Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 5, 2023. It has been updated to include the new Witcher novel CROSSROADS OF RAVENS, which released in Poland in December 2024 and globally on September 30, 2025.
When The Witcher season 3 premiered on Netflix in mid-2023, it maked one of the most ambitious turns for the epic television series yet. Featuring Henry Cavill’s final performance as the show’s titular monster-hunter, Geralt of Rivia, before Liam Hemsworth takes over the role in season 4, it adapted one of the biggest turning points in Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher book series, the novel The Time of Contempt. And while it had its fair share of criticism, season 3 absolutely nailed some of the most crucial moments, like Geralt's iconic duel with the sorcerer Vilgefortz of Roggeveen.
Believe it or not, we're not only a few weeks away from Hemsworth's debut in The Witcher season 4. The penultimate season of the series will wade into material from Baptism of Fire and beyond, introducing fan-favorite characters like Regis and loathsome villains like Leo Bonhart. It premieres October 30 on Netflix.
The Netflix show isn't the only exciting thing happening in the world of The Witcher. On September 30, Andrzej Sapkowski released his first new Witcher novel in more than a decade: Crossroads of Ravens. This standalone prequel takes readers back to Geralt of Rivia's very first adventures, when he was still trying to find his way as a witcher in a Continent filled with monsters, prejudice, and magic. I've had a chance to read it and enjoyed it thoroughly; check out my spoiler-free review here.
In celebration of the upcoming season of the television show as well as Crossroads of Ravens, we’re looking back on the book saga as a whole. Long before Netflix came into the picture, before CD Projekt Red crafted its mega-hit video game series, Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novels and short stories had already captivated readers the world over. Let’s go through each book, ranked worst to best!
9. Blood of Elves (The Witcher Saga #1)
As it was the first full-length Witcher novel, Blood of Elves was a huge step forward for the series. It also experienced some growing pains. Up until Blood of Elves, Sapkowski had written mainly short fiction revolving around Geralt and his on-again-off-again sorceress paramour Yennefer of Vengerberg. Blood of Elves is somewhat torn between Sapkowski’s previous style of weaving together short stories, and the novel-length works that would go on to define The Witcher Saga proper. The pacing isn’t as smooth as some other entries in the series, and the ending is rather anti-climactic.
That’s not to say Blood of Elves doesn’t have its highlights. It’s the only time in the book series that we really get to spend time at the witcher keep of Kaer Morhen. It features a great set piece at the elven ruins of Shaerrawedd, which we saw adapted in the season 3 premiere of Netflix’s TV show. It also introduced readers to the city of Oxenfurt, as well as Redanian spymaster Dijkstra and his sorceress co-conspirator Philippa Eilheart, both of whom went on to become fan favorites.
Overall, Blood of Elves pales in comparison to both the short fiction collections where Sapkowski was really in his element, as well as the later novels in the series where he’d nailed down his approach. It’s not a bad book, but if any single volume of The Witcher Saga isn’t going to survive the literary equivalent to the Trial of the Grasses, it’s this one.
8. Season of Storms (The Witcher Standalones #1)
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.
7. Baptism of Fire (The Witcher Saga #3)
It didn’t take long to get to the splitting hairs portion of the list, but here we are. Baptism of Fire is an integral piece of The Witcher Saga which functions as the start of Geralt of Rivia’s final epic journey to find Ciri after the calamitous events at the Isle of Thanedd in The Time of Contempt. Despite being a fantastic book, it doesn’t quite sing at times in the same way as the other novels thanks to the way the plotlines are balanced.
Geralt’s story is a highlight of Baptism of Fire, as we see him meet various companions who join his hansa, or party, on a Continent-spanning quest to find the missing Ciri. We get to know characters like the archer Milva and the charmingly fun vampire Regis, as well as spend lots of time with old favorites like Dandelion. The interactions between Geralt’s companions results in lots of expressive dialogue and ideological debates. Topping it all off is a great climax where Geralt is actually dubbed a knight by the queen of Rivia for his valor, which is an important moment in the series.
The other highlight of Baptism of Fire is the formation of the Lodge of Sorceresses, which gives all our favorite sorceresses plenty of time to shine. However, things start to come apart a bit where Ciri is concerned. She spends most of Baptism of Fire with the Rats and does very little, at least compared to Geralt. Really, everything with Ciri is set-up for the following book, and while it works just fine, it also makes Baptism of Fire feel a little less well-rounded than other entries in the series.
