Blood of Elves

Title: Blood of Elves

Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 1994 (2009 Gollancz)
Pages: 315
ISBN: 9780575084841
Series: The Witcher #1
Genre: Fantasy
Reading Time: 5 - 10 March
Binding: Paperback
Goodreads

Stars:
★★★★☆

Blurb:
 For more than a hundred years humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, and now the races fight each other once again. In this tumultuous time a child is born; Ciri. She has strange powers and a stranger destiny, for a prophecy names her as one with the power to cha the world, for good or for evil.
 The witcher Geralt has taken Ciri to relative safety, but it soon becomes clear that Ciri is not like the other witchers. As the threat of war hangs over the land, Geralt and Ciri are pursued by someone who understands exactly what the prophecy means - and exactly what Ciri's power could do. This time Geralt may have met his match.

Review:
 Finally on to a full book of the witcher seri following the two collections of short stories. I have to say that after reading those fast paced short stories, this felt really, really slow. That's the point at which I took a star off. I really thought a bit more would happen given it's a first book in a series. Had I picked this up first, I'm not sure I'd continue. However I've got myself invested and am currently in the midst of beginning the fourth book as I write this.
 Geralt and Ciri have a great relationship and I enjoy really seeing it in action for this length of time. We get some detail of other witchers in the opening chapters which is really interesting and get to meet some other characters which I'm familiar with from the short stories. All great except one; Triss. What an annoying character she was in this one, the man doesn't want you Triss, get over it! Then it just gets worse and worse. I'm also shocked by the lack of presence of some characters that I know are considered main characters so it will be interesting to see how the love for the characters has built as more material from the author is given.
 In terms of world-building, I have to say I got more from the short stories. In this book I began to get really confused by the amount of places, people and who to recognise in relation to which places. This is not something I've experienced before, I'm usually really good at keeping track of detail like this and I wasn't attempting to read any other series at the time. I find that when there are lots of characters introduced in one scene, it all mixes up rather quickly.
 I enjoy the humour and really took note that Sapkowski hasn't driven away from female anatomy which I find even a lot of female authors fail to address in books. Periods can make women feel ill, yes, address that. I thought that scene was great.
 It's a short number of chapters to this book, only seven from what I remember and that last chapter with Yennefer and Ciri was. Just. Fantastic.
 I was borrowing this series from the library and there has been a LONG queue since the release of the Netflix series. So much so that my county library ordered 16 more of each book. I managed to go in just before COVID-19 shut all our libraries and grabbed the rest of the series. ALL. OF. THEM. Now I get to keep them for 3 months as they have postponed return times until July. I can take the rest at whatever pace I like!