Geralt is a witcher a man whose magic powers enhanced by long training & a mysterious elixir have made him a brilliant fighter & a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters & vile fiends that ravage the land & attack the innocent. He roams the country seeking assignments but gradually comes to realise that while some of his quarry are unremittingly vile vicious grotesques others are the victims of sin evil or simple naivety. One reviewer said: This book is a sheer delight. It is beautifully written full of vitality & endlessly inventive: its format with half a dozen episodes & intervening rest periods for both the hero & the reader allows for a huge range of characters scenarios & action. Its thought-provoking without being in the least dogmatic witty without descending to farce & packed with swordfights without being derivative. The dialogue sparkles; characters morph almost imperceptibly from semi-cliche to completely original; nothing is as it first seems. Sapkowski succeeds in seamlessly welding familiar ideas unique settings & delicious twists of originality: his Beauty wants to rip the throat out of a sensitive Beast; his Snow White seeks vengeance on all & sundry his elves are embittered & vindictive. Its easily one of the best things Ive read in ages.