A collection of short stories introducing Geralt of Rivia, to be followed by the first novel in the actual series, The Blood of Elves. Note that, while The Last Wish was published after The Sword of Destiny, the stories contained in The Last Wish take place first chronologically, and many of the individual stories were published before The Sword of Destiny.
Review: The Last Wish was a struggle. Like so many others, I wanted to read the short story collections before I watched The Witcher Netflix show. I knew The Last Wish was a collection of short stories, so I knew I wasn't going to be into it like other fantasy books. I really liked Geralt. I thought he was an interesting character, and I wanted to see him use his powers so I had a better idea of what a Witcher actually does. Geralt's interactions with other characters were what carried this story for me.
The biggest issue I had with The Last Wish is that it lacked a cohesive story. Again, I knew this was going to be a problem because it's a short story collection. But that didn't make it any less frustrating. Short stories that follow a specific character don't bother me if it's a contemporary story. But fantasy needs to have some context of the world, and short stories just don't provide that. There were some stories that I loved. The second story, and the last story were easily my favorites. But there wasn't much for me to engage with and really care about the world. I am going to read the next set of short stories, and I have way higher hopes for the actual novels in this series.
An interesting collection, but I don't like that this is meant to be the "introduction" to the Witcher series.
3 howls
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