The Last Wish

by Andrzej Sapkowski

Reviewed by Coral

Geralt de Rivia is a Witcher, whose mission is to find and kill monsters. In this series of short stories, we follow Geralt as he tries to rid the world of evil, facing human obstacles along the way.

I find this book hard to describe.

I thought the concept was interesting and the short stories could have worked here, as Geralt moves from hunt to hunt. But it seemed like the author had a larger story to tell and that didn’t mesh well with the short story format.

I found myself wishing for more details on Geralt – I thought there were too many details about his past that were missing – and about the world that he lived in. I kind of wished that my first introduction to this world hadn’t been through this book. Maybe it would have been better to start with the trilogy, even though I think this book was published first. Or maybe I need to have played the game (although the game came later than this book as well) to get all of the details I was hoping for.

I think that also led to some clunky exposition as monster types and the history of the monsters he was dealing with were explained.

Looking back on the stories, I don’t think there was one that stood out, either for better or worse, than the other ones.

Grade: C