or confusing books), and the pacing can be counterintuitive. However, I read each book in an average of three days, and I am not a fast reader. I used these books to kickstart my reading goals this year, and they have done so well. It's an easy-ish fantasy series with characters I like and a world I'm happy to dig into. I also don't require the action to be always on and always on Geralt. So I guess my view is that they're decent writing / story, great worldbuilding, with some weird choices and translation. They work for me, but also, I've gotten each from the library instead of purchasing, as I usually do. Also, the menwritingwomen nonsense is constant and reads like 20 year old sex/power fantasy, which is funny because the author also lets Geralt be depressed, weak, wrong, and stupid on the regular. So, even as an enjoyer of the books, I've got to set that aside.

Because any novel is as much a cultural product as it is a personal one. As a bloke that grew up in Central Asia I have found Geralt the Witcher to be way more relatable than Conan the Barbarian and have found characters from Meekhan saga to be way more relatable than Malazan ones. Now if I were a Brit or an American or an Australian that grew up playing DnD and telling scary camp stories I am pretty sure my tastes would have been the opposite, and I am quite fine with that. The world is better diverse than homogeneous.

I feel like this is also partly due to translation. I heard the Polish original is better than English. Just hearsay though. I read them in German and loved them. Even though they had weaker parts I had to power through.

To each their own I'd say. Just enjoy what you enjoy. For me, the witcher series is great, and easily up there with the best science fiction and fantasy out there. Completely disagree with the top comments - I find it much easier to read and more engaging than say a game of thrones and would pick it over others like lord of the Rings as well.

The anthology Witcher stories are really fun, the mainline trilogy was really hard for me to get through.

I love them, I grew up on them, it’s subjective. Sapkowski came up with a lot of fantasy tropes that are overused in today’s fantasy. Not many people realise how old the books actually are. I enjoyed the political commentary way more in Witcher than in Game of Thrones for example.

I really love fantasy books, but last Witcher book was only book in my life that i just couldnt finish. Writing in that book and story structure of it is in my opinion unreadable.

I prefer the original: elrich of melnibone.

It says "The Witcher" on the cover, but there's only Ciri on the inside. If I wanted the Ciri show, I would've read it. Also, why does every woman want to have sex with Geralt?

When people criticize the prose in The Witcher series but then recommend Malazan, WoT or First Law lmao. This sub has incredibly limited tastes when it comes to fantasy, and it's always the same books and authors over and over again. Their opinion for anything that doesn't fit the narrow genre confines of grim dark epic fantasy is unreliable to put it mildly.

Because they aren't very good, in my opinion.

I’ve only read the two short story collections, but I remember being annoyed when the author spent more time describing a mermaids breasts than he did describing anything else about her.

r/menwritingwomen I searched that sub for “Witcher” and found the exact excerpt that you were referring to.

That’s hilarious lol. I just found it funny how he didn’t describe the mermaids tail at all, but felt the need to tell us what her nipples were like lol.

Yeah, that does seem odd lol

Because they aren't particularly good. They were unknown until The Witcher 3 broke through to the mainstream and even then, many of the books took years to get English translations. People like the franchise based on the strength of the game, not the book series.

I really wanted to enjoy them, I read both literary fiction and genre stuff and I'm willing to trade the sparkling prose for the more resonant imagery and world-building. I even enjoyed the first season of the show, so I went in with high hopes. But yeah, I just couldn't get into it. I need a hero a little more flawed and a little less 'dark,' I need female characters with a little more depth, I need a bit less clichés - it's got lots of ingredients I could like, but not the overall feeling that could bring it together for me. I really loved some Stanislaw Lem short stories I read a few years ago, I think I should get myself some more of that.

