I had a blast with the Witcher saga. There were ups, there were downs. But all in all, it was great. I have now finished the most important Polish series of books1, and therefore I no longer feel like a bad pole. Unfortunately, I did not like the last volume. My biggest gripe with Lady of the Lake is that it’s not an ending, but rather loosely-connected series of endings.
It starts with Ciri talking with Galahad from King’s Arthur court, so yeah. There’s a wild ride in front of us.
The first significant chunk of the book is a continuation of Ciri’s torment. Everybody wants to either impregnate, take body parts, or simply kill her. I know life was terrible for her since she got disconnected with Geralt. I get that it’s kind of the point - she is not treated as a person but rather as a (depending on who is on the other site) force or part of a bigger plan. But come one, give her some break! At this point I just wanted her to get a break, sit back, and relax.
This happens (because it needs to), but only in one of the 25 endings that follow. We’ve getting an ending of the war plot, a dedicated subplot dedicated to love affair’s of Dandelion, yet another plan to get Ciri’s DNA, and so on. It doesn’t feel like Sapkowski had a plan to finish every plot he opened, so he just makes a series of endings. If I hadn’t been reading a dead-tree version, I would have assumed that the story will end in a few pages after every freaking such semi-ending.
But at the same time I enjoyed every story from Lady of the Lake. Sapkowski is at top of his game. He may go overboard with non-linear story telling, but once I yet again understood when I was, I was having a blast. It’s all here: the story, the characters, the style.
Taking look at the saga as whole, I was expecting something completely different. It started as a series of funny stories, but most of the saga is dead serious. I was expecting a lot of the Witcher’s huntsm, however through most of the saga, Geralt is solely focused on finding Ciri and has no time for monsters. I was expecting a lot of nods to Polish reader, and while there were some, the books take place in their own world2.
Every book is different, author changes the dynamic and puts focus on a different place. Sapkowski learns from each book and tries (and then mostly succeeds) to correct mistakes with the next one.
But, like with the previous one, tension is removed by the knowledge that the games take place after the saga. We know that main characters will live, because we meet them in the game. And even if we don’t care about computer games, it’s impossible to not see some random picture and as a result spoil the book. We know that Ciri will not reign fire and destruction upon the world. Sapkowski may never approve of the story CD Projekt came out with and not treat is a /part/of the cannon, but the fact stands: we know that the world still exist.
It’s a strange situation, where the world knows the books from the games, but the saga is lessened by their very existence. However, even with knowing that the story is, ultimately, pointless, the saga is well worth a read. I’d say it’s great. And the last volume I am attacking here is still good fun, just not good as an ending of such great saga.