Review: The Last Wish (The Witcher #0.5)

Title: The Last Wish (The Witcher #0.5)
Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Fantasy, Short Stories
Publisher: Orbit
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
Release Date: December 14, 2008 (originally January 31, 1993)
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Geralt the Witcher—revered and hated—is a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent. 

But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good… and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.

Review:

Geralt is a Witcher, an assassin who targets monsters. Each story in this collection tells a tale of one monster he has tracked and defeated.

I haven’t read or watched anything in the Witcher series, so this story was completely new to me. I enjoyed the stories, but it was a little hard to get into them at first. I was completely new to the characters and the world, so it took a while to figure everything out. Once I figured out the way the stories were being told, I really enjoyed the stories.

I was surprised at the fairy tale aspects of the stories. There were references to Cinderella, Snow White, and Rumpelstiltskin, among others. I loved the references to these classic tales. Even the moral of the stories, that not everything that looks like a monster is evil and everything that looks good isn’t necessarily good, was reminiscent of fairy tale lessons.

I can’t wait to read more of the books in The Witcher series.

What to read next:

Other books in the series:

• Blood of Elves
• The Time of Contempt
• Baptism of Fire
• The Tower of the Swallow

Have you read The Last Wish? What did you think of it?