Sword of Destiny (The Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski (2015-12-01)

I really enjoyed this more than The Last Wish and I liked that book too :). The only chapter I hated In this book was one that was drowning in economics and I had trouble getting through that. Other than that, the book was great.

The Sword of Destiny is well written, well paced and full of stories that will grab your attention from the first chapter. The dark fantasy stories of Geralt of Rivia are intense, captivating, political, emotional and woven together brilliantly. I have read all the books by Andrzej Sapkwoski and this is another superb addition to The Witcher saga. I highly recommend this title to newcomers to The Witcher universe as well as veterans of the lore.

Great translation and story collection. Make sure you have your reading order figured out before picking up the Witcher books. Marked as book 4 since it was released 4th chronologically but falls between Last Wish and Blood of Elves.

The book itself is great, but I feel all potential buyers of the kindle format should be cautioned; this is the British English edition.

Still entirely readable and enjoyable, but it is annoying seeing single quotation marks where you expect double quotation marks.

I can't wait until Dec 1st, so I would definitely buy again.

I First go into the Witcher from playing the video games. Going back and reading the books makes me love the series even more. I can picture every conversation and quest from my previous experience with the games.

I First go into the Witcher from playing the video games. Going back and reading the books makes me love the series even more. I can picture every conversation and quest from my previous experience with the games.

Like The Last Wish, it starts out as fairly standard pulpy fantasy writing, but that doesn't last. A little over halfway through it starts to deepen. The world is cohesive and interesting, but it's the characters that will surprise you, especially Geralt.

Just because the content can be explicit, I would be remiss to label this collection of short stories from the Witcher series (or the series in general, as far as I've read it) "grim and gritty". While cruelty and horror happens, I feel the stories never rely on them for shock value. Sapkowski's sense of humor shines through at all times, and the protagonist Geralt's 90s metal badass Image Comics accoutrements belie his personality as basically Clark Kent who likes to get laid a lot. A healthy type of hero that popular culture could do with nowadays, I say!

Although it is a collection of short stories, this is definitely Sapkowski tying up all the loose ends from his previous work to dive into his novel series, so I would not recommend using this as an intro to the world of the Witcher (The Last Wish, the first anthology, is the obvious candidate here).

While the second entry in Sapkowski's Witcher saga wasn't as page turning and addictive as it's predecessor. There was a profound amount of heart to the stories, especially in the latter half of the book that was missing from the more adventurous set of stories in the first one. By the end of this book you truly begin to understand Geralt and Ciri's connection in a way that makes the second half of the book a must read for fans of The Witcher. Unfortunately, after the Dragon Hunt story that sees the introduction of a few characters referenced and seen in Assassins of Kings, the Geralt and Yennefer plotline didn't connect with me in the same way Geralt and Ciri's early relationship did.

I read whole saga once before, but I skipped 'Sword of Destiny' because it wasn't translated. By the time I started to search for fan translations of 'Swallow's Tower' and 'The Lady of the Lake', I didn't want to go back in continuity so I just skipped it. And it was a big mistake, it explanes so much and introduces us to Ciri for the first time.

I bought the first couple of witcher books for my boyfriend after he finished The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt game. He loved this book! The Witcher is an excellent book series! It's extremely captivating and well written!