Book Review: The Tower of the Swallow | Witcher Book #6

Tower of the Swallow


Book #6 of The Witcher
Authored by Andrzej Sapkowski


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I paused the witcher series about a year ago, maybe a bit more than that. It wasn't that I failed to enjoy the writing and the story; I think the storyline didn't go how I expected it to go and was a bit disheartened. Which I shouldn't have been—as unexpected storylines are actually a preferred way to go as long as novels are involved.

But I also had Malazan books to finish, so I kind of grew apart. But I did manage to read a huge chunk of witcher books, about 5 of them.

Recently I started playing Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt on PC, and it's mind-blowingly detailed and quite true to its source of inspiration—which is the novel series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.

The characters are exactly how I imagined them to be reading the books. And unlike the tv show, where Yennefer looks like an emo young girl who's barely passed her 20s, the game Yennefer does look like a 94-year-old sorceress who happens to be retaining youth. Henry Cavil was fine as Superman but I think Geralt has a far more charismatic personality than the one Cavil plays in the show. The game does Geralt right as well. And playing it, I had the urge to go back to the novels and resume where I left it off.

So I started The Tower of the Swallow again. It's the fourth novel, and 6th book of the entire witcher saga (chronologically). The author usually likes to jump around with narrative but this time he did something different.

Since it is the sixth book, it's dangerous to delve into plots, so I will add spoiler remarks at the end of this post, which will have a spoiler alert. If you have never read witcher books, feel free to read up to that.

The story begins with one of the deuteragonists of the series—Ciri— a teenage girl, a witcher in training, and also Geralt's adopted daughter is found half-dead, unconscious in a swamp woodland by a hermit. Luckily the hermit is an exiled scholar and he starts to take care of the young maiden and tries to bring her back to the land of the living.

The reader doesn't know why Ciri was there, how she came to have such a miserable fate. Neither does the hermit scholar. But he keeps note of the methods he tried to cure the girl and the reader only knows of the advances of the story through those notes in the beginning.

Once Ciri got healed, we read what happened to her and how she came to be through her recollections, and this continued throughout the book.
I liked how this storytelling technique progressed.

Ciri was developed well in this novel and this is surely her book. I thought Geralt and Yennefer's plotlines were dragged on needlessly and could be a lot more happening there.

But the pros will outweigh the cons.


Spoiler Alert


Those of you who read the series beforehand—

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The last fight where Ciri skates on the ice near the tower of the Swallow and kills the hunting party one after one was extremely satisfying. I was expecting Bonhart to be among them too but maybe that was expecting too much. Bonhart is a strong villain and he kinda managed to piss me off on many occasions.

Perhaps he will meet Geralt in the final book (no spoilers please if you've read) and Geralt will beat the crap out of him. Or even better, maybe Ciri gets to be stronger enough to defeat him. Who knows!

I didn't like Ciri being in Rat's gang. True, it was an important segment in her life that led to her character build-up ultimately, but it could be anything else. Being in a gang that steals and robs isn't spectacularly original or intriguing.

What I disliked the most was how Geralt jumped to the conclusion that Yennefer betrayed him and Ciri. That was a bit uncalled for.

Oh and I absolutely enjoyed how the author finished each storytelling night with Vysogota listening to Ciri,

"Had someone had crept up after nightfall to the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown, thatched roof, had peered inside, in the firelight and glow of the hearth they would have seen a grey-bearded old man hunched over a pile of pelts. They would have seen an ashen-haired girl with a hideous scar on her cheek, a scar which in no way suited her huge green childlike eyes. But no one could have seen that. For the cottage stood among reeds in a swamp where no one dared to venture"

After a few times, I could utter the words along with the narrator of the audiobook, haha!

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Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is on my top five favorite games list. The attention to details, story developments, Quests and the mini games all of these have been executed marvelously. :') I wanted to start the book series when the game introduced Yennefer, I will probably start the series after finishing the DLC.

Thanks for the review. :')

Even the side quests are quite well thought out and designed. I'm having a great time playing the game! Too many things to do, too many places to explore, too many monsters to kill! Love it!

The first two books are absolutely amazing and worthy of literary recognition. Those are anthology short stories of witcher. Then comes the novels, while they are not all that great, they're quite readable and contain the main storyline.

Happy reading!

oh my word. Reading these words made me so in love with the book We all have seeing the witch, well maybe some of us. but the game is one I am yet to play. The character ciri just so happens to be my favorite.

I probably have to look this audio book on sribd asap.

You'll have a blast playing the game, mate! Although since you love to read, books are of course a priority. :)

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