6. Sword of Destiny (The Witcher Short Stories #2)
Sword of Destiny is the second of Sapkowski’s Witcher short story collections. If The Last Wish serves primarily as an introduction to the main characters, Sword of Destiny is a runway into the broader novel series. Sapkowski sets up Geralt and Yennefer’s tumultuous romance and the witcher’s fated connection with Ciri, as well as the overall political landscape of the Continent.
Despite all that, many of the stories in Sword of Destiny still stand quite well on their own, such as the doppler story “The Eternal Flame” and Geralt’s encounter with mer-creatures in “A Little Sacrifice.” The former is one of the best examples of how Sapkowski uses The Witcher to explore themes of xenophobia, as dopplers are widely regarded as horrible monsters even though they really aren’t all that dissimilar from humans and often look identical to them. The latter packs a punch straight to the heart as well as some great action and creature work.
But Sword of Destiny really shines when it leans into The Witcher mythos and gets us primed for the subsequent novel series. “The Bounds of Reason,” which features Geralt and Yen on an ill-fated dragon hunt, is a standout story. And the final two stories in the collection, “Sword of Destiny” and “Something More,” excellently set up Ciri’s entry into the saga.
If Blood of Elves is a Witcher book that feels like Sapkowski’s short story format crammed somewhat awkwardly into a novel, Sword of Destiny is the opposite: a short story collection which has the arc and breadth of a full-length book.
5. The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher Saga #4)
The Tower of Swallows is the penultimate entry in The Witcher Saga and continues the story directly following the events of Baptism of Fire. In many ways, it has the exact opposite issues in terms of balancing its many plotlines. The Tower of Swallows is primarily about Ciri, whose time with the Rats comes to a traumatic end at the hands of the brutal mercenary Leo Bonhart. Ciri’s plotline is so awful that at times it can almost be hard to read. This is The Witcher at its most horrific, and it’s a riveting affair.
The Tower of Swallows also gives Sapkowski room to play with framing stories, as we come to realize that the bulk of the story is being told by Ciri to a kindly swamp-dwelling philosopher months after her first grisly encounter with Bonhart. Sapkowski often uses such devices to great effect, and The Tower of Swallows is no exception.
As excellent as Ciri’s plotline is in The Tower of Swallows, Geralt’s tends to meander. He and his hansa spend much of the book traveling back and forth across the countryside in search of Ciri. There are a few close calls, but on the whole Geralt’s journey feels a bit aimless. It fits with how rudderless Geralt himself is at this stage of the saga, but it’s a lot less fun than some of Sapkowski’s tighter-plotted arcs. The difference is especially noticeable given how intense things are for Ciri.
Fortunately, what The Tower of Swallows does well it does so well that it rightfully deserves a place in the center of the list. It helps that it has one of the best endings of any of the books in the saga, which sees the death of one major villain while setting up an even bigger threat for the grand finale in The Lady of the Lake.
4. Crossroads of Ravens (The Witcher Standalones #2)
Crossroads of Ravens is the latest book in The Witcher series, and the second full-length standalone novel Sapkowski has written about Geralt of Rivia's earlier adventures. Unlike Season of Storms, which is set in the middle of the short story timeline, Crossroads of Ravens takes us back even further, to Geralt's very first adventures as a fledgeling witcher.
Fresh out of Kaer Morhen as an 18-year-old, Geralt is taken under the wing of a grizzled veteran witcher named Preston Holt. This witcher is well-versed in the brutal ways of the world, and tries to disabuse Geralt of any aspirations at nobility and honor. He also has a mysterious connection to the pogrom against Kaer Morhen, which left the castle in ruins and the majority of its adult witchers slain. This is a crucial piece of witcher lore that Sapkowski has alluded to in previous books, but now for the first time he digs into the details. And the pogrom is far from the only deep series lore that Sapkowski tackles here. It makes Crossroads of Ravens an absolutely essential read for any fan of the series.
But the lore isn't the only thing that makes Crossroads of Ravens so good. The style of the book is also fascinating, combining an overarching narrative about Geralt learning what it means to be a witcher with individual monster hunts, each of which brings him closer to becoming the man we know from the previous books. This makes Crossroads of Ravens feel like a perfect marriage between the weightier material of the full-length Witcher novels, and the focused storytelling of the short fiction.
