Season of Storms (Witcher 6) by Andrej Sapkowski (translated by David French) Book Review. #BookBloggers #BookBlogger #BookReview #Fantasy

• Season of Storms (Witcher 6).
• Andrej Sapkowski (translated by David French).
• 368 pages.
• Fantasy / Sword & Sorcery / Fiction.
• My Rating: It’s OK Book Review.

Book Blurb.

Geralt. The witcher whose mission is to protect ordinary people from the monsters created with magic. A mutant who has the task of killing unnatural beings. He uses a magical sign, potions and the pride of every witcher – two swords, steel and silver. 
But what would happen if Geralt lost his weapons?

Andrzej Sapkowski returns to his most popular hero in a stand-alone novel where Geralt fights, travels and loves again, Dandelion sings and flies from trouble to trouble, sorcerers are scheming … and across the whole world clouds are gathering – the season of storms is coming…

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Book Review.

I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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Geralt of Rivia also known as The White Wolf is a Witcher. A Witcher is a monster slayer, a mutant human with enhanced abilities (strength, endurance, they can see in the dark, resistant to poison, enhanced healing, longevity, etc) and magic (through the use of signs cast using a hand) who has been trained since an early age at a Witcher school (Kaer Morhen in the case of Geralt) and who roams the world taking up contracts to protect people and kill monsters.

Witcher’s carry and use two swords. A silver sword imbued with magical runes for fighting monsters and a standard steel sword for facing human enemies. Geralt has a penchant for ploughing and I’d go as far as to say that Geralt actually has three swords. One for monsters, one for humans and another that he unsheaths especially for sorceresses.😱

Season of Storms starts with Geralt in the throes of completing a Witcher contract and killing a monster. Afterwards, Geralt arrives in Kerack where things start to go awry for him as he loses his swords or more precisely they are stolen.

The quest to find his missing swords includes action, magic, monsters, intrigue, politics and schemes and takes Geralt to Ravelin, a bandit stronghold, Rissberg, a castle that is home to a group of sorcerers and their nefarious experiments, the harbour of Wiaterna and the subsequent boat journey down the river Pontar, Novigrad and a few other destinations and escapades along the way too.

I personally really like the character of Geralt but I have to admit that he isn’t the most captivating or charismatic of main characters coming across as cynical, dry and verging more towards the bland rather than the enigmatic compared to many other fantasy leads that populate the genre.

There are a whole plethora of minor characters present in Season of Storms and of course, no Witcher book (or game for that matter) would be complete without the two staples of The Witcher. Firstly, Dandelion, the dandy and foppish (he’s the opposite of Geralt and this makes them a great pairing) famous poet and bard who often chronicles the adventures of Geralt and secondly, a sorceress for Geralt to spend time with, get sidetracked by and well, you know……..😱

I’m a big fan of The Witcher (mainly the video games as I haven’t read all of the books, this one, coincidentally is a stand-alone) and the world that Sapkowski has created with some stellar world-building, history, lore and a myriad assortment of races and monsters populating said world.

Unfortunately, this isn’t really shown in Season of Storms to its fullest potential and the book, whilst a full-length novel occasionally reads like a series of short stories all interconnected and linked by the missing Witcher swords and Geralt’s quest to find them. Season of Storms finds Geralt flitting from chapter to chapter, place to place and adventure to adventure at a fast pace and the book, for me, could have done with being given room to breathe and expand the story in certain locations. I also have to admit that, at times, I lost sight of the main overarching objective for Geralt which is the recovery of his swords as it will be mentioned and is then placed firmly in the background. Geralt inevitably meets someone and gets caught up in another escapade that either relates to or derails the actual search for his swords.

I’m pleased that I read Season of Storms and while I would have liked more from it overall I still found it to be a fun and easy way to spend a few days lost in a book.

Ultimately, Season of Storms is an entertaining read and is a good but not great fantasy novel.

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Purchase Season of Storms.

Amazon UK  /  Amazon US  /  Book Depository

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