Baptism of Fire
The Witcher returns in this action-packed sequel to The Time of Contempt, in the series that inspired The Witcher video games.
The Wizards Guild has been shattered by a coup and, in the uproar, Geralt was 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 from his injuries.
While war rages across all of 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, has vanished - 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.
This is the third of the Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkowski.
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Andrzej Sapkowski
Few writers have reshaped the fantasy landscape like Andrzej Sapkowski—though he never set out to become a legend. Long before The Witcher earned its place in gaming lore and Netflix queues, Sapkowski was a Polish economist with a love for stories that didn't flinch. In the late 1980s, he entered a short story competition with a sharp-edged tale about a monster hunter named Geralt. He didn’t just win; he kicked open the doors to an entirely new world—one filled with political tension, moral ambiguity, and beasts that often looked a lot like men.
The Witcher
In a land soaked with blood, riddled with ancient grudges and riddles sharper than swords, one man walks the line between myth and nightmare. Geralt of Rivia isn’t your typical hero—he’s a witcher, a monster hunter trained from childhood and mutated by alchemy to fight the creatures that haunt the dark. But in a world where humans are often crueler than beasts, what counts as a monster is rarely clear.
The Witcher consists of nine books and considered as a complete series. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
