A Witcher Review – Fridays with Fay #1

Hello, everybody! I’m going to be posting a new article. They won’t always be reviews, but today’s post is going to be a bit of a review. Enjoy!

To start off, I just wanted to say that I’ve been doing a lot of reading. For a few years, I lost my reading groove – but I believe its back and I have dived into a whole new world of reading. I’ve regained the ability to empathise with characters and be immersed in story-lines. And I have to say, Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series has had me immersed to the point of distraction. It’s inspired a bit of writing in me, it’s brought out the political and social analyst in me and it’s created a whole new level of imagination for me. Needless to say, it’s amazing.

Now, The Witcher is better known as a video game series, the latest of the instalments being The WItcher 3: Wild Hunt, but it is one of the few games that was originally inspired by a book series. Usually video game companies come out with books a few years after releasing games as a form of merchandise – in The Witcher’s case, it’s the opposite. And it’s easy to see why. The world of the The Witcher is an immersive fantasy world with numerous feuding kingdoms, races and factions. There’s the involvement of monsters, magic and lore derived from very rich, lesser-known Polish mythology. The novel also introduce a rather new concept of a ‘witcher’ – a genetically-modified mutant created to fight and repel various monsters and demons that, rather than being celebrated, are despised. Additionally, though the story is set in quite an archaic, medieval style world – some of the concepts discussed are quite modern: issues like feminism, racism, sexual freedom, and religious extremism, though not expressly mentioned, are periodically brought up as concepts and discussed at length.

I’ll admit that I’m still moving through the series, but I’ve read through three books so far – The Last Wish, The Sword of Destiny and Baptism of Fire. And they’ve all been extremely engaging. I think that the first point of note would be that the Polish to English translations of the novels are so well done that you would think that they were originally written in English. I’ve rarely seen the transfer as flawless as I’ve seen it in these series.

Secondly, alongside the story, the mythology is so rich, it alone becomes a separate area of interest. Botchlings and lumberkins, strigas and nechrophages – there’s so much to remember, enjoy and discover. And these are all woven into the fabric of complex political feuds and alliances. The character of focus is Geralt of Rivia – a brooding, rather imposing witcher whose adventures we follow through these series – and he has a very different and interesting social life as well. He seems to always want to do the best thing in an often terrible situation. And though Geralt can be frustrating at times, he can be quite lovable as a reluctant hero and extremely pitiable with all the circumstances he ends up facing.

Lastly, we have the masterful story-telling of Sapkowski. The first few novels in the series are told in the form of short stories – but they are all interlinked to lead up to a grand ending in each book. I’ve never seen a book written like this with such fluidity. Sapkowski isn’t just any written, he is a true craftsman of in the art of writing. The Sword of Destiny had me in tears of joy at the end because of the beautiful ending Sapkowski ascribed to it. The only other writer who was capable of evoking this kind of response in me is Tolkien.

To close off, The Witcher series is a work of true modern art and story-telling, and I would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the High Fantasy genre. I would also encourage to check out the trailer for the latest game – It’s beautiful.