Things are slowly looking up with Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher series as The Tower of The Swallow provides some compelling and varied storytelling to progress the novels. While it isn’t a leap to say The Tower of The Swallow is my favourite in the novel series thus far, I can admit that things are developing in a much more enticing and significant way which is drawing my attention.

The world has fallen into war. Ciri, the child of prophecy, has vanished. Hunted by friends and foes alike, she has taken on the guise of a petty bandit and lives free for the first time in her life. But the net around her is closing. Geralt the Witcher has assembled a group of allies determined to rescue her. Both sides of the war have sent brutal mercenaries to hunt her down. Her crimes have made her famous. There is only one place left to run. The tower of the swallow is waiting…

Let’s start with a positive – Ciri is a badass in this novel. I think that’s one of the leading reasons why I don’t mind The Tower of The Swallow. Given her training, the emotional turmoil she has been through, the cutthroat life she has been forced to grow accustom to, and the deep-set connections she has with Yennefer and Geralt, it is about time Ciri showed what she could do and how she could defend herself and be a force to reckon with. She shows a great character development and awareness which is shown in her reflective retellings to the hermit of her recent run-ins, and as this is one of the only times I’ve seen some form of reflexivity or retrospection with these characters, it serves to endear her to the reader, at least in my opinion.

A thing of interest with The Tower of The Swallow is that we have multiple forms of storytelling happening with the text. As previously mentioned, we have Ciri’s recounting of events, we have passages of Dandelion’s writing for his memoir which entail the comings and goings of the Ciri rescue troop, we meetings with spies to share secrets and tell of what the other side is doing, and we have conversations between characters regarding the actions of Yennefer and where she went. We also have the present tense perspectives of Geralt and others which are familiar to us from the previous novels Blood of Elves, Time of Contempt, and Baptism of Fire. It makes the novel feel different, distinguishable, and more interesting which is certainly a more favourable reaction from me than we’ve seen with the series.

Are there still things I didn’t like about this novel? Yes. Will I get into it? No. I don’t like that I don’t like this series as much as I wanted to, and perhaps was anticipating liking it. I wish I had more good things to say about it, but I have learnt that The Witcher novels are not the kind of fantasy I enjoy. That’s perfectly fine. I gave it a shot and I respect all those who do love the series, but I think I will be sticking with the short stories. We will see how The Lady of The Lake rounds off the novel series – I am hoping for some seriously dramatic and exciting fights, conflicts, reunions, and resolutions.