Kiran

This book would have really benefitted from some form of commentary to place these short accounts in a wider context, or even some notes expanding on points which seem interesting but are largely glossed over, usually in favour of listing the loot pillaged by Drake and Cavendish.

Sabriel did a decent job of scratching a recent itch I've had for high fantasy novels, but it often felt unconvincing. While the world Nix has created is in itself interesting, the way it was explored and described left me acutely aware that I was reading someone's fantasy novel. Sabriel is a very isolated character until roughly halfway in when Nix introduces two compelling characters, Mogget (a demonic cat) and Touchstone (an amnesiac & fallen hero). It was only as Sabriel began to interact with them that I felt her personality became distinct and complex. Those two characters definitely didn't get enough time in the novel, and I think these relationships deserved to be explored a little more before the resolution of the story.

I like it. I just don't agree with all of it. And that's okay.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Charles H Ross' musings on Brighton. I say ‘musings' because, despite the publisher's description of this book as a ‘guide', if you were to use it as such, you would likely end up sleeping on the pier and trying to fish your dinner out of the aquarium. Because as insightful as Ross is, it is weird to read a guide that posits what the fish in the aquarium tanks probably taste like, and strange that it offers lodging advice like “some [hotels] are very bad, and some are very good. You make your choice and pay your money, and trust to fate.” While Chas doesn't offer very sincere travel advice, he does offer some very interesting and funny stories about Brighton of the past and present (that is, as present as 1881). Ross doesn't shy away from the town's weirder stories (notably, the many affairs of King George IV) and is very quick to offer his opinion on ‘hot' topics such as the latest in women's fashion or joking about why the reader should send him money by post (seriously, he makes this ‘joke' 2 or 3 times) and sometimes it's hard to see what connection his stories have to the sea-side city. But this still felt like the one of the most vivid windows into the past I've read compared to some of the other literature from this time I've consumed , because it offered a very small glimpse into several very different slices of life, not from the perspective of a famous Victorian novelist, but just an odd cartoonist who happens to really like Brighton.

Time of Contempt was a far less enjoyable read than its predecessor, Blood of Elves. The first half contains some adventure on all sides; Geralt makes a risky partnership, Yennifer is seen among her own kind and Ciri is given a taste of freedom with the chance to explore independently. Sapkowski's characters are fun to read about in almost any scenario, but at every moment of this book they are bogged down by rambling politics. For every spell cast, each exciting mis-adventure and all deadly foes slain, there are a barrage of political ramifications, and we get to read about them all in numbing detail. This is often par for the course with fantasy novels, however in this case there is a distinct lack of pay-off for drudging through it (at least in this instalment of the series!).

Ciri is placed in greater peril than ever before – she finds herself in some very dark situations, and while it was interesting to see her navigate these extremes, I'm not satisfied with how Sapkowski seemingly ‘resolves' these scenes. In fact, without divulging too much, the treatment of gender and toward the end, consent, is frequently uncomfortable here, and I'm not quite willing to write this off as it being a product of its time (original published in 1995). The ‘powerful' women in this story are cookie-cutter copies of each other – backstabbing, egotistical, women-hating sorceresses who I struggled to keep track of.

This said, I'm not ready to completely write this series off. I will more than likely continue on to Baptism of Fire, however I will need a little time before I'm ready to plunge back into the world of The Witcher.