2. The Time of Contempt (The Witcher Saga #2)
There’s one main reason that The Time of Contempt ranks as high as it does on this list, and that reason is the Isle of Thanedd. Spanning almost a third of the novel, the great conclave of mages and diplomats at the sorcerers’ stronghold is a high point of the series; if The Witcher can be said to have a “Red Wedding moment,” it’s the Thanedd coup. It features more than a few shocking deaths, betrayals, epic showdowns, and a blood bath which totally reshapes the balance of power on the Continent. It’s here that Sapkowski pays off many of his longest-running mysteries, such as revealing the identity of the mage Rience’s secret employer.
Of course, Thanedd isn’t the only highlight of The Time of Contempt. It also features some wonderfully poetic writing from Sapkowski, especially in the dialogue, which has room to meander but doesn’t go quite as far afield as in some of the later books. We get to see Ciri, Geralt and Yennefer coming together one last time before the winds of fate toss them to opposite ends of the world. And after relying on her witcherly father figure for the entirety of the series, Ciri finally steps into her own as she fights a wyvern in a marketplace and, later, has to fend for herself in the Korath Desert.
But if there’s one thing that keeps The Time of Contempt from being at the top of the list, it’s Ciri’s eventual meeting with the Rats. No matter how much I laud the rest of The Time of Contempt, the sexual abuse in the final chapter remains one of the most stomach-churning passages in The Witcher Saga, and not in a good way. Ciri is rescued from one abuser, only to fall into the hands of another whom Sapkowski tries to paint in a slightly nicer light…but ultimately we’re still talking about abuse, and it’s just not handled very sensitively.
It’s one of the few blemishes on an otherwise excellent novel. Without The Time of Contempt, Geralt and Ciri’s tale might never have ascended to the exciting heights it reaches following the Thanedd Coup.