The Time of Contempt

The Witcher, Book 2

By: Andrzej Sapkowski, David French - Translator

Narrated by: Peter Kenny

Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

To protect his ward Ciri, Geralt of Rivia sends her to train with the sorceress Yennefer. But all is not well within the Wizard's Guild in the second novel of the Witcher, Andrzej Sapkowski's groundbreaking epic fantasy series that inspired the hit Netflix show and the blockbuster video games.

Geralt is a Witcher: Guardian of the innocent, protector of those in need, a defender in dark times against some of the most frightening creatures of myth and legend.

His task now is to protect Ciri. A child of prophecy, she will have the power to change the world for good or for ill - but only if she lives to use it.

Witcher collections:

• The Last Wish
• Sword of Destiny

Witcher novels:

• Blood of Elves
• The Time of Contempt
• Baptism of Fire
• The Tower of Swallows
• Lady of the Lake
• Season of Storms

Hussite Trilogy:

• The Tower of Fools
• Warriors of God

Translated from original Polish by David French.

©2013 Andrzej Sapkowski; 2015 Hachette Audio

Best so far

I'm writing this having read the next book in the series and currently the one after that.

This is my favourite book in the series so far as it is more action and eventful. We spend time in a relatively central position for most of the story and the inciting incident up close, personal, faster pace and first hand instead of the typical description narrative afterwards.

Politics and social intrigue play a large part of the story. Geralt finds himself in the middle of a power struggle. We get to get to see the rocky relationship of Geralt and Yennefer in a time when it works and understand why Geralt, who isn't suppose to have feelings, struggles so much with it.

The same writing style is present. We are spared no details on how the systems in the world work and can sometimes feel like a history textbook given the details. The female descriptions start to be more tame.

Great Book, Amazing Narration

The book is exciting and a good continuance from the previous in the series. What I would most point out is the narration quality. It is fantastic and brings the book alive as it is read. I have heard many narrators, and this is one if the best.

great listen

if you enjoy action and adventure then this book is the one for you. Enjoy friends.

Top Calibre story, writing, translating and performance

I came to this series after seeing the first season of Witcher which was well done. Now I have discovered an author of immense talent and a great story. Add to this the impressive performance of Peter Kennedy and an invisible translation and I can’t wait to devour the entire collection.

overall glad I listened

Some parts are a bit over drawn out. But for the most part a good book

Excellent series and excellent voices

love Peter's voice! love this series! I wish Peter could do the voices for every book on Audible!

its ok

again not the most exciting but important to the story... i dont think i would be able to get through these if I had to read them myself...

Too large scope. Had to use a wiki often to finish

My only issue that was consistent throughout this book was the scope felt a bit too stretched out from time to time without good enough character or world to building to pull it off.

I had to regularly use the wiki and think back to my experience with the videogame and TV show to place who was who, what was what and when everything was when. It was a bit confusing at time and I sorta wish that the book narrowed down the scope a bit to focus more on a few specific characters or provided better character building and more time with all these supporting characters to make them more rememberable.

I really wish this book was more standalone but it definitely is not and requires a lot of knowledge of the games, show, wiki and novellas to grasp it all because it spread out too often.

The worst of this was during the famous Thanedd Coup scene. The scene itself is incredibly detailed, great action, tons of story beats and totally advances the overall world plot. Except there are so many moving parts and characters in this scene that i had a wiki up with 14 tabs that I constantly had to refer back to understand who and what was going on. It was a bit exhausting.

This story heavily focuses on child Ciri and i absolutely enjoyed following along her story. When the book narrowed in on her i felt like I learned so much about her and following along her strange journey. Her character growth and building as very well done and probably my biggest takeaway from this book.

I feel like I barely got to see Geralt, he's most present during the Thanedd Coup but overall you barely see him. Instead you get a lot more of Yennefer and exploring her romantic relationship with Geralt and growth into being motherly to Ciri. Yennefer's character is as complex as ever and it was cool to see some vulnerability and flaws in her personality.

The aftermath of the Coup is also really interesting and full of war time political intrigue but again required a lot of wiki searches to really absorb what was going on and understanding why everyone was doing what they were doing. I again wish that more time was spent on each faction to being able to pluck them out easier.

In summary this is a young Ciri focused character story and mainly features the Thanedd Coup, building up to the Coup and the after match of the Coup.

Super glad I'm keeping on with this series and very glad there are so many sources to use because its intimidating as heck trying to finish these books thanks to all the references, factions and character overload.

Fantastic

Yet another masterpiece, both in writing and narration. Just the thought that these novels are finite tortures me somewhat haha.

love this book read it twice already

love this book this series of books are great the characters are complex nice shade of grey