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(Published:1993)
The Last Wish, first published in Polish in 1993 and later in an English edition in 2007 by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, is a cool and different approach to high fantasy, distinct from Tolkien inspired adventures.
More akin to urban fantasy, Sapkowski’s The Witcher (Wiedźmin), was published in Fantastyka, Poland's leading fantasy literary magazine and the protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, is closer to Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden than to Aragorn.
A witcher is kind of a cross between a sorcerer and a fighter with special training allowing him to fight and kill monsters.
Sapkowski crafts together a series of connected shorter works with a framing story as Geralt recalls past adventures. There are various references to central European / Grimm’s fairy tales fantasy that further separates this work from most other high fantasy works.
As I’m currently playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which inspired me to start reading this in the first place, I thought it would be a good idea to seek help from virtual Geralt and hire him for this quest and help me find it and it turned out to be a quest filled with illusions and borderline insane thoughts.
Geralt of Rivia is a witcher. He was forced at young age to undergo training and numerous mutations thanks to which he gained some cool physical and mental abilities. There were some side effects from these dangerous experiments; Geralt was permanently left with pale skin and white hair and because of them he is known as the White Wolf. After completing his training he received a set of swords, one made of steel to fight humans and non-humans, the other out of silver to fight monsters. He also received a Wolf medallion, a silver symbol shaped to represent the school a witcher comes from. It is sensitive to magic so it vibrates when Geralt is near such threats. He was also given a horse named Roach and he was ready to become a full time monster slayer for hire.
I knew these facts even before starting this novel thanks to my gaming experience. I was an avid gamer back in the day so I spent a lot of hours playing the Witcher games. I already mentioned I’m currently playing the latest installment so after a couple of pages, I’ve found myself on a familiar territory, having a déjà vu.
I was aware that the Witcher book saga came before the games and that the games were/are based upon them but I wasn’t aware how good of a job the team from CD Projekt Red did and reading this made me appreciate the games even more.
This book gives the same feel as the games , not just because of the vibrant setting and the monster infested world, but because of its format. This a collection of short stories (quests), all presented through Geralt’s POV. Even though they seem unconnected, there is one story that connects them all and that is The Voice of Reason. Fragments of this story are basically interludes cleverly nested between each story giving us a nice intro to the following story.
Besides Geralt, we have a chance to meet his friend and a travelling bard, Dandelion, and his role in this novel is to provide fun interaction with Geralt and to drag Geralt into trouble with his quick judgement and hasty actions. One of those hasty actions leaves a great impact on Gerlat’s life because thanks to Dandelion, he crosses paths with Yennefer and her role in Geralt’s life is a story of its own.
In the end, Geralt once again did his job, and completed this quest. He helped me find a deep cave in my mind, guarded by a vicious monster, an opposite of a muse, and slayed the monster, unlocking my inspiration in the process. Finally, he found a dusty scroll with some Slavic words inscribed on it. So here is my review: I liked this book very much!
My Rating: 3.5/5
Buy the book: https://amzn.to/2Tr6CXN
Twitter: https://twitter.com/melvinbabu47
The Last Wish
by
The Last Wish, first published in Polish in 1993 and later in an English edition in 2007 by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, is a cool and different approach to high fantasy, distinct from Tolkien inspired adventures.
More akin to urban fantasy, Sapkowski’s The Witcher (Wiedźmin), was published in Fantastyka, Poland's leading fantasy literary magazine and the protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, is closer to Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden than to Aragorn.
A witcher is kind of a cross between a sorcerer and a fighter with special training allowing him to fight and kill monsters.
Sapkowski crafts together a series of connected shorter works with a framing story as Geralt recalls past adventures. There are various references to central European / Grimm’s fairy tales fantasy that further separates this work from most other high fantasy works.
As I’m currently playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which inspired me to start reading this in the first place, I thought it would be a good idea to seek help from virtual Geralt and hire him for this quest and help me find it and it turned out to be a quest filled with illusions and borderline insane thoughts.
Geralt of Rivia is a witcher. He was forced at young age to undergo training and numerous mutations thanks to which he gained some cool physical and mental abilities. There were some side effects from these dangerous experiments; Geralt was permanently left with pale skin and white hair and because of them he is known as the White Wolf. After completing his training he received a set of swords, one made of steel to fight humans and non-humans, the other out of silver to fight monsters. He also received a Wolf medallion, a silver symbol shaped to represent the school a witcher comes from. It is sensitive to magic so it vibrates when Geralt is near such threats. He was also given a horse named Roach and he was ready to become a full time monster slayer for hire.
I knew these facts even before starting this novel thanks to my gaming experience. I was an avid gamer back in the day so I spent a lot of hours playing the Witcher games. I already mentioned I’m currently playing the latest installment so after a couple of pages, I’ve found myself on a familiar territory, having a déjà vu.
I was aware that the Witcher book saga came before the games and that the games were/are based upon them but I wasn’t aware how good of a job the team from CD Projekt Red did and reading this made me appreciate the games even more.
This book gives the same feel as the games , not just because of the vibrant setting and the monster infested world, but because of its format. This a collection of short stories (quests), all presented through Geralt’s POV. Even though they seem unconnected, there is one story that connects them all and that is The Voice of Reason. Fragments of this story are basically interludes cleverly nested between each story giving us a nice intro to the following story.
Besides Geralt, we have a chance to meet his friend and a travelling bard, Dandelion, and his role in this novel is to provide fun interaction with Geralt and to drag Geralt into trouble with his quick judgement and hasty actions. One of those hasty actions leaves a great impact on Gerlat’s life because thanks to Dandelion, he crosses paths with Yennefer and her role in Geralt’s life is a story of its own.
In the end, Geralt once again did his job, and completed this quest. He helped me find a deep cave in my mind, guarded by a vicious monster, an opposite of a muse, and slayed the monster, unlocking my inspiration in the process. Finally, he found a dusty scroll with some Slavic words inscribed on it. So here is my review: I liked this book very much!
My Rating: 3.5/5
Buy the book: https://amzn.to/2Tr6CXN
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