Review: The Last Wish

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This review encompasses the first and second books Sword of Destiny in the series, because I didn't feel the first book alone gave it a good viewing.

Stop me if you've heard this one:

A non-human albino is a sorcerer and also a badarse swordsman when he takes his special drugs. He is largely hated and reviled in the world he travels through... except by essentially every woman he meets, who immediately throws herself at his feet. He has a special sword that he does not draw unless he will blood it.

If you think that I'm describing Geralt, you've clearly never read Elric of Melniboné - which was, I should note, written over 20 years before The Last Wish. I love the games based on these books, but these are fanfiction with Marty Stu in an Elric suit. And he really is a classic Marty Stu; he ticks all the boxes:

* He's vastly better than everyone else at fighting.
* He's brooding and silent, yet lusted after by all creatures(!) remotely female in form.
* But in his heart, he only wants The One (who is a one-dimensional sex goddess obsessed with having children.)
* He's "darker" and "edgier" than a closed knife drawer.
* He's got the perma-stubble, the scars, and the coolest sword.
* His only real flaw is his difficulty (though in Geralt's case it is supposedly "inability") to feel emotions.
* Despite the repetition of that mantra, he clearly feels the deepest and purest love for The One.

Look, these stories are not terrible. It's pretty _decent_ Elric fanfiction. And the world-building is truly marvelous. Wonderful gritty details that really paint a picture. Sapkowski likes to draw in traditional eastern European faerie tales and give them a bit of a twist, like when Snow White and the Seven Dwarves turn out to be a famous band of highwaymen. And that's a lot of fun - it's what earns this 3 stars in my book - it's just a shame there aren't any characters in here. The short story format takes away from that worldbuilding a fair bit too; there's very little actual story, just a Spaghetti Western with swords and a really cool backdrop. In fact, I may have to give one more of these a try, because I think the next in the series is the first full-length novel, and I'd love to see Sapkowski fit some sort of plot into this gorgeous gritty world of his.


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