The Witcher

The Witcher (Polish: Wiedźmin, pronounced [ˈvjɛd͡ʑmin]) is a series of nine fantasy novels and 15 short stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The series revolves around the eponymous witcher, Geralt of Rivia. Witchers are monster hunters given superhuman abilities for the purpose of killing dangerous creatures. The Witcher began with a titular 1986 short story that Sapkowski entered into a competition held by Fantastyka magazine, marking his debut as an author. Due to reader demand, Sapkowski wrote 14 more stories before starting a series of novels in 1994. Known as The Witcher Saga, he wrote one book a year until the fifth and final installment in 1999. A standalone prequel novel, Season of Storms, was published in 2013. Another prequel, Crossroads of Ravens, was published in 2024.

The books have been described as having a cult following in Poland and throughout Central and Eastern Europe. They have been translated into 37 languages and sold over 15 million copies worldwide as of July 2020. They have also been adapted into a film (The Hexer), two television series (The Hexer and The Witcher), a video game series, and a series of comic books. The video games have been even more successful, with more than 75 million copies sold as of May 2023.

Overview

The Last Wish contains four of the five stories in The Witcher, in addition to three other stories. The fifth story, "A Road with No Return", is not in the book.

Production

Short stories

In 1985, Andrzej Sapkowski was a 38-year-old traveling fur salesman with an economics degree and a love of fantasy literature. He decided to enter a short story competition, limited to 30-pages, held by Polish science fiction and fantasy magazine Fantastyka. He did so at the urging of his son Krzysztof, who was an avid reader of the magazine. Sapkowski submitted ""The Witcher"" (1986), which was conceived as a retelling of a Polish fairy tale where a princess turned into a monster as punishment for the incest of her parents. He had to wait about a year for the results of the contest, and came in third place. Sapkowski felt that his work was the best in the competition, but the jurors relegated it to third because fantasy was considered to be for children at the time in Poland. However, reaction from readers was overwhelmingly positive and Sapkowski wrote more stories, about one or two a year, in response to their demand.

He based "A Question of Price" (and later "Sword of Destiny") on the universally known fairy tale in which a monster or sorcerer saves somebody's life and then demands payment. The first four stories dealing with the witcher Geralt of Rivia were collected into a 1990 short story collection titled The Witcher — now out of print — by publisher Reporter. It includes 1988's "A Road with No Return" ("Droga, z której się nie wraca"), which is set before The Witcher stories and features Geralt's mother-to-be.

After what he called a chance meeting, Sapkowski made a deal in 1990 with SuperNowa to publish the series. They released the second short story collection, Sword of Destiny, in 1992. The Last Wish was published by SuperNowa in 1993 to replace The Witcher as the first book, and includes all of its stories except "A Road with No Return" (the only story without Geralt). Although new short stories were also added to The Last Wish, they chronologically take place before those in Sword of Destiny.

"Something Ends, Something Begins" ("Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna") is an alternate ending to The Witcher Saga about Geralt and Yennefer's wedding that was written in 1992 as a wedding gift for Sapkowski's friends. It and "A Road with No Return" are included in some Polish editions of The Last Wish or Sword of Destiny.

The Witcher Saga and prequels

With the positive reader reception to his short stories, Sapkowski decided to write a fantasy saga. He claimed that Polish publishers at the time believed only Anglo-Saxon fantasy authors were worth publishing and that Polish writers of the genre were too risky. SuperNowa were the only publisher willing to take the risk, and "Now everybody envies" them. For the saga, the author expanded on the story he used for "A Question of Price" and "Sword of Destiny". Blood of Elves, the first novel in The Witcher Saga, was published in 1994. The story focuses on Geralt of Rivia and Ciri, who are linked by destiny. Ciri, princess of a recently conquered country and a pawn of international politics, becomes a witcher-in-training. Geralt is drawn into a whirlwind of events in his attempts to protect her.

Three more novels quickly followed at a pace of one a year; Time of Contempt (1995), Baptism of Fire (1996), and The Tower of the Swallow (1997). The fifth and final installment, The Lady of the Lake, was published in 1999.

After 14 years, Sapkowski released Season of Storms in 2013. Set between short stories included in The Last Wish, it is a standalone prequel to The Witcher Saga. In 2020, Sapkowski stated that he had "some plans" for a new entry in The Witcher, but "My future plans are vague, nothing is fixed yet". On 29 November 2024, the ninth installment of the series — Crossroads of Ravens — was published in Poland. The book is a prequel to both the Witcher Saga and the short stories and describes Geralt as a young and inexperienced witcher shortly after completing his training in Kaer Morhen.

Non-Witcher anthologies

Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna (Something Ends, Something Begins) is a 2000 collection of short stories by Sapkowski, including two from The Witcher: "A Road with No Return" and "Something Ends, Something Begins". That collection was republished in 2012, with two additional stories (not related to The Witcher universe), as Maladie i inne opowiadania (Maladie and Other Stories).

Chosen by Fate: Zajdel Award Winner Anthology is a 2000 English anthology by SuperNowa, in cooperation with the Silesian Club of Fantastika, that includes a translation by Agnieszka Fulińska of "The Witcher" short story entitled "The Hexer". 2010's A Polish Book of Monsters is an English anthology edited and translated by Michael Kandel that includes a translation of "The Witcher" entitled "Spellmaker". Maladie and Other Stories (not to be confused with the above Polish book of the same name) is a 2014 English e-book sampler with translations of "The Witcher", "The Edge of the World", and the first chapters of Blood of Elves and Baptism of Fire.

Spin-offs

With Sapkowski's permission, the Polish publishing house Solaris published a collection of eight short stories entitled Opowieści ze świata Wiedźmina (Tales from the World of The Witcher). Written by Russian and Ukrainian fantasy writers (including Andrei Belyanin and Vladimir Vasilyev), they are set in the world of The Witcher and feature its characters; Vasilyev story is part of his The Witcher of Grand Kiev universe. Szpony i kły (Claws and Fangs), a similar collection of eleven short stories by authors chosen through a 2016 competition by the Polish magazine Nowa Fantastyka, was published in 2017 by SuperNowa.

Setting

When he first created The Witcher, Sapkowski had not yet conceived of the background of the series' world. "I began with short stories; you don't create universes in short stories, there is—literally and metaphorically—no place for them". But when he switched to writing full novels, "the necessity of some coherent background became imminent. And slowly, step by step, something resembling a universe started to emerge. But it's only in the background, so it plays a secondary role in the story". Although admitting to using Slavic mythology often due to it being very rich and abundant, Sapkowski said he does not have any preferred mythologies, folklores or bestiaries that he draws on for monsters in The Witcher: "The story dictates the necessity. And, mostly, I put aside existing mythologies and invent something myself". He said that the monsters in the series can be put into one of three categories. First, those that already "exist" with established names, appearances, habits and habitats, such as dragons. Second are those that he invents, but gives names that can be found in nature, mostly insects, because they are "horrible and scary." Third are those that are completely original creations, some of which are only named, because, "When it has no importance as far as the storyline is concerned whatsoever, why bother?" Sapkowski has also stated that he personally abhors politics and considers his books to be politically neutral.