The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt celebrated ten years of monster slaying on May 19, and publisher CD Projekt honored the milestone with an anniversary stream starring Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle, a stunning new trailer, and The Witcher 3 price drops across platforms for those who aren’t one of the 50 million who’ve already purchased it. Yet, while you may want to celebrate by booting up The Witcher 3 for one more hunt, consider instead diving into the books that provided the foundation for CD Projekt Red to build the games upon.I bought The Witcher 3 five years ago, but to avoid another Game of Thrones situation (where silly me watched the show before reading the books), I committed to reading the entire book series before installing the game. And I’m so glad I did! Andrzej Sapkowski’s two short story collections and six novels all tell an amazing story, as well as provide so much context and depth for the events of The Witcher 3.If you start The Witcher 3 without the knowledge of the books, you’ll be unknowingly hindering the emotional impact of so many characters and quests in The Witcher 3. Take Geralt and Yen, for example. Their fates are literally tied together due to the events of the short story “The Last Wish,” and Geralt’s wish ensures they never stray from the other’s orbit for long. Yet The Witcher 3’s quest of the same name explores the wish’s impact from Yen’s point of view; it’s left her with an uneasy feeling regarding what the two truly mean to one another, leading to one of the best quests in the entire game — one that I don’t think can emotionally resonate with the same impact if you hadn’t read about these two from their from first meeting onward. They’ve both loved and hurt each other over the years, but are meant to be together, djinn or no djinn.Reading the short story collections and novels will also introduce you to some of the best supporting characters found in Witcher canon. The later books mostly concern Geralt’s pursuit of a missing and fleeing Ciri, and along the way he’s joined by his Hansa, a Fellowship of The Ring-like group of excellent supporting characters. While you certainly know Dandelion from the games, the Hansa also includes the heroic Nilfgaardian soldier Cahir and my personal favorite Milva, human ally to the majority-elven guerilla fighters Scoia’tael. Each member of Geralt’s Hansa has a captivating arc, and the books are perhaps worth reading for them alone.With The Witcher 4 too many years away, now is the perfect time to dive into Sapkowski’s eight-book series (with a ninth on the way!). Not only will the books enrich your experience playing The Witcher 3, but they’ll also provide context on why this saga was Ciri’s story all along. Yes, the books are told mostly from Geralt’s perspective and you embody him in the games, but his role in the novels is in part to advance Ciri’s plot, to save her from falling in the machinations of evil men like Emhyr and Vilgefortz who want to use her and her Elder Blood gene to advance their own schemes.Having Ciri star as a Witcher in CDPR’s next game and follow in her father figure’s footsteps is a natural continuation of her story. Yes, this may essentially canonize one of the multiple endings of The Witcher 3, but the other two — her dying, or her becoming empress of Nilfgaard — either cut her journey short or don’t quite fit the character.There’s a vocal minority on the internet that tends to cry out when *gasp* a woman stars as the playable character in a game, and that group has let their thoughts be known about Ciri. To them, I say listen to Geralt himself (well, his voice actor) and “read the damn books” — anyone who does will soon realize this saga has always been about Ciri.See More: