The Last Wish

The Last Wish is a uniquely compiled book that consists of short stories with over-arching interludes that connect them together. If you've watched the Netflix series, you will be familiar with several of these stories. It's well worth coming along for the ride with Geralt, Dandelion (Jaskier), and Yennefer.

This was an entertaining read and I enjoyed that it was taking some classic fairy tales and putting a new spin on it with a monster hunter going around hunting the monsters in these stories.

What i didn't enjoy, though, was the treatment of women and sexual assault and sex in general. I didn't like how almost all female characters had to be SOMEHOW connected with sex with a man, whether it was sexual attraction or rape or just sex or something else. Yennefer was by far the best female character in the whole book, but even then I was far from 100% happy with her characterisation. There's a LOT here to be improved on in terms of writing women tbh. When I found out that this book was published in 1993, it suddenly made a lot more sense but still - not really a reason for me to close two eyes and continue if it's getting on my nerves.

Whether i will pick up the second book remains to be seen. I definitely haven't ruled it out, but the general treatment of women in the first book is really not making me very motivated to check it out. I also haven't really seen enough of the lore and politics of the world to be sucked in to that in this one.

I've been curious about this series for years and it's safe to say that this book did not disappoint. It took my a bit to understand that the book had some time hopping going on, but once I understood, everything became clearer. I love the netflix witcher series and am looking forward to reading more of this series.

The last wish. This is the book I have heard and been told I should start the Witcher series with so thats is exactly what I did.

The Witcher is a magically altered human who hunts monsters for a living.

This book is essentially a collection of short stories of the Witcher, Geralt, and his monster slaying adventures.

Many of the stories are derived from fairy tales such as beauty and the beast, sleeping beauty, rapunzel but with a darker themed story telling.

Witches, vampires, beasts, devils, elves etc.. it for me at least was a fun read and I look forward to reading the rest of the witcher books.

I was saying to my husband that I really enjoy this, because I know all the fairytales he references, from the Princess in the Coffin to Snow-white and Rapunzel. But unlike most fairytale adaptations, where the author has adjusted the fairytale to their world, Andrzej Sapkowski takes the fairytales and thinks what would the world look where they were totally normal and realistic events. He doesn't force the tale to fit him, he nestles his story and world into the fairytales as if it was a vine. Or fungus. Not the kind of parasitic fungus that kills the host, but the kind of fungus that lives in a symbiosis with the host and both become better of it. I love that.
I think he succeeds even better than Terry Pratchett, and THAT is a high praise coming from me.

I don't think these books are misogynic. The world is your ordinary medievalist fantasy world, where women are considered lesser than, but Sapkowski's women are capable leaders, making their own decisions, sexually active - there is even a clear matriarchal mood in these stories, especially in A Question of Price. Not only was the princess the most powerful mage ever known, she inherited the power from her mother's mother, and she wasn't the king's daughter, but no-one ever questioned either the Queen's nor the Princess' right to the throne. Also, the Queen was a celebrated war hero.
Snow-white grew from a pampered and sheltered princess to a tough as nails war leader, making tough brutes and gangsters shut up by simply looking at them.
And none of these ladies was presented as masculine or manly, in any way less feminine than any other woman.

Then I need to address some things I read in other reviews.

“this is basically a no brain, action based, monster squashing anthology”

No, it's not.
There's very much brain and even more heart.
There isn't much action, actually. When there is, like in A Question of Price... it's very much action, but still he manages to put in details that tell something about the people...
Monster squashing? Not many monsters were squashed. Most of the “monsters” turned out to be something else. And the love stories? Oh, my! Better than anything Stephenie Meyer, E.L. James and Diana Gabaldon has ever written.
But I suppose some people don't do subtle. They need to get it spelled out and shown with big letters and neon light arrows, and packaged so that they recognize it.

“the very first short story started with Geralt leering at a sexualized 14 year old girl!”
huh? that bit is missing from the book i read.

“On top of that we had the attempted magical rape by Dandilion”
- yes, that is there, but “magical rape”?
Dandilion was never intended to be in any way flawless or moral character.

“an actual magical rape perpetrated by Geralt at the end of the book via his “last wish”“

We don't know what he wished.

“Yennifer's mind rape of a bunch of the characters”
Was never portrayed as anything positive or not a problem. On the contrary.

Yennefer saw him, jumped up and raised her hand.

“No!” he shouted, “don't do this! I want to help you!”

“Help?” She snorted. “You?”

“Me.”

“In spite of what I did to you?”

“In spite of it.”

4/10
The stories are pretty boring and pointless. The characters are bland and uninteresting.
The last wish story itself is probably the best one but the ending is questionable.
Most of all the writing is terrible. But that might be because of the translation. It's really hard to read.
Overall it was just ok. I hope the next books in the series will have more character development and better writing.

