The Time of Contempt

The Witcher Saga saw a new translator, as for the second book, The Time of Contempt, David French replaced Danusia Stok. Either because of that, or because the source material was better, I liked this volume more than the first.

I was surprised to see a footnote early into the novel. I do not know if it was placed there by French or Sapkowski but I did find its content questionable. In my opinion, the Scoia'tael and Nilfgaard being allied was not that obvious in Blood of Elves. Or at least describing them as allies is odd. To me, it seemed Nilfgaard was just taking advantage of the non-human races instead of them being allied. And it still seems like that.

Also questionable was how the backcover of the book spoiled events that start happening good halfway through it! I will not do the same mistake with the next one. I guess the goal of a backcover is to sell a book but this one sure did a good job at revealing a lot of the important stuff.

Geralt never disappoints but unfortunately he still shares the spotlight with Ciri. The girl keeps growing but she is yet far from being as likable as the White Wolf. She keeps doing silly childish things, which are not fun to read.

Ciri receives more mage training on top of her combat 101, and I guess she will become some sort of multi-class character. Although with where she ended up at the end of the book, I am not so sure what will really become of her.

The setting of The Time of Contempt seemed similar to what Witcher 3's will likely be. A certain Polish IRC acquaintance of mine claimed (or spoiled!) that the games take place after the saga, but to me it seems they are an alternative version of the same time period. I do not see how the Nilfgaard situation could be canon with the game if the books happened before the games. Or maybe it can. Not having read the whole saga limits by judgment a bit.

Also, there were good news from the translation front recently; the Finnish translation of the fourth volume of the saga, Wieża Jaskółki (Swallow's Tower), will be published next summer. If the established schedule stays the same, it will unfortunately also mean the fifth part will come out a year later in 2016. I wonder if it would be faster to learn to read Polish in that time... (And no, I will not touch the fan translations.)