#also. vampire

(Disclaimer - I actually got into the Witcher from the games - stopped to read the books - then finished the game)

I'll start with the pros: the story is mostly linear and easy to follow in relation to most popular adult high fantasy series, there's 8 books but none of them are longer than around 500 pages so it's a low time commitment (I recently reread the whole series and it took me about a month and a half? Two months? (I was reading other stuff in-between idk), the translation is not over-worded or dry, and reading the books will tell you everything you need to know about the Netflix show, and provide backstory on 90% of the video game main players.

Cons: The treatment of women is hard to read. There's a lot of sexual assault mentions and near-depictions - especially with the very underage Ciri, the female characters - despite being overall well-written, strong, and full of agency and character!!!! - fall into some pretty obnoxious tropes of 'her boobs were huge did I mention that her boobs were huge', the world-building is fun and not overly dense, but not clearly explained in any glossaries or preambles - you just sort of have to run with it , and unfortunately I've heard from a lot of Polish fans that the english translation by David French sometimes takes some minor liberties with dialogue changes or character descriptions.

Sidenote - the Netflix show is the most accessible gateway to the universe, I totally get that. However, Season 1 of the Netflix Witcher was notoriously confusing. Yes, it tells you that Jaskier is goofy and Yennefer is a hot sorceress and Ciri is a Chosen One that Geralt needs to adopt, but it completely botches the world and timeline. If you're going to watch the show first, you're definitely going to need a wiki - but! If you're ok with doing some background research and homework to avoid a lot of reading and/or an 80+ hour videogame published in 2015 - I'm not gonna blame you.

With all that in mind though, it's the inspiration for so many wildly successful projects for a reason. It's a modern story, it's themes are alive and well in our society, the characters are memorable, and it's not a slog, it's not a textbook - it's a very self-aware, fantasy-genre-critical story about parenthood and politics. It will also make you cry.

So, my best advice would be this:

Read the first two books: The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny. They're collections of separate, tonally diverse short stories that take place in the Witcher Universe and slowly introduce you to the characters you're going to need to know later on. They're fun, short, easy to understand, and will explain all that was muddied in season one of the Netflix Witcher that you can then watch without any confusion.