I have a bad memory, which in the case of reading books actually turns out to be a good thing. I first read The Witcher when I was in college and now, about five years later, I barely remember anything of it other than that I found it really enjoyable. I did watch the Netflix show back in December, but found it disappointing and didn't finish the season.

That's what made me want to reread it, but also made me somewhat concerned. What if it wasn't as good as I thought?

Well, I didn't have anything to be worried about. This is an excellent collection of short stories. They roll along quickly, none of them are boring, standouts being The Lesser Evil, The Last Wish and The Witcher. There's plenty of dark humour, lots of fun references to well-known fairy-tales (a friend describes it as Shrek for adults, which isn't exactly inaccurate) and monsters galore. It's in this volume that you're introduced Geralt and the supporting cast of Yennefer and Dandelion and the bulk of it, and the sequel, essentially helps to illustrate the world before book three heads into the saga proper (I was surprised Ciri didn't show up, but that must be book two!).

All in all, I'm glad I reread this, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the books. A bad memory has its perks; I'm basically looking at this again for the first time!

I can't really separate my 100 hours in the game and watching the show from this reading. I really enjoyed this book. Wether it was from being able to picture the people and places and understanding the back story further than the book explains is hard to tell.

A collection of short stories, none of which is exceptional, but they're interesting enough to scratch that fantasy itch. I'm reminded of Conan in the style, if not exactly in the quality.

The world is a low magic setting. Sorcerers are few and magic is feared and revered by the common folk. Geralt of Rivia is a Witcher, a human magically enhanced as a child and brutally trained to hunt down monsters. He is a wielder of some basic spells, and his mutated body posses increased strength, agility and eyesight.

His profession was once crucial to humanity, for when they first arrived in this world, monsters and other races dominated the land. The Witchers were created to exterminate the more powerful and evil monsters, while the rest of the humans took care of exterminating the other races, being they good or bad.

The Witchers are taught to be neutral regarding human affairs. Men and women may kill and rape each other in bar brawls or wars that may bring kingdoms down, they ought to not interfer. A Witcher's neutrality is essential for their profession, otherwise a king might not allow him to enter his lands to hunt down a monster otherwise.

But time has passed, and there are no much more monsters left. A Witcher is left with some hard choices to make, because in order to make a living they need to exercise their trade, the only thing they know how to do, ingrained in their minds from childhood. This knowledge emboldens their potential employers to make some moraly dubious propositions, such as to hire him as a mercenary or an assassin.

Geralt struggles with questions of morality, whether he should use his powers to help the defenseless against all evil or just the monsters he was told to slay. He is a relic of the past struggling to find his place in this new world. He is despised and distrusted by most humans because he is a mutant, as are all other races despised as well.

Peter Kenny does a great job narrating. This is an enjoyable fantasy read in most part because of each character showing their personality. Kind of neat to have hints of fairytale stories and influence in the situations and characters that Geralt meets. Also, a nice revelation was how to pronounce Dandelion.

I am love love LOVING this series. It's like a funnier, wittier, inclusive version of GoT. I am actually really happy I watched the show first and would recommend. The author jumps around a lot and intermingles timelines and stories so getting used to that type of set up was nice for my literary digestion. There were so many parts of this story that made me laugh out loud. And Dandelion is my absolute fave. So funny! I'm SO stoked there are so many in the series! Would totally recommend to anyone who is partial to the Thrones/LotR/Medieval/Fantasy books!

Alright, I bloody loved this book!

I got hooked on the TV show and was desperate to get my hands on the book. But I thought I might has the same reaction I have had to a few other books that are based on TV shows, when I had started the show first. Game of Thrones being one of them. Loved the show. Hated the book. So I read a few reviews, read comments about the comparisons and thought I'd give it a go. I am no disappointed.

I am so glad I gave it a chance, and I loved every second of it.

The book is comprised of several short stories, based on the backstory of Geralt, the witcher. It also had one single over arching story “the voice of reason”. Given that it has been translated from Polish to English, I had my doubts about how well it would be written. Surprisingly well to be honest.

Geralt is a great character, and I think Henry Cavill did an amazing job of portraying him.

I can't wait to into the next one, and hopefully find out a bit more about Yennefer's backstory and history.

Depois de ver a série e toda a gente falar bem do livro, acabei por compra-lo e ler. Para ser sincera, a minha espetativa não era propriamente alta porque já sabia o que vinha por causa da série. MAS... como estava eu enganada! O livro conta algumas histórias do Gerald e como ele conheceu o Jaskiel e a Yenifer. Em teoria, isto ainda não é a “história principal” e tal como disse, são ainda histórias para perceber melhor as personagens e o seu caminho. As personagens são muito vivas e dinâmicas! A narrativa é simples e envolvolvente. Adoro o Gerald e imagino-o totalmente como o Henri Cavill.

Para quem viu a série e gostou, sem dúvida deveria espreitar o livro! Eu vou continuar esta saga, sem dúvida!

4/5

You can feel that it's his first book and the style is rough at times. The stories are interesting though.

