Rating: 3/5
Spoiler Alert! This review will contain spoilers for The Witcher (both the book and the Netflix Series). You have been warned...
Prompted a hundred times to read the books or play the game, it took watching the Netflix adaption of The Witcher to finally realise that yes, a fantasy world of magic and morality was something I would like. (A shock to no one whatsoever).
The series begins (so I've been led to believe, I kind of just trusted what I've been told without doing any research myself) with two collections of short stories which introduce the world of The Witcher. Set on the ominously named "the Continent", we follow Geralt, a witcher, as he travels throughout the land killing monsters, as he was born (kind of) to do.
As an opening to the series, I actually found The Last Wish to be kind of confusing. This is much the same as the TV show, which pulls a lot of material from The Last Wish for its first series. The short stories are an interesting way to build the world, but they also work a lot on the basis of "you'll put it together as you read". Whilst too much exposition is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to reading new books, I think The Witcher verges on not-enough exposition.
The introduction of monsters I am unfamiliar with wasn't too much of a problem as they were usually well-described and, if I really wanted to, I could research them online as they tend to be references to Slavic myths and folklore. The bigger issue was the introduction to what a witcher was, what magic meant in this world, the laws surrounding magic (both legally and in terms of magical capabilities). The idea of a witcher - their abilities and role in the world - was most frequently addressed because of the many legends and misunderstandings that seem to exist in the world, but sometimes I just felt a little bit...outside of the story. Putting in the effort to understand what was happening, at times, took away from the actual plot.
So I suppose it's a good job this was an introduction to the world, not the main plotline of the series.
My favourite story was A Grain of Truth as it most strongly portrayed the importance of knowing how to define a monster. Throughout the book "monster" is used by various characters to mean very different things, and one of my favourite parts of Geralt is that, though he has quite literally been created to kill monsters, he measures them by their acts. I think this a core message in the series: the witcher himself is frequently abused for his difference, despite saving people repeatedly; Nivellan appears monstrous but has learnt he needn't be; and many of the humans in the series are worse than the so-called monsters.
This makes the word "monster" such an interesting choice. For many, the word "creature" feels more appropriate, but monster has moral connotations which, I think, frequently imply worse behaviour than is shown.
However, this is a book review, not an essay. I shall focus on the good and the bad (and save the essay on what makes a monster for when I've finished the series!).
I can tell Geralt is supposed to be funny and sarcastic, but something about the translation makes it seem more...clunky than it is supposed to. It took a while to recognise Geralt's sense of humour, and I think without the show I wouldn't understand that he actually has a rather fun and playful nature.
The nature of a translation means some things are lost, there's a certain quality that is missing in the English version. As much as I enjoyed reading The Last Wish I could tell that something wasn't quite right about it, that I wasn't understanding it in the way it was supposed to be understood. There's a part of me that is really happy I watched the show first: some of the nuances could be understood visually, despite missing them in the writing.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, and I really like Geralt. I'm excited to read more of the short stories, though I'm hesitant about the main series; based off the lack of explanation in the short stories, I'm wondering how well things will be explained and translated. Still, I've already started on Sword of Destiny, so I'm clearly not too hesitant!