Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
Introduction
Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski is a fantasy short story collection featuring Geralt of Rivia. Geralt is a Witcher, a human transformed to fight monsters for money. He kills monsters from fables come to life in this fantasy version of Europe. The beasts and monsters are receding from the world. What will a Witcher do when there are no more monsters to fight?
Summary – Introduction
There are seven stories in this collection. The first story of the series, The Witcher, was published in the Polish science fiction and fantasy magazine, Fantastyka. Five other stories are self-contained. The seventh story is a framing story told in seven chapters that appear between the other six stories. The seventh story called The Voice of Reason tells a complete story and illuminates and connects the other six stories into one narrative. Netflix released the first season of the TV show The Witcher on December 20, 2019. They adapted five of the stories in this collection in season one. The TV episodes combine three narratives into each episode. The three narratives are the short stories in the collections the Last Wish and the Sword of Destiny, Yennefer’s backstory, and Ciri’s backstory. Summaries of each of the seven stories follow.
Summary–The Witcher
The first story is The Witcher. The story gives a great introduction to the characters and the world they inhabit. Geralt’s first mission is to defeat a striga, preferably without killing it. A striga is a being created from a curse. Geralt must risk being killed to break the curse. They adapted the story in the Netflix Show in Episode 3, Betrayer Moon.
Summary–A Grain of Truth
A Grain of Truth is the second full story of the collection. The author based the story on the Beauty and the Beast fable. Geralt finds two people killed by an animal that he does not recognize. He follows the animal’s trail and must unravel a mystery involving a vampire-like being called a bruxa. They did not adapt this story for the Netflix show. I think the audience is too familiar with the Beauty and the Beast fable because of the Disney movie, so the showrunners felt that it would be too hard to adapt and stay interesting.
Summary–The Lesser Evil
The Lesser Evil is a story that introduces important actions he takes that define Geralt’s character. To start the story Geralt kills a kikimora, a large spidery beast, and he looks for payment at the nearby town of Blaviken. The alderman sends him to a wizard, Stregobor, whom he realizes that he knows when they meet. Geralt is stuck between the wizard and a woman thief, Renfri, who both want the other dead and both want Geralt to help each other do the deed. Geralt maintains that he hunts monsters and will not be an assassin for hire. Which lesser of two evils will Geralt choose?
Geralt prefers to choose neither, but events will get beyond his control. The events of this story will earn Geralt the title of Butcher of Blaviken. There are subtle aspects of the Snow White fable in the written story. They adapted the story in the Netflix show in Episode 1, The End’s Beginning. It is the first episode of the show and features exciting visuals and twisting plot points, so I see why the showrunners placed it first in the Netflix show.
Summary–The Question of Price
The Question of Price is the next story in the collection. There are two ideas in this story that are interrelated. The story has aspects of the Rumpelstiltskin fable. In the fable, Rumplestiltskin asks for the miller’s daughter’s firstborn child to spin the straw into gold for her. The fable is mixed with the honor code called the Law of Surprise. It’s the rule that if someone saves another’s life, then the rescuer can take a boon unknown to both at the time of the rescue. Queen Calanthe of Cintra hires Geralt to do an unspecified deed that she assures him has something to do with his profession as a monster hunter. Geralt doesn’t want to be an assassin, so he is dubious, but he lets the scenario play out. The occasion is the betrothal feast of the queen’s daughter, Pavetta. The resulting situation will have effects down the line in Geralt’s ultimate destiny.
They adapted this story in the Netflix show in Episode 4, Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials. The written story features a troubadour, but that part is given to Jaskier in the show. Jaskier is called Dandelion in the written stories. He is a bard who is Geralt’s best friend and companion on some of his adventures, but not this written story.
Summary–The Edge of the World
The Edge of the World is the next story in the collection. It features a beast the villagers of Lower Posada hire Geralt to kill. Geralt discovers the beast is a sylvan, a creature of the woods, and he learns of the plight of the elves. Geralt must make a difficult decision balancing the wishes of the villagers and the elves. This is the first story that features Dandelion (Jaskier in the Netflix show). They adapted this story in the Netflix show in Episode 2, Four Marks.
Summary–The Last Wish
The Last Wish is the last full story in the collection. Geralt and Dandelion are fishing for food and catch a bottle containing a Djinn. Dandelion’s neck swells and Geralt searches for a sorcerer to heal Dandelion because without his voice he will cease to be a bard, Geralt finds Yennefer, a witch who will heal Dandelion for a price. She has her own hidden motivations to help them. Will Geralt pay her price? They adapted this story in the Netflix show in Episode 5, Bottled Appetites. Dandelion and Yennefer are both in the Netflix show as the characters they are in the written story.
Summary–The Voice of Reason
The Voice of Reason is a story in seven chapters spaced between the other six stories in the collection. In this story, Geralt comes to the Temple of Melitele to recover from his injuries sustained in his encounter with the striga. He is under the care of the priestess Nenneke. He dreams or tells about the other stories in the collection. The prince of Ellander wants Geralt to leave his territory because he doesn’t like witchers and what they represent. Geralt must carry out an impossible task to win his escape. They used aspects of this story in the Netflix show, but the story is mainly a framing device to bring the stories to hang together as a cohesive whole.
Recommendation
Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski is a great collection of stories. It’s like a sword and sorcery version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The story has a fable put in it, and Geralt must face a difficult decision to carry out his goals for each story. Dandelion and Yennefer are wonderful foils to Geralt, and I’m glad to know they continue with important roles in the series. They adapted five of the tales in The Last Wish in the Netflix show, and the last three episodes of the Netflix show were adapted from story stories from the second collection called The Sword of Destiny.
Links
Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski Goodreads page is linked below.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40603587-the-last-wish
Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski is similar to Red Country by Joe Abercrombie. Red Country has a similar magic system and features a medieval technology level. It is linked below.