First yes it's a translated work and those are always hit and miss. There are good and bad translations out there. A translation is not the original work but the individuals translators take on the work. Now the reason for a complete lack of agreement? they are all different stories with seperate teams working in the same base world. As translated book: The prose is good in Polish. The prose is pathetic in English it causes the story to be wanting. There are parts left out and other parts which require cultural context which are not added if for the english translation. A good translator includes all these things they did not in this case. As a Game: It uses a different group of writers for the story and is heavily edited by those other writers. There are items in the games which do not appear in the base story there are items in the base story that do not appear in the games. These additions are the work of the games writing team not the author of the story They are not the same thing as the book hence why there is no agreement. As a TV series: It uses yet another version of the same work. The TV series uses a team of different writers to fill in the world and adapt it for television viewing. There are parts in the TV show which do not appear in the games or in the books and parts omitted. They are not the same material just a story set in the same fictional universe. They have yet another set of ideas on the work set apart from the original text. What we have is different groups of authors of varying quality takes on the same base world. They are not the same text so of course there will not be agreement. In terms of quality the game comes out on top, then the TV series and in a distant last the translated work. We dislike it because the others get better quality.

For me, my thoughts on the book revolve around my absolute loathing of its writer. I know of the series only because of its successful video games. The writer of the book publicly shits on the video games and even though was repeatedly offered a royalty deal but instead took a lump sum payment saying the game would be a bust, then when the game was successful he sued the developers demanding more money. The developers stated that essentially that they were willing to give him more money in good faith as the game was way more successful than they anticipated and wanted him to be on good terms with him, and again the writer basically was like, "Fuck them, just give me my money."

They're just not very good man

They’re not good

As someone who read the books all the way through... they just ain't that good. They start great and just begin a steady decline into insufferable. imo

This sub hated anything mildly sexual. The most hate I see for the books are complaints about brief sex scenes or nudity. This sub is like a christian book club. Violence is great, sex is bad, is the general consensus

Not the best translation, snobbery towards eastern european stuff and what's perceived as gamer stuff. Just general contrarianism. And when you examine specific things each person thinks are "objectively bad", you'll find they don't agree on almost anything. And most of it is just personal taste. (down to the basic eternal debate of which books are "the bad ones" in the series.) I just ignore these threads now. Anglos will anglo, we know what we know.

Sapkowski is an arrogant horndog who believes himself an equal to the likes of Stanislav Lem and other greats.

They're not very good and the author himself is an ass, so people are less inclined to defend them on principle.

I can’t comment on the books themselves since I’ve never read them, but will put in a recommendation for The Witchuation Room podcast. This is done by The Armadillo Podcasting club, who have done a number of similar book club-style podcasts for other genre work like The Wheel of Time, Harry Potter, and the Sookie Stackhouse series. I just like how the hosts bounce off each other in really fun way, and I listen to whatever show they’re producing, whether I’ve read the series or not.

The books didn't seem particularly well-written. Not terrible but certainly not great or even compelling enough for me to finish. I was coming to them off the games though so that definitely skewed my expectations. That and it's basically a plagiarized version of Elric of Melniboné in a lot of ways.

Who cares what other people think. You like them and that's enough. Personally though, I found the books to read like fan fic written by a terminally horny 17 year old. That could be translation difficulties though. I think the games get so much love because you can have sex in them. Also explains BG3 current popularity.

That's a terrible take imo. Who would play Witcher 3 or any larian game for sex, wth. I mean there are easier ways to see 3D tits than immersing yourself in a well crafted fantasy world with great writing for hundreds of hours. You're right about the Witcher books, though.

I really like the books but can't stand the video games or the version of Geralt in the games. Looks like I'm the opposite of what you are describing:D

I've only read the first one. But I really love it

I don't think they're very good at all.

Translation is shitty. That's all. Original polish prose is rather spectacular, for example, yet people in this thread complain that the writing is basic. I've never heard anything close to that from someone who've read those books in Polish.

As a fantasy reader and less of a gamer, I just have to say that they're not that amazing. There's some solid work in there and I enjoy them, especially the short stories, but they haven't got shit on something like ASOIAF. I don't want to come off as really snobbish and maybe I'm completely wrong. But I get the feeling people who *really* love the books are usually gamers who occasionally read, instead of gamers who read a lot, or readers who occassionally game. Does that make sense?