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A review by justjonsbooks
The Tower of the Swallow by Andrzej Sapkowski
4.0
There were parts where this book had me and there were parts where it lost me. At times I was thinking it was going to be a 4.5 or even 5 stars but as you can see I ended up going for just a 4, here’s why...
As the penultimate book in the main series I was expecting things to start building towards the finale and giving us an idea of what is to come, but it kind of stuttered in doing so. The plot is still as open as ever and I have no clue what is going to happen next and how it will even be possible to wrap everything up in the final book, which is worrying because I don’t want it to feel rushed or end up with a basic ending that never reaches the expectations I built for it. We’ll see.
The largest thing to note of this book is it how the story jumps back and forth in time which can be unusual and tricky to follow, but it works...kind of... There were times when it gets a bit out of hand though, like when one of the characters is describing their past events where they meet another character who then describes their own past events and ultimately I felt like I was reading Inception. A little too often I had to take a minute to figure out where I was in the storyline. Another issue with this structure is that it makes the majority of the book feel like a recap and catch up of what has happened since the previous book, whereas I probably would have enjoyed the journey more if it just played out in the normal order of events.
Nonetheless the book still has its expected charms, its great action sequences and violence that we love. Ciri is a badass now, but the journey of Geralt and his squad continues to be my favourite parts, despite still not a lot actually happening in overall scheme of things. Cahir continues to intrigue us and the tension between him and Geralt finally explodes, but I wished we would have seen more of Milva who had a really important part in the previous book. For most of this it seemed like she was in a strop, granted she has a right to be, but there was no development and mostly she felt pushed aside as though the author got a bit bored of her, instead bringing in a new character who was fun but I didn’t have the need to care for a new character. The same goes for Yennefer who only had like 2 or 3 parts after already not having much in the previous book. After being reminded of how great she is from the Netflix show I wanted a lot more here! I did however really enjoy the opening where we follow the story from Dandelions perspective. We should have a whole book of just that.
The ending and the teaser chapter for the next book though has really grabbed my attention and brings a lot of new hope. It looks like we’re entering a whole new realm of this journey, one that I am familiar with from the games as they were my favorite parts, it’s just a shame it’s taken 5 books to get there!
As the penultimate book in the main series I was expecting things to start building towards the finale and giving us an idea of what is to come, but it kind of stuttered in doing so. The plot is still as open as ever and I have no clue what is going to happen next and how it will even be possible to wrap everything up in the final book, which is worrying because I don’t want it to feel rushed or end up with a basic ending that never reaches the expectations I built for it. We’ll see.
The largest thing to note of this book is it how the story jumps back and forth in time which can be unusual and tricky to follow, but it works...kind of... There were times when it gets a bit out of hand though, like when one of the characters is describing their past events where they meet another character who then describes their own past events and ultimately I felt like I was reading Inception. A little too often I had to take a minute to figure out where I was in the storyline. Another issue with this structure is that it makes the majority of the book feel like a recap and catch up of what has happened since the previous book, whereas I probably would have enjoyed the journey more if it just played out in the normal order of events.
Nonetheless the book still has its expected charms, its great action sequences and violence that we love. Ciri is a badass now, but the journey of Geralt and his squad continues to be my favourite parts, despite still not a lot actually happening in overall scheme of things. Cahir continues to intrigue us and the tension between him and Geralt finally explodes, but I wished we would have seen more of Milva who had a really important part in the previous book. For most of this it seemed like she was in a strop, granted she has a right to be, but there was no development and mostly she felt pushed aside as though the author got a bit bored of her, instead bringing in a new character who was fun but I didn’t have the need to care for a new character. The same goes for Yennefer who only had like 2 or 3 parts after already not having much in the previous book. After being reminded of how great she is from the Netflix show I wanted a lot more here! I did however really enjoy the opening where we follow the story from Dandelions perspective. We should have a whole book of just that.
The ending and the teaser chapter for the next book though has really grabbed my attention and brings a lot of new hope. It looks like we’re entering a whole new realm of this journey, one that I am familiar with from the games as they were my favorite parts, it’s just a shame it’s taken 5 books to get there!