Blood Of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Gollancz (16 Oct 2008)
ISBN: 0575083182
Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm

In a world scarred by war, in a world where racial tension grows every day, in a world where political games are played at the expense of innocent people, in a world where all hope seems lost, a young girl shines like a light in a stormy coast. This is the story of young Ciri, the Witcher called Geralt of Rivia - the white wolf - and Yennefer the enchantress. Will they be able to protect Ciri? This task will prove difficult. Who can they trust? Who is friend, who is enemy?

Don’t Judge A Book By It, But…

I love Blood Of Elves’ cover. I find it reflects the spirit of the book and probably what’s more to come. I’m not sure whether those are daggers or short swords but when I first saw them, I thought about a pair of elven swords. The fact that the cover makes the book look like an old book enhances the feeling of reading something special.

About The Book

I had wanted to find some time to read Blood of Elves for a while. It generated some buzz on the online forums and I wanted to try out one of Sapkowski’s books. Recently it pushed itself up in my to-be-read pile and it landed on my lap a few days ago. So I decided to read it…

Blood of Elves is a Tolkienesque fantasy book, which, I believe, would please a young adult audience as much as a mature one. The book successfully contains the expected traits of such a world. For example, it is a world where many races such as elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings live together.

Sapkowski’s style is very fluent and Blood Of Elves is a fast paced book. I must admit that the author’s style, or the fact that he dances among various styles, really surprised me in the beginning. The book contains enough descriptions to imagine and visualize the setting however the author doesn’t use much description during conversations. This creates a fast paced story but sometimes it forces the reader to deduce what’s happening around by what’s being said in the conversation as opposed to what’s being described as part of some description. And rarely, the author uses a more poetic and sharp style with a series of short sentences.

There isn’t much character development throughout the book. I thought the most intriguing protagonist was Yennefer the enchantress whose character was the best developed. Yennefer gets more focus during the second half of the story whereas the first half is mostly about Geralt, the mysterious protector of Ciri.

All in all I really enjoyed this book. Despite having had high expectations I wasn’t disappointed. Blood of Elves comes across as the opening book of a long series and it promises much better things to come. I’m just hoping that we’ll be able to read the English translations of the other books in the series soon.

(7/10)