Baptism of Fire

Best Witcher novel so far - Sapkowski had outdone himself (literally, I thought no one could write better, but forgot that Sapkowski himself can write better than Sapkowski).
Also, one of the best fantasy novels I have ever read.
Actually, for my taste, one of the best novels in general ever read be me, whatever the genre. It has them all, anyway: military (war), espionage, friendship, love, courtly intrigues, politics... and a surprising amount of very good and funny humor (of the ”tongue in the cheek” kind).
I must also say I was amazed by the high quality translation: it reads as a very well-written book in English - the fact it was actually written in a very different language is incredible (în comparație cu traducerea execrabilă în română - par alte cărți, unele proaste și de necitit).
PS for the gamers: so far this is the most relevant Witcher novel for understanding the game: it explains the background of many characters and also the political conflicts and some hate relationships. After this book, I understand W3WH completely differently.

I still enjoyed the reading but the plot has come to a stop here. The previous books are packed with events, this one is just about a journey from point A to point B. It is about people met on the way, the consequences of war, and about Geralt finally coming to terms with his humanity. There is some further explanations about Ciri's past as well. The new characters introduced are once again well fleshed out. This kind of investment on details of secondary characters helps to make the reader care later on when something bad happens to them, they are not just some random NPCs.

Ciri's arc is very uninteresting. The first two books centered around her training as a witcher, a sorceress and the mysterious destiny she is supposed to fulfill, either as a savior or destroyer of the world. This book focus on her time as a bandit, doing regular bandit stuff.

While Ciri is busy being evil and having gay sex, Geralt is rescuing survivors of the war, in his travel towards where he thinks Ciri is. He is advised by everyone that that going into ongoing battlefields is crazy, but he is a simple man, and his mind is made. His friends decide to tag along, in spite of his protests. And there is many of these protests.

He is accompanied by a new character, Mulva, a human that is indebted to the dryads of Brokylon. She is very good with a bow and has been helping the Scoia'tael in the war against the northern kings, at the request of the queen of the dryads. Dandelion also appears, and insists on going with him. There is also a group of dwarves that are fleeing the war, a renegade Nilfgaardian who Geralt had previously spared his life, but vowed to kill him if he saw him again, and a surgeon, who Geralt also threatens to kill because he turns out to be vampire, although a friendly one that does not drink blood.. Geralt's stuberness might be infuriating, but it is on par with his personality.

The counsel of mages have been destroyed, now Philippa Eilheart decides to create a sisterhood of sorceress, because she decides that men are the problem. This new society is goal is to ignore politics completely and focus only on magic itself, whatever that might mean. An no, they don't elaborate on that.

Now this is obviously utterly stupid. One: gender discrimination makes no sense. Two: ignoring politics is impossible. Three: magic without a purpose is useless. If you think that sorceress are among the brightest minds in the world, this would be a completely let down. I'm however attributing this new order as a pretext into a greater thing. Probably each of the members have their own agenda, specially Philippa.

But for now, their main focus is to find princess Cirilla of Cintra, to marry her to a northern king and to exact control over her destiny. The marriage of a sorceress to a king is something unheard of, because people are too distrustful of magic. But were they to succeed, and have Ciri's completely loyalty, that would be good for the future of magic.

Yennefer's fate is revealed. She was rescued by the elven sorceress Francesca Findabair by turning her into a jade statue. She believes Yenneffer will play an important role in Ciri's destiny and wants to be in good terms with both of them. Francesca also invites Yennefer to be a part of the sorceress sisterhood, but upon discovering their plans for Ciri, Yennefer escapes from their grasp, not wanting to have any part in this sort of manipulation os people lives anymore.

There are some developments along the geopolitical landscape as well. A “free” elven kingdom was created, as free as one can be while indebted to the ones who gave you the land and continue to charge a great price for their “altruistic” help. Dikjstra is now the acting ruler of Redania, and he is nearly the only one still on the fight against the Nilfgaard invasion. The other fighting force is presented at the end of the book.