Fantasy used to be my bread and butter genre. In high school I'd barely pick up a book unless it had a dragon, elf, wizard, witch or sword on the cover. At a certain point I got somewhat burned out on the genre after too many books that felt like blatant Tolkien imitations. This book was a gift from a friend and I opened it a little uncertainly. Rather than a novel, I found this book is actually a collection of linked short stories each telling of one adventure of Geralt, a traveling monster-slayer. The author has a clear love of classic fairy tales- in one of the stories Geralt stumbles into a situation reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, while in another he encounters a Snow White. Almost invariably the original hero of the fairy tale is in this re-telling the monster. Not all of the deadly beasts are familiar however- interwoven are creatures from Polish and Russian folk tradition which add an intriguing eerie strangeness. This book is the first in a long series and I hope to read more.