Holy shit. Unreadable swill. This would have been an easy DNF but it just turned into a hate read.

I don’t trust anyone that gives this more than 3 stars.

In the first collection of short stories, I dismissed a lot of the languages used to describe young woman as characteristics of the setting and perhaps a unfortunate feature of translating. But this time they took that tiny smudge and turned it into an absolute shit stain.

Where do I even start? How about one of the main characters delighting in the sexual assault of one of the only named female characters. The CONSTANT description of breasts as the only characteristic of female characters. Dedicating a whole paragraph to describing and planning rape. How about describing 12 year old girls crying in the streets as they are being publicly groped/raped. The main female character being boiled down to “I can’t have children so I’m worthless” trope. The main character irritated that he wasn’t offered a whore at an inn because apparently thats just how you show hospitality. Every woman is just a baby maker or sex slave. Its fucking revolting.

This book was published in the 90’s but you could have told me of was published in the 50’s and I would have believed you.

Listen, I get that most fantasy is set in ye’ old time and woman weren’t people just property. But you have to make the conscious choice to treat woman this badly. I’ve read porn that treated woman better than this book does. You could replace every woman in the book with a pair of tits on a stick and you wouldn’t notice the difference.

I can’t believe that this trash spawned the game that I love so much. If you love the Witcher outside of the books, I pray you never pick up the books. This is literally just shit smeared on paper.

Also if I have to read the words “destiny” one more fucking time I’m gonna gouge my own eyes out.