Tossing Coins to The Witcher: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

I knew The Witcher was going to be a show I had to see at some point. After pretty much cheating via my sister’s Netflix info (yes, I’m one of the rare folks in the population that doesn’t have Netflix), I watched it in a handful of days, two episodes per night, and loved it. To the point that I may have become mildly obsessed. By episode 7 I’d bought the soundtrack — no, not the one with just the lyric songs. As a certified soundtrack junkie, I bought the original TV show score. 3 hours of music. I looked up goofy video compilations on YouTube. I even wrote up a random reaction piece for each episode. Maybe it’s because I’ve gone so long without fantasy. Maybe it’s because Geralt is hysterical without even meaning to be — the combination of his stoic exterior and occasional dry humor are excellent (also Geralt saying “fuck” cracks me up). So when I began to exhaust the current media at my hands (not the soundtrack yet, it’ll be a bit before I run that into the ground), I caved and bought the ebook. I certainly wasn’t going to be #209 in line for one of the 30 ebooks at my library. And fun fact, I don’t like ebooks. If I can avoid them, I will. But these are trying times and I’m stuck inside, the library is closed, and damn it, I want more Geralt in my life, so here we are.

The Last Wish (2008)
Written by:  Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Pages: 353 (ebook)
Series: The Witcher Collection (#1)
Publisher: Hachette Book Group

The Premise:

Geralt is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary killer. His sole purpose: to destroy the monsters that plague the world.

But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good…and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.

No spoilers — but I do make the assumption readers have seen the show.

Discussion: I had limited knowledge of the Witcher going into this whole thing. All I was familiar with were the video games — and even then when I say familiar, I mean I knew of them, and I knew what Geralt looked like and that he fought monsters. Since I knew the show followed after the books and not the games, I figured maybe what I was seeing was a little closer to what I’d find on the pages.

Let me tell you right now; reading this was a DELIGHT. This book is a collection of Witcher short stories that Sapkowski wrote. The stories alternate with a current timeline in which Geralt is recovering at a temple from neck wound delivered by a creature called a striga. You get to read about his exploits while wondering where his path will lead him next. So in a way, it’s similar in style to the show, which alternates between Geralt’s adventures in the past and Ciri’s trials in the present (okay, yeah, and Yennefer, but we’re leaving her out of this).

I thought it was pretty funny while watching the show that Geralt hooks up with a woman in the very first episode — and then the very first opening book pages, same thing. Is Geralt the Captain Kirk of this place and I just never knew? I just thought (before seeing the show) that he was this gruff, monster-hunting dude that didn’t really have time for extracurricular activities. Boy, was I wrong. Geralt, for all his Witcher-ness, is a pretty human guy. He has a good sense of morals, a level head, and is kind of like a more chill, sassier Batman. He still has a very stoic air about him, preferring to get straight to the point, and is a man of relatively few words, making sure each of those words count. He’s a skilled fighter that carries a sword of silver and another of iron, and if there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, it’s a good fighter in a fantasy story. I thoroughly enjoy Geralt as a character and did my best to slow down in my reading so I wouldn’t burn through the book too fast.

While we are in a fantasy land, I was tickled to see Sapkowski take a lot of classic fairy tales and sprinkle them throughout his stories. Sometimes in passing, sometimes as a major portion of the story itself. Some of these include Cinderella, Snow White, and Beauty and the Beast. But no matter which story he toyed with, things were always different enough around them that you would recognize the tale and appreciate it for what it was, but remain immersed in Geralt’s world.

It was a great deal of fun comparing the book to the show, and I’m not disappointed in either one because I’m new to everything — I’m not stuck with a previous love of something to be judgmental about it. Though in truth, I think Netflix has done a pretty good job thus far adapting the stories to the screen. Jaskier, whose character is named Dandelion in the stories, is actually a friend versus an annoyance, but the two still have a terrific rapport in both relationship styles. I can’t speak to Ciri’s portion because I know her story comes later (any book blurb will tell you that), but the stories taken from this collection match up pretty darn well with what I’ve read elsewhere. If you’ve seen the show and wonder what you’ll read in here, you’ll get, in this order, episodes 3, 1, 4, 2, and 5. There was one big surprise, however, involving Geralt’s Child Surprise and how he treats his knowledge of it. It’s left me very curious as to how that will progress in the remaining books. Not so much Ciri’s story, but more so her and Geralt’s relationship.

It is kind of funny though, since this book features a fire-breathing dragon on the cover and there are, in fact, zero dragons in this collection. Maybe next time?

In Conclusion: It’s like Andrzej Sapkowski took all the simple elements I love about fantasy and put them together and it’s taking all of my willpower not to go nuts and buy the remaining 7 books. Once I was finished with this one I wanted to start yelling at all my friends, “What is wrong with you? How have none of you told me how awesome this is??” But I’m not actually sure anyone else I know has read the books, so I suppose it would have been pointless.

Still. I feel like someone should have known.