{"id":5253,"date":"2018-08-23T19:35:36","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T19:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=5253"},"modified":"2018-08-23T19:35:36","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T19:35:36","slug":"guest-review-season-of-storms-by-andrzej-sapkowski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=5253","title":{"rendered":"Guest Review: Season of Storms by Andrzej Sapkowski"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graham Oliver’s work has previously appeared in <\/em>Electric Literature, <\/em>Harvard Educational Review, <\/em>Ploughshares‘ blog, and elsewhere. He lives and teaches near Austin, TX.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

translated from the Polish by David French<\/p>\n

Orbit<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

May 22, 2018 (originally published in Polish in 2013)<\/p>\n

432 pages<\/p>\n

grab a copy<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Like many of Sapkowski\u2019s American readers, I came to the Witcher books because of the video games. The series stands out in the video game medium for having engrossing, complex, meaningful stories that few other games can measure up to. 2015\u2019s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt<\/em> won pretty much every award it could, including several for best role-playing game and best storytelling. The stories the games tell have their flaws, of course, but overall they were some of the best narrative experiences I\u2019ve had in gaming. Season of Storms<\/em> leans into the games\u2019 success: the cover features the games\u2019 depiction of Geralt as the cover.<\/p>\n

The books and games (as well as a comic book series, a poorly received Polish television and a forthcoming Netflix series) follow Geralt of Rivia as he stumbles his way reluctantly into the middle of political intrigue, plots for world domination, and general magic-fueled shenanigans. Geralt is a witcher, an alchemically- and magically-enhanced monster hunter. His mutations grant him strength, speed, longevity, while also making him (depending on the needs of the story) nearly unable to express emotions and infertile. While Season of Storms<\/em> is the most recently published book, it falls early in the chronology and is set around the time of the short stories contained in Sapkowski\u2019s first Witcher book, a collection of short stories from 1993 entitled The Last Wish<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Season of Storms<\/em> takes place in Kerack, a small kingdom I hadn\u2019t remembered encountering before this book. That\u2019s one of the things I love most about the series: the vastness of the world. Not in terms of physical size, but in terms of how the series\u2019 storytelling constantly reminds you what a small slice the audience gets to see. The stories allude to events, places, and people the audience has never encountered, but it treats those allusions as they would occur in the natural world, not taking a break to explain them as though Geralt has amnesia and can\u2019t remember his past life (side note: Geralt frequently has amnesia and can\u2019t remember his past life). Characters show up and greet Geralt with lines like, \u201cI haven\u2019t seen you since that important battle!\u201d and Geralt makes a quip and the story moves on and I absolutely love those moments because they do what all great high fantasy does: gives you a sense of a larger world waiting to be discovered, just past the edges of the page.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, while the macro world building of the Witcher is delightful, the specifics often don\u2019t measure up. Geralt hits annoying levels of perfection. He\u2019s more skilled at fighting than pretty much anyone else, he figures things out faster, and every woman he encounters wants to sleep with him (which, paired with his chemically-subdued emotions, makes for a weird commentary on masculine bravado). Nearly every other major player in the world is consumed with a lust for power. Magic\u2019s danger is underestimated, the common folk are neglected, and Geralt is the one person just trying to do the right thing. In order to put him into a position where he is the underdog with obstacles to overcome, the narrative almost always relies on Geralt\u2019s one adorable flaw: he\u2019s just too darn trusting of other people. Season of Storms\u2019 entire story relies on this over and over again. Condensed, the story is a series of people telling Geralt, \u201cWow, you shouldn\u2019t have trusted them!\u201d<\/p>\n

In a video game, Geralt\u2019s Mary Sue-levels of perfection work because that\u2019s what we expect from a video game protagonist. The games also temper Geralt\u2019s machismo by keeping his dialogue sparse. In Season of Storms<\/em>, though, these characteristics burst through annoyingly. Geralt launches into long diatribes, peppering his speech with jarring Latin and French phrases then a short time later referring to a jail as \u201cthe slammer.\u201d In a fight, we\u2019re told what specific nerve above the ear he delivers a pinpoint blow to. He\u2019s literally described by a woman as one of the few \u201creal men\u201d she\u2019s encountered. On top of this, the story has the classic, overly familiar trope of the villain spending an absurd amount of time explaining his master plan while Geralt is seemingly incapacitated but, wait, he\u2019s not fully incapacitated and the villain\u2019s speech gave him the time he needed to recover!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll probably continue to occasionally pick up one of the books. I might even make it to comic series one of these days. But that desire to keep reading is anchored firmly in the narrative experience of the games, an experience that the Witcher books I\u2019ve read so far have not lived up to. Season of Storms<\/em> is, unfortunately, not an exception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graham Oliver’s work has previously appeared in Electric Literature, Harvard Educational Review, Ploughshares‘ blog, and elsewhere. He lives and teaches near Austin, TX. translated from the Polish by David French Orbit May 22, 2018 (originally published in Polish in 2013) 432 pages grab a copy Like many of Sapkowski\u2019s American readers, I came to the<\/p>\n

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