By Andrzej Sapkowski
The story is fairly hackneyed fantasy fair; for over a hundred years humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves have lived together in an uneasy peace, but times have changed and fighting between races – and even between kinsmen – has reignited. Born into this powder-keg world is a child, Ciri, the granddaughter of Queen Calanthe, the Lioness of Cintra, and someone for whom the Witchers have been waiting a long time, as a prophecy names her as the Flame, the one with the power to change the world for either good or evil.
Ciri is taken to the safety of Kaer Morhen, the Witchers’ Keep, by the legendary Geralt, the witcher of Rivia, but when it becomes clear that Ciri isn’t like the other Witchers he calls on the help of a sorceress, Triss Merigold, to continue Ciri’s education beyond swordsmanship and the fighting arts. Triss quickly realises that Ciri has magical abilities of such power that she could be a Source and it is decided to take her away to a school where she can develop under Triss’s watchful eye, but Emhyr var Emreis, Emperor of Nilfgaard, also knows the potential of this young girl’s power and sends the psychotic Rience to find her and kill Geralt before Ciri realises her full potential and her importance to the Kingdom of Cintra.
Blood of Elves is a book you so much want to like. Given the world dominating nature of this expanding franchise it not surprising that the word of mouth is all good and the expectation is heavy, but the truth is, only the casual fantasy reader will leave it satisfied.
True, it’s a first book and as such is yet to get into it’s story telling stride, but first books are usually the best of the bunch, you get to introduce all of your main characters, build your fantasy universe, set up the cataclysmic events and generally have all the fun, but even in this it falls short. It’s a journeyman’s job rather than a master storyteller’s; the universe is interesting but not particularly visual – it doesn’t make you yearn to explore it yourself – and the politics of the world are nothing you haven’t seen before. The characters are okay, but not compelling, veering towards stereotype on more than one occasion which isn’t helped by dialogue that is right on the nose, lacking any subtlety or nuance. I’m prepared to concede that it may have lost something in translation, but it comes across as a mish mash of ideas and set pieces that Sapkowski read somewhere else and thought would work well in his own opus.
No doubt Blood of Elves will find its audience amongst the considerable base of existing RPG, comic and TV fans – and that’s good – it deserves an audience and those guys will appreciate it a lot more, but for those seeking inspiration and new direction in works of modern fantasy, look elsewhere, this is a competent book, but nothing more, and your hard-earned could do so much better.
Blood Of Elves is published by Gollancz SF and is available from Amazon