7. Season of Storms (The Witcher Saga #6)
Season of Storms is an odd book in the overall Witcher canon. The original Witcher Saga wrapped up in 1999 with The Lady of the Lake, seemingly putting an end to the tale of Geralt of Rivia. However, in 2013, Andrzej Sapkowski published Season of Storms as a standalone prequel about one of Geralt’s adventures in his younger years, set around the same time as the Sword of Destiny short story collection.
The result is fascinating. Season of Storms has many of the classic elements that have come to define The Witcher, like corrupt sorcerers, battles with ferocious monsters, commentary on xenophobia, and examinations of societal hypocrisies through a witty medieval fantasy lens. On paper, Season of Storms should be a standout.
However, the book tends to meander. Long, rambling conversations between characters has always been one of The Witcher’s trademarks, but Season of Storms really pushes that to the limit. It’s also hard to ignore Sapkowski’s bad habit of overtly objectifying female characters; this is an issue throughout the saga, but usually it’s tempered by spending enough time with said characters that we get a good feel for their personalities as well. In Season of Storms, it reaches a point where it’s hard not to roll your eyes when every female character is introduced by some remark about their shapeliness.
The other big problem Season of Storms has is that while it has all the makings of a good Witcher book, it lacks deeper connective tissue to the rest of the Saga. Even in the short stories, Sapkowski often seeded ideas and characters which would come back around. There isn’t much of that sort of thing in Season of Storms, making it feel like the stakes are pretty low since we already know that nothing that happens will have much of an impact on the broader series.
All that said, if you want a complete one-off Witcher adventure in a single book, Season of Storms is one of your best choices.