The Witcher: The Time of Contempt review
“Time” is not of the essence in this drawn out, but at times interesting, follow up to Blood of Elves.
Blood of Elves introduced the bond between young Ciri, and Geralt the Witcher. It also poignantly portrayed a deep connection with Triss and Ciri. The Time of Contempt struggles to recreate the same relationship with Ciri and Yennefer. Despite this, the powerful sorcerous is conveyed as a strong lead who has a difficult history with Geralt. Sadly though, this is lost within a confusing array of smaller characters and events that take an age to happen.
Andrzej Sapkowski’s first full novel beautifully portrayed the world around Geralt and captured the rising tensions between different races. At this point, war is steadily approaching from the Northern lands, but the wide array of characters makes it very difficult to keep up with. You almost need a family tree, or diagram, to be able to keep up with all the different sides and understand who’s against which army or land. For such a big part of the Witcher saga, this is sadly presented in a very poor way.
Gladly the characters or Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer keep their strong identities from the earlier novel. Ciri is turning into an awkward teenager who struggles with who she really is. Yennefer notices this more than Triss and sees magic ability within her. Yennefer is a very harsh teacher, which doesn’t really endear her to the reader. Luckily her bond with Geralt is difficult, complex and deep. This helps keep the story moving.
The story picks up during a reception for witches and wizards, which introduces many new faces, but is all told through the point of view of Geralt, who is only there because he wants to impress Yennefer and be a committed partner. The action in this section, and just after, is quick paced, exciting and offers many twists. It’s a shame that we had to wait so long for anything like that to really happen…
The Time of Contempt is an important read for the Witcher saga, but it offers little as a standalone book. If you’re not too interested in the overarching story and just want to see more of The Witcher 3’s characters, then maybe give this one a miss.