What is Baptism of Fire?
The Wizards Guild has been shattered by a coup, an uprising that has left Geralt seriously injured.
The Witcher is supposed to be a guardian of the innocent, a protector of those in need, a defender against powerful and dangerous monsters that prey on men in dark times. But now that dark times have fallen upon the world, Geralt is helpless until he has recovered.
While war rages across the lands, the future of magic is under threat and those sorcerers who survive are determined to protect it. It’s an impossible situation in which to find one girl—Ciri, the heiress to the throne of Cintra—until a rumor places her in the Niflgaard court, preparing to marry the Emperor.
Injured or not, Geralt has a rescue mission on his hands.
Review
The Witcher series by Andrjez Sapkowski is one that is an underrated fantasy epic outside of Poland. It is something that provides a fantastic series of deconstructions of everything from fairy tales to more modern storytelling. Before Game of Thrones, Sapkowski was trying to create a tale where a thoroughly unapologetic and brutal fantasy world meets a bunch of unbreakable idealists.
Baptism of Fire is a really impressive book that was already an improvement (at least in English) over THE TIME OF CONTEMPT. This is when Geralt starts assembling his hansa (adventuring party) to travel across the land to rescue Ciri. Except Ciri doesn’t need rescuing and arguably, it’s the people who need rescuing from her. There’s a bunch of likable and less than likable rogues throughout the story as well as a strong anti-war sentiment.
I think Sapkowski’s handling of conflicts and how they destroy whole swaths of the country as well as turn ordinary people into horrific killers is well handled. There’s some truly delightful moments that show the ridiculousness of how bloodshed is treated in fantasy. Geralt gets knighted, for example, for saving the Queen of Rivia but that was completely an accident and after she had her teeth knocked out.
A good chunk of the book deals with Geralt surrounding himself with the kind of misfits and oddballs that form adventuring parties in more traditional fantasy. There’s an Nilfgaardian knight who has fallen in love with Ciri despite only meeting her once (and terrifying her), Milva the human raised by Dryads, Regis the vampire doctor, and, of course, Dandelion/Jaskier. It is perhaps the first time that Geralt has been among peers that aren’t his fellow witchers.
Ciri, by contrast, has found herself living among the Rats. The Rats are a group of noblemen’s children who have all suffered horrifically and become a gang of outlaws. As always, Sapkowski deconstructs the Robin Hood-esque narrative by making it clear they’re still a bunch of murderous bandits. Ciri fitting into it is fascinating because it shows that she’s not the sheltered princess and “good guy” that we expect her be. There’s an LGBTQA+ plot involved, revealing Ciri to be bi, but the consent is ‘questionable’ at best.
In conclusion, this is a solid and entertaining piece of fiction that moves the plot along nicely. I enjoy the new characters that Sapkowski has introduced and what an effective steamroller they are when they encounter “regular” soldiers. I also like the dark take that Ciri’s story takes, which was very unexpected.
