Title: Light Perpetual
Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 608
Rating: 4/5
And so our tale comes to an end. And I think it did so at just the right time.
This is one of those near-perfect trilogies that knows when to stop instead of continuing way past its expiration date. I see a lot of people asking for advice on Quora where they ask questions like, “How many chapters does my first book need to have?” The answer is always, “As many as it takes to tell the story.”
Sapkowski has got that down to a fine art here, and he hasn’t been tempted to push the book further than it needs or to stretch Reinmar’s story out for longer than it needs to be. The Hussite Trilogy is just right.
Speaking of Reinmar, I should probably touch on the characters, who are a lot of fun to read about. Our protagonist is Reinmar of Bielawa, who’s also known as Reynevan, and he’s kind of a cross between a doctor and a magician. He’s a compelling protagonist who’s grown a lot since the beginning of the series, and it’s always fun to see his interactions with the supporting cast, who are also realistic and fun to read about.
The worldbuilding is cracking too, and Sapkowski has done a great job of blending real world history with fantastical elements. I’ve not read many series like this which have done that, and it’s particularly difficult to do it well. At the same time, it’s kind of weird because it seems strange that he’s spent so much time doing the historical research only to then throw in a bunch of stuff that’s entirely fictitious.
Like a lot of epic fantasy, the politics play an important role in the plot, and it’s occasionally difficult to follow what’s happening because I’m not exactly an expert on Eastern European history. Hell, I still don’t really know what a Hussite is, other that I’m pretty sure it has something to do with a guy called Huss who challenged established religion.
But Sapkowski writes in such a way that it doesn’t really matter whether you can follow the politics or not, because the plot still keeps barrelling along and it takes you along for the ride with it. It’s kind of like reading Game of Thrones, when it doesn’t really matter which house hated which other house and for what reason when you can get everything you need to know by reading about the battles between them.
I read this book via audio, and as I’ve said with all of the other books in this series, I found that it added a lot to my enjoyment because I didn’t have to worry about how to pronounce the various different names. I also find that with stories like this, they come across best if you imagine them being told across a crackling campfire. The audio book, then, almost allowed me to feel as though Reynevan himself was telling me about his adventures when he’d been a much younger man.
There’s always a risk with the final book in a series because there’s a chance that it will drop the ball and it won’t nail the landing. There’s no such issue here, and in fact I think that Sapkowski did a better job wrapping up this series than he did with the Witcher books, which just seemed to fizzle out instead of coming to a full stop.
All in all then, if you’ve read this far into the series and you’re still interested, you’ll want to read this.
