Are the Books for The Witcher very good? I assume they go in the order of publication?

I read all the books, the first couple are pretty good. As they go on I felt they lost something. I didn’t really care for the ending.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
Are the Books for The Witcher very good?

Pretty good. Not perfect, but well worth reading if you enjoy The Witcher games/show, or gritty fantasy in general. The audiobooks are very well done too.

quote:

I assume they go in the order of publication?

Not quite. The Last Wish was published second, but chronologically is first. And the English translations were published in a different order than the original Polish books, further muddying the waters of "order of publication". Plus, the most recently released entry, Season of Storms, is mostly set within the events of The Last Wish, the first book chronologically.

Here's the intended reading order:
The Last Wish
Sword of Destiny
Blood of Elves
Time of Contempt
Baptism of Fire
The Tower of the Swallow
The Lady of the Lake
Season of Storms*

The first two books, Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, are short story collections not novels. These short stories lay the foundation for the setting and introduce the main characters for the Witcher Saga - Geralt, Dandelion, Triss, Yennifer, Ciri, etc. The Witcher Saga series of novels, with the overarcing plot involving Geralt and Ciri, is the subsequent 5 novels from Blood of Elves through Lady of the Lake.

*Season of Storms is another short story collection, whose stories are chronologically set within those of The Last Wish. But you will want to wait until you've read the rest of the series before reading it. You may not understand all of it or catch all the references if you read it in its true chronological place after Last Wish, without the backstory provided by the other books. And it contains some stuff that could be considered spoilers for later events in the series. Plus it contains an epilogue that's set well after the entire Witcher series ends.

So on your first read-through, I'd save Season of Storms for last, but in subsequent read-throughs, you might read it second, after Last Wish.