The Witcher, The Last Wish – A Review

I have decided that, for my updates, I will alternate between doing normal updates and doing reviews such as his. I hope that you find this review helpful.

So, without further ado: the Witcher.

The Witcher

The Witcher, the Last Wish is a collection of fantasy short stories written by Andrzej Sapkowski. It follows a man by the name of Geralt who is, in fact, a Witcher. In this world, a Witcher is a professional monster hunter that (usually) does not take kindly towards being hired as a mercenary. However, this book plays with the idea that the things that look like monsters can be less monstrous than ourselves.

Themes

The themes of this anthology are varied. The main reason is that each short story plays with a different idea. Usually, this idea is expressly stated in the title and during the actual story. For example, the words ‘lesser evil’ appears 10 times during the titular ‘Lesser Evil.’ The theme is, of course, that one must not choose between two evils. So, the themes are surprisingly on the nose. 

However, the writing is good enough that the book pulls it off. During ‘Lesser Evil’ Geralt believes that one should never compromise and that one should never choose the lesser evil. Eventually, he is worn down and is forced to choose the lesser evil. This makes it seem more tragic than preachy. Then again, it can get tiresome and immersion breaking. 

Myths and Legends in the Witcher

This book contains many illusions to monsters from Polish legend as well as the legends from the brothers Grimm. The effectiveness of this can vary, however. One example is that I, and you most likely, am not familiar with Polish monsters. This meant that a minor reveal that a monster was one type of vampire as opposed to another flew over my head. The distinction didn’t matter to me. That said, I find the new monsters that are introduced very interesting. Mainly because they are, for the most part, introduced very well.

Polish legends aren’t the only old this that are alluded to in the book. In ‘The Last Wish’ there are two short stories that are based on fairy tales. The two being Snow White and Beauty and the Beast. These both worked well because they allowed us to intuit more about the world fro our knowledge of the fables. It is also interesting because of the way it subverts the fairy tales. The Beast is the hero, Snow-white is a bandit; all of that was interesting to read. But, if you do not find these concepts interesting then you should know that fairy tale allusions play a relatively small part in the story. they

Writing

The Witcher was very good. One thing of note that I especially liked was how the short stories were tied together. There is one overarching story about Geralt recovering from his wounds. It is there that we see the current state Gerlt is in, as we all introduced the characters that I assure will be important later. During his recovery, she reminisces about past exploits and past monsters killed. These turn into the other short stories. This means that the entire book holds together really well and flows smoothly.

There is one slight problem with the book and it is the fact that that it is translated from its original Polish. This means that some writing that sounds normal in Polish may sound strange and clunky in English. After all, each language has certain writing rules and customs that may not make sense to those who speak a different language.

Should you read it?

Overall, the Witcher is a very well written book. It has complicated characters and explores a variety of themes. It is exciting, containing face passed fights, but it doesn’t shy away from character-driven conversations. I recommend reading this book for yourself. However, this book should only be read by people over the age of 13 due to a large amount of blood and violence in this book. But, if you can read the book I suggest you do.