The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
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Book Reviews of The Last Wish
Book Review: pretty sweet
Summary: 5 Stars
i read this because i played the Witcher video game and thought it was awesome. this book was slightly less awesome than the game, but that is to be expected. definitely play the game before you read the book... but the book would still be good by itself.Book Review: Much better from Amazon
Summary: 5 Stars
very happy with my purchase directly from Amazon, ordered this before from third party Amazon and it took a full month to send me an empty slip of cardboard from smokeymtnbooks. Ordered from Amazon and it arrived in no time and in an actual box.Book Review: Highly Recommend
Summary: 5 Stars
A different fantasy with likeable characters. I typically never read books made up of short stories, however here all the short stories are sort of connected. Excellent action and excellent characters. You will not be dissapointed.Book Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
The Last Wish is one of the most interesting fantasies I've read. It's different and really well written. The translation is nice, and I want to play the game. I definitely recommend it.Book Review: The famous Polish author comes stateside
Summary: 4 Stars
First off, the Product Description does this book a great disservice when it says:
"Geralt de Rivia is a witcher. A cunning sorcerer. A merciless assassin.
And a cold-blooded killer."
Well...he's not a sorcerer...at least not in the sense they mean in the book. He's not an assassin - they actually go through great lengths in the book describing how witchers are not hired killers. And he is by no means a cold-blooded killer. I don't think it's too much a spoiler if I say I can count the number of things Geralt kills in the book on one hand. A witcher, as described in the book, is supposed to save lives rather than take them.
I don't know why the publishers chose this description, but I guess the description "A philosophically-minded warrior confronted with moral ambiguities" would not sell many copies.
Now the review:
This book chronicles the adventures of Geralt of Rivia in a series of loosely tied adventures. A convoluted way to describe his job would be to say he slay monsters, but a better way would be to say he helps people with monster troubles, resorting to violence as a last resort.
The book is written in short story form with a overarching mini-story which acts as a segway between each story.
The book itself, honestly, falls flat for about the first half of the book. I felt quite a bit was either lost in translation or the author was trying too hard to define his character.
The book becomes much, much better once Geralt's foil, named Dandilion, is introduced. I would also say that the very last of the six short stories, named "The Last Wish," is superb and more than enough to warrant a purchase of this book.
Overall, I would highly recommend this book to fans of the computer game, The Witcher,
As for those look for a grittier take on fantasy, I would say this is a good read, but there are better books out there.