Review: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

Title: The Last Wish

Author: Andrzej Sapkowski (Translated by Danusia Stok)

Series: The Witcher #0.5

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Orbit

Publication Date: (originally)January 31st, 1993

Edition: Kindle Edition, 360 pages

Source: Library

Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | BAM

Synopsis:

Geralt of Rivia is a witcher. A cunning sorcerer. A merciless assassin. And a cold-blooded killer. His sole purpose: to destroy the monsters that plague the world. But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good... and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.

  So, I started this book, a few weeks ago and it took me longer than I wanted it to finish it. It's a very fast read and I suppose on the shorter side. The way the short stories are broken up makes things flow nicely. So with it taking me all month to finish, it was a bit of a bummer for me.

All that aside, I really liked this book. I can't help compare it to the show since this is the book used for the adaptation. 

Geralt isn't nearly as surly in the book as he is in the show. Which is fine, I kind of prefer surly Geralt. But I liked this book a lot. There was some phrasing that sounded (in my head) odd, but with it being translated from Polish I assume that some of the wording had to be changed a little so that the story wouldn't change. 

I love the characters even more now, Dandelion (Jaskier as they call him in the show) is a bit of a putz, but you can't help like his character. There are also a few characters that aren't in the show that are in this book and I hope that we meet them in the show, Nenneke in particular. There are also characters in the show that aren't in this book. It seems like they took this short story collection and parts of the first book to make the first season. Which is fine, this book is a lot of Geralt's background.

This was a fantastic introduction to the world. With each story, there was a new monster to deal with, and it expanded the world a little bit more. I am very excited to read the first book in the series, once I get it from the library, I currently have to wait 11 weeks. That wait list sure is long...