The Last Wish
(The Witcher #1)
by Andrzej Sapkowski
fantasy, short stories
copyright 1993
(translated by Danusia Stok 2007)
read in October 2017
rated 7/10: well worth reading
Yes, it's "really quite good". Which would rate it as an eight. If the cover did not claim that this is a "novel".
Novel: "an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events" (Merriam-Webster.com)
This book contains a series of short stories. Ostensibly linked by occasional chapters called "The Voice of Reason". This does
The back cover quotes SFX: "There's a fairy-tale quality..." Do the reviewers at SFX get out much? The entire book is a fairy-tale. A warped fairy-tale. Plenty of the humour is due to the author's turning of well known fairytales on their heads.
It's great fun. the hero is heroic -- and moral. The adventures are action-packed, often bloody, of variable quality but always entertaining. The actual "last wish" of the title is... satisfying? Yet i
Oh well.
I enjoyed the book. Yes, it was well worth reading. Yet I finished reading in one rather hurried sitting... simply because if I had not finished quickly I would probably not have bothered finishing it at all.
Overall it is well worth reading, for passing entertainment. A book to be read and enjoyed. Then -- whether finished or not -- put away and forgotten.
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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"A lot of people cry when they chop onions. The trick is to not form an emotional bond." … Jimmy Carr
(The Witcher #1)
by Andrzej Sapkowski
fantasy, short stories
copyright 1993
(translated by Danusia Stok 2007)
read in October 2017
rated 7/10: well worth reading
Yes, it's "really quite good". Which would rate it as an eight. If the cover did not claim that this is a "novel".
Novel: "an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events" (Merriam-Webster.com)
This book contains a series of short stories. Ostensibly linked by occasional chapters called "The Voice of Reason". This does
*
not*
turn the short stories -- despite their common characters and common fantasy world -- into a "connected sequence of events". It's a book of short stories. I read, hoping for a developing plot leading to a unifying conclusion... and was disappointed. Enough said.The back cover quotes SFX: "There's a fairy-tale quality..." Do the reviewers at SFX get out much? The entire book is a fairy-tale. A warped fairy-tale. Plenty of the humour is due to the author's turning of well known fairytales on their heads.
It's great fun. the hero is heroic -- and moral. The adventures are action-packed, often bloody, of variable quality but always entertaining. The actual "last wish" of the title is... satisfying? Yet i
t
has nothing to do with any of the other short stories. As far as I can tell. Oh, and the author is clearly gaining confidence: he suggests the wish but I can't guarantee that I understood it. Nor am I clear as to why that particular wish -- as I guess it -- managed to solve the final near-disaster.Oh well.
I enjoyed the book. Yes, it was well worth reading. Yet I finished reading in one rather hurried sitting... simply because if I had not finished quickly I would probably not have bothered finishing it at all.
Overall it is well worth reading, for passing entertainment. A book to be read and enjoyed. Then -- whether finished or not -- put away and forgotten.
=======
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
=======
"A lot of people cry when they chop onions. The trick is to not form an emotional bond." … Jimmy Carr
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Now much more than a clever name for a holiday journal:
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