If you're looking to start this book after you've finished watching the TV show or the game, you'll not be disappointed. This book, which is the most recently published, is as fun as the game and the TV show. You learn a bit of history about Geralt and his adventures and it was an enjoyable read.

Loved it. Gritty, interesting and left me wanting more of the Witcher's world.
I now want to play and watch!

Pretty good collection of connected stories about The Witcher. Good intro to that world.
3.5 stars rounded up.

Amazing read. The tv series took the majority of the content and implemented it but the books still have more missing content. I dev. Recommend reading it!

As many people I started reading this after watching the TV Show (but haven't played the game, yet).

I was scared that it would be too similar to I was already seen but to my surprise, even though some of the events tell the “same story” (on a sense), the events within them are pretty different from what I saw on TV. Different enough I would say.

I did enjoy it though it was short in length, but in exchange you don't necessarily need to continue reading the rest of the books if you don't want to (right away) because it contains a tale per chapter that even if they are a full story when read in full it doesn't put the reader in a position where it needs to read the rest right away.

I recommend it if you like the fantasy genre, is a light read, short and self-contained.

I think I can say this was more of a 4.5.

In the months before the release of The Witcher tv show, I saw a lot of promotion going around and I heard a lot of good things about the books, but I never felt any interest in picking them up. But I couldn't resist watching the show itself and having enjoyed it quite a lot, decided I actually do want to try out the books now. Just so happens that it's very popular now and there's a long waitlist at the library, so it's gonna be a while before I'm able to read it all.

This is supposed to be a prequel to the original series of books with short stories of Geralt's adventures but a major part of it was in the show, so it almost felt like a refresher. But it was fun to go into detail and get to know the story and characters better. Reading through the famous fight scene from episode 1 was a delight because I could totally picture it in my head. I didn't know Jaskier was called Dandelion in the books and I kept waiting to see if “Toss a coin to the Witcher” was an actual song from the text, but alas it wasn't. I was also very impressed by some of the philosophical conversations and Geralt's moral code and convictions.

Overall, I had a lot of fun reading this book. I don't know if I can tell you to read it before watching the show (if you haven't already), but doing it in the reverse order didn't hinder my enjoyment at all; I actually loved being able to see the scenes in my head while reading. I'm hoping the remainder of season one will be covered in Sword of Destiny which is supposed to be another prequel collection of short stories.

So here is the thing. I expected this to be much more my taste than it ended up being, which doesn't mean it's necessarily bad, just not my absolute favourite at this moment.

So why is that? Mostly because I don't love the short story format. Hell, I don't read short stories, not even when they are connected to series I love. I just much prefer stories playing out as a consistent thing in hundreds of pages. Something about them just feels like it's breaking up my personal momentum of reading through a book. So there is that.

The only character at this moment whom I love is Dandilion and his interactions with Geralt elevate even him when it comes to my enjoyment of the character.

I will definitely read more of this.

I absolutely love it! I enjoyed every adventure and I cannot wait to see more of Geralt and, of course, Dandelion too.
My only complaint here is the lack of maps. I need maps, people! I need to know where I'm going. And also it'd be really helpful to have the translations of the dwarf's language. I understood them in context, but I want to make sure I understood correctly. Overall it was an awesome book!!

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: The Last Wish

Once a human, Geralt has undergone a series of rituals to become a witcher. A hunter of monsters. In this novel, readers will experience a collection of short stories that show snippets of Geralt's life. But while he hunts monsters for money, he also lives by a code. Geralt understands that not all monsters are killers.

The novel is structured around Geralt recovering from a monster attack. As he stays at a temple to heal, the short stories of his life are woven in between his interactions with the priestesses. Geralt is encouraged to seek a vision of his future as the past is strung out before the reader's eyes. Readers will learn that Geralt is not someone who can be swayed when he puts his foot down and outright refuses to see his future. And why might you ask? He seems to already know. But how he attained this information I have no idea.

A common theme throughout the novel is that Sapkowski prefers his readers to put the pieces together themselves. Readers are thrown into the world of witchers with next to no explanation. Those who have played the video games will be able to grasp the concepts quicker than readers who have not. I fall into the latter category and I was left grasping at straws. The first few short stories were confusing and not well translated. The number of adverbs used to describe just about everything wanted to make me scream. I did notice as the novel continued, the use of language improved and I was able to immerse myself in the story.

I did happen to notice that each short story is based around a fairy tale. It seems an odd mix of worlds, but Sapkowski does a good job of blending the two. I did, however, find that the short stories never connected. While they all featured the witcher, they seemed to be a random progression of his life. I was left confused and wondering what in the world the point of all the stories was. I can say I am interested in continuing the story of Geralt because he is a worthy character, but I hesitate because of the number of unanswered questions left behind.

This book of short stories is what I expected from reading other reviews. The character of the Witcher is intriguing and fun, so I plan to continue the series. I hear it gets better.