When I heard Netflix was developing The Witcher, I honestly thought they were simply adapting a popular video game. Imagine my surprise when I learned The Witcher started off as a popular series of fantasy novels and short stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, and many of the first season of Netflix’s The Witcher was adaptations of various short stories that the main character Geralt of Rivia first appeared in.
Well, knowing that, and getting a high endorsement from a co-worker who has tastes in sci-fi and fantasy similar to mine, I opted to check out the first book The Last Wish, a book Goodreads refers to as “The Witcher 0.5″ in the overall series. Sounds like a good place to get an introduction to this character and his world.
Actually, this particular book is not so much a straightforward novel but a series of short stories connected with a few chapters from something called “The Voice of Reason” that acts as linking material between stories. Those bits of linking material are generally the weakest parts of the book, as they come between longer stretches of other stories and don’t seem to ultimately add up to much. If anything, they work to set up whatever story is coming next and apparently are about what happened when Geralt went to a convent/temple to heal from injuries sustained in the first none-“Voice of Reason” story listed in the book. I’m not sure what they do beyond introduce concepts and characters that get fuller introductions in whatever story follows.
Regardless, as a way of introducing Geralt the witcher (or, perhaps hexer depending on how you translate the work from Polish), these are fun stories. A few are like twisted versions of popular Disney/Grimm fairy tales. Other, longer ones show Geralt making friends or enemies depending on the outcome of the story. And despite the fact a witcher is basically just a monster hunter with some minor magical skills and some really good combat moves, Geralt doesn’t actually spend most these stories just killing monsters. He’s an intelligent man, and sometimes killing something isn’t the answer. Heck, if the monster in question isn’t even hurting anyone, he might just try to get it to go away.
But Geralt’s backstory is still something of a mystery in many ways. We know a little bit about him by the book’s end, as well as introductions to his two closest associates, the traveling poet and troubadour Dandelion and sorceress/love interest Yennefer. He does have other friends and allies, but his actions don’t always let him keep them for one reason or another, and he’s not the most social of people.
All things being equal, these were some good stories. Sure, there’s not much of an overarching plot, but what we do have here is a good introduction, and the closest the book comes to an overarching plot, the aforementioned “The Voice of Reason,” is easily the weakest part of the book. Still, I liked what I read and will no doubt look into more at some point in the future.
Grade: B+
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