Sword of Destiny

Product Information

Whether he knows it or not, Geralt of Rivia is getting closer to his fate with every step he takes in this unusual but enlightening collection of short stories. Dragons, mermaids, dopplers and dryads, this book challenges him in very untypical ways.

Yurga wakes Geralt up wondering why the witcher went up there, when he could have been told everything by Yurga. Geralt tests Yurga's memory by asking for the last name of the mage, it turnes out not to be who Geralt has thought. The scene ends by Geralt glancing at all the names on the menhir answering Yurga's question whether Geralt knew the last mage. World(-building). It was more of a world deepening in my experience. The political dynamics became a bit clearer, as did the ethnic diversity which leads to an overall improved understanding of the world.

Tropes found in the book:

Interspecies Romance: The mermaid and the prince from the A Little Sacrifice, which puts Geralt into the role of their translator. They are genuinely in love and each asks the other to magically transform into their species, which would solve problems with incompatibile biology. In the end the mermaid becomes a human, so they can be together. I’ll be lying if I say I’m not worried about how I’ll fare with the series after reading Sword of Destiny. I have heard many mixed things regarding the main novels of the series, especially in its ending, but tons of praises seem to have been given to the first two collections of short stories. I fully understand that technically this is Sapkowski’s first published collection of stories in The Witcher Saga even though it chronologically takes place after The Last Wish. But still, I expected more out of it because I enjoyed reading The Last Wish, and of course, I love the video games adaptation so much. However, I felt so mixed about this collection of short stories. And this was published in the 90's. It's always disappointing when this mentality shows up in an old fantasy book, but at least it's kind of predictable. It's like finding racism in a 19th century travel-adventure novel. But today... This should not be left unnoticed. I hope you are all having a good day, welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things gaming and literature. Today I will be doing an analysis and review of the second book from The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski, entitled The Last Wish. Within I will break down the chapters and give an overview of what happens within each tales, with a conclusion on the overall book at the end. The main character of The Witcher (alternative translation: The Hexer) is Geralt, a mutant assassin who has been trained since childhood to hunt down and destroy monsters. Geralt exists in an ambiguous moral universe, yet manages to maintain his own coherent code of ethics. At the same time cynical and noble, Geralt has been compared to Raymond Chandler's signature character Philip Marlowe. The world in which these adventures take place is heavily influenced by Slavic mythology.

In 2011, after the success of the audio play based on Sapkowski's Narrenturm, Fonopolis and audioteka.pl released the audio plays based on The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny. Sword of Destiny, lasting about 15 hours, was voiced by 49 actors, including Krzysztof Banaszyk [ pl] as Geralt, Anna Dereszowska as Yennefer, Sławomir Pacek [ pl] as Dandelion, Joanna Pach [ pl] as Ciri, and Krzysztof Gosztyła [ pl] as narrator. That Man Is Dead: Braen used to be a human girl named Mona before she became a dryad, and she suffers a Heroic BSoD after being reminded of it. By the end of The Sword of Destiny, she has finally let go of her previous identity and tells Geralt that "there is no Mona." Supporting Protagonist: Eternal Flame is really more about Dudu making his fortune. Geralt merely serves the role of a mostly passive Audience Surrogate.Translation is hard. As someone who spent two years translating French to English for all different types of reading, I know this intimately. So whenever I read a book that wasn’t originally written in English I make sure to keep that in mind. What’s more, I have to remember that the book I’m reading isn’t just the work of the named author, but the translator as well. When I read a different Sapkowski book earlier this year, I was very underwhelmed. So I wasn’t sure about trying The Witcherbooks. But I reminded myself that it could have been the translator that I didn’t like the first time and I gave Sapkowski a second chance with an open mind. Flat-Earth Atheist: Geralt argues that golden dragons don't exist, even when he's standing looking at one. Dominant Species Genes: Dryads have to breed with human or elf men and the child will always be a dryad. The children will very rarely have their father's features like hair or eyes. This may be related to the dryads' demonstrated ability to turn fully human girls into dryads. Tyke-Bomb: When visiting Duén Canell, Geralt muses how there are almost no young dryads there and those few child-aged are all naturalised human girls.

A Shard of Ice - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Yennefer and Geralt angst (with hints of a certain infamous stuffed unicorn 🦄 ) Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Dudu is a magical creature who has lived his entire life in the forests around Novigrad. He's also, without a doubt, the single-greatest venture capitalist the Continent has ever seen. A nice aspect of Sword of Destiny is that it made me laugh. A lot. Even though Sapkowski could have made Geralt’s world a dark, depressing place, he doesn’t. Through Dandelion he injects a lot of humor into Sword of Destiny . Dandelion himself is very witty and has a hard time controlling his mouth (translation, he doesn’t control his mouth). He also manages to get Geralt into some very funny situations. It’s always going to be a good read if Dandelion is along for the ride. In the Sword of Destiny, there is no The Voice of Reason chapters, but the action seems to flow somehow even without them because in this short stories book, there is no, let’s say, “time travelling” between the stories. They happen, thank God, at almost the same time, in a continuous present. Except for the last story that got me a bit confused (I don't really do good with stories that leap from one time to the other without telling me EXACTLY what the bloody hell they're about to do). This book is for you if… high fantasy with room for humour and modernised language suits your tastes. Be prepared for a lot of angsty romance and badass fighting scenes.Warning: My review of Sword of Destiny contains some spoilers!] Geralt and Dandelion make an engaging pair