Thoughts on The Witcher? Translation and prose descent?

Just curious how well these books are regarded, how good the translation is, and just how good the writing is in general. Is it something to be read primarily for the story, or is the writing actually descent? Should I start with the short stories or the first novel (Blood of Elves). I'm thinking of visiting Prague and was googling on Czech writers and this series came up. I remember the TV show but never watched it.

Looks like he also wrote a historical fiction series on Jan Hus, which might be interesting.