The result is a blend of the old and the new, with some of the sharpest writing Sapkowski has done on the series in years. Crossroads of Ravens is probably the closest thing to a flawless Witcher novel to date, but for as good as it is, there are other entries in the series that are simply too iconic for it to top.
3. The Last Wish (The Witcher Short Stories #1)
The very first book in Sapkwoski’s Witcher series is The Last Wish, which collects various pieces of short fiction and connects them through a framing story set at the Temple of Melitele. The Last Wish is an excellent book which features some of the absolute best short stories that Sapkowski wrote for the saga. There’s a reason that, all these years later, people still refer to tales like “The Lesser Evil,” “The Witcher,” and “The Last Wish” when they talk about the series.
The Last Wish serves as an introduction to The Witcher world at large, and to professional monster hunter Geralt of Rivia. As such, it leans into the monster-of-the-week format more than any other of Sapkowski’s works. Geralt’s encounter with the Striga in “The Witcher” feels like a horror story, while “The Lesser Evil” and “A Grain of Truth” dig into the moral conundrums which often lie at the heart of Sapkowski’s stories. Another standout, “A Question of Price,” has ramifications that don’t become clear until near the end of the book series.
Best of all, the framing story brings together these tales in a way that sets it apart from your usual short story collection. Geralt’s time at the Temple of Melitele deepens our understanding of what happened between the short stories and how his relationship with Yennefer changed over time. “The Last Wish” is the beginning of Geralt and Yennefer’s epic love story, and it’s just as complex and tumultuous as their legendary partnership.
Despite the fact that some of the stories in The Last Wish were written upwards of 30 years ago, they hold up against the rest of The Witcher Saga pretty damn well.
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.
1. The Lady of the Lake (The Witcher Saga #5)
If I’m being honest, I didn’t expect to put The Lady of the Lake in the number one spot when I started this list. But one of the beautiful things about The Witcher Saga is that the more you think about it, the more layers reveal themselves; nowhere is that truer than with The Lady of the Lake, the final volume in the mainline story of Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer of Vengerberg.
The Lady of the Lake is a weird book. While Sapkowski hints throughout the series that there might be meta layers beyond the story we’re reading (such as in Baptism of Fire when we glimpse a storyteller telling this tale to a young Nimue, from Arthurian Legend), it’s not until The Lady of the Lake that the author really pulls back the curtain. The multiverse elements coming into the series at the eleventh hour could easily have made it awful; indeed, they do make it much harder to digest than usual.
But Sapkowski manages to pull it off because Ciri’s ability to traverse space and time has been so clearly laid out already. This isn’t some random plot device thrown in at the finish line, but instead a natural side effect of a magical ability which has been at the heart of the novel series since the start. It may not be for everyone, and it may feel a bit jarring on the first read, but once you get adjusted it becomes clear that The Lady of the Lake is the kind of heady fantasy book that people could study for years.
It helps that the plotlines, setting, and character work in The Lady of the Lake are top notch. After stringing us along with questions for books on end, Sapkwoski finally doles out answers. We find out why the Wild Hunt is after Ciri, and what importance she truly holds for elf kind. We see Geralt and his hansa spend time in the magical Duchy of Toussaint before setting out on their final quest together. It’s a well-wrought book, even if there are some weird quirks.
What solidifies The Lady of the Lake’s place at the top of the list is its climax. The main resolution of the series sees Geralt’s hansa confront multiple villains who have remained at large for most of the book series in one of the best written, most heartwrenching sequences of the entire Witcher Saga. The fact that Sapkowski capstones it with a reveal about the true motives of Emperor Emhyr var Emries of Nilfgaard just drives home how much of a solid ending it is.
But then we find out it isn’t actually the ending at all, as Sapkowski reveals Geralt’s unexpected fate in the novel’s final pages. The pogrom which Geralt becomes embroiled in at the end of The Lady of the Lake subverts expectations to deliver a shocking, yet thematically appropriate end for the character. And since The Lady of the Lake is all about the meta storytelling, Sapkowski can ambiguously weave Geralt of Rivia into the realm of myth right alongside legends like King Arthur of Camelot. It still has its issues — it will never not bug me that Yen and Triss act so outrageous in those final pages — but overall The Lady of the Lake stands as a singular achievement in Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher Saga.
How do these rankings feel for you? Would you change any? Let us know in the comments!
The Witcher: Crossroads of Ravens is available now from Orbit, wherever books are sold. The Witcher season 4 premieres October 30 on Netflix.
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