Amazon’s bestseller list for fantasy fiction has long featured books by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, all about his now-famous character called The Witcher. For years, I passed on those books, but once Netflix brought The Witcher to TV, I decided I had to see what all the hype was about. It still took a while, but right before Christmas, I finished Sapkowski’s first book in his fantasy series: The Last Wish. Here are my thoughts.
It’s important to mention that The Last Wish is a compilation of short stories rather than a full-length novel. Sapkowski’s first two books are all short stories because that’s how the author brought The Witcher to life. As far as compilations go, I prefer those of Fritz Leiber, which I’d read over the past several years. But there are some good tales in The Last Wish, and I gleaned enough to understand the Witcher’s appeal. I suspect Sapkowski’s full-length novels are better than the first book, but I do not know if I will ever get to them.
The Witcher
As far as characters go, the Witcher, also known as Geralt of Rivia, is not the anti-hero I expected him to be. Despite his physical appearance, pale and white-haired, evoking images of Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, I found Geralt to be somewhat of a noble hero, frequently doing the right thing and almost always saving the day. His origins and backstory are barely fleshed out in The Last Wish, but from what I can tell, a Witcher is a mutated human with magical abilities whose mission in life is to hunt down monsters. And in Geralt’s world, there are plenty of monsters to go around.
His World
The fantasy world of The Witcher is barely a sketch compared to the more detailed world-building you find in a full-length novel (this is true of Liber’s Nehwon as well – short stories simply aren’t great vehicles for developing new worlds). In The Last Wish, the land is essentially a generic Dungeons & Dragons fantasy world filled with every type of beastie one might find crammed into the Monster Manual. It’s also heavily steeped in fairy tales, reminding me a tad of Disney’s Once Upon a Time TV series, where all of its characters live together in a fairy tale world. Suffice it to say, this world is nothing like the complex kingdoms, histories, and alliances one might find in A Game of Thrones.
I’m probably being unfair to Sapkowski, who has undoubtedly developed his world more robustly in his full-length novels. But this is the best I have after reading The Last Wish.
The Stories
Several of the short stories in The Last Wish were quite good. The first one, titled “The Witcher,” might have been my favorite. It involves a king who hires Geralt to lift a curse over his daughter that has turned her into a vampire-like creature called a Striga. It has more suspense than most of the stories, and it highlights how clever Geralt can be in outwitting his foes.
Another favorite was “The Lesser Evil,” one of the stores depicted in the first season of Netflix’s The Witcher. In that tale, a wizard wants Geralt’s help in stopping a cursed woman who is hellbent on assassinating him. The woman, however, may not be what she seems, and she soon becomes one of Geralt’s several love interests in the book. But, before it’s over, Geralt must make a difficult choice, deciding between the lesser of two evils.
The last noteworthy tale is the one that gives the book its title: “The Last Wish.” In this story, we’re introduced to the sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg, another of Geralt’s love interests and one who I understand extends into future books in the series. Like many in the book, the tale involves a fairy tale trope – this time, a genie in a bottle. But once it escapes, all hell breaks loose. Geralt’s sidekick is nearly killed, and to save him, Geralt finds he must battle not only the genie but Yennefer too.
Sapkowski’s success is undeniable. His books have won awards throughout Europe, dominated the bestseller lists in the U.S., and spawned a TV series and a series of popular video games. So even though this is not my favorite type of fantasy, I’m glad I had my run-in with The Witcher. Although it may be a while before I visit him again.