Weekly "what are you reading" Thread #70

I picked up Baptism of Fire back again, after I dropped it about half a year back. I have a soft spot for the world of the Witcher, and I generally like the books, despite them being flawed in many ways, but by far the worst quality of theirs is that Sapkowski doesn't know how to structure a story. None of them feel like they have an over-arching plot.

Most of his novels (up to the point that I've read) just feel like a collection of short stories, that happen sequentially. And I have nothing against short stories collections - I think that the two short story collections (The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny) are much better than any of the subsequent novels - but they work because they're actual collections of disparate stories, that can create a much better feeling of the world and the its characters. These novels don't, because they have all the downsides of short stories, with none of the upsides. The end result is that the novels feel like they're meandering, never getting to the point.

For example: one of the high points of the series is the Grand ball at Aretuza. But it's not placed near the end of a novel like you'd expect of a climax. No, it's instead placed in the middle of the book, and after it the pace of the plot falls of a cliff, and the books spends the second half on neurodivergentally reviewing the geopolitical events of the world* and having Ciri set off on a completely new adventure, that ends with no climax and no conclusion. Which would have been fine, if we had gone from the Coup directly to her story, skipping the Brokilon chapter, because I'd work as a great setup for the next book. Or just close the book with Jaskier's tales, and leave Ciri's fate undetermined. Either one works. The other one should have been removed, and moved to the next book, because together they completely kill the book's pace.

* sidenote: this whole chapter made me understand why Brando Sando said in his lectures that worldbuilding is the least important part of the big three (plot, characters, worldbuilding). You can have entire chapters of nothing but characters interacting, and it's fun to read. You can have a lot of plot with very little character interaction and it's still interesting. But a chapter of nothing but world-building is fricking boring and just makes you wish it would end. See also: the first chapter in LotR.