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A review by ketutar
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
5.0
I was saying to my husband that I really enjoy this, because I know all the fairytales he references, from the Princess in the Coffin to Snow-white and Rapunzel. But unlike most fairytale adaptations, where the author has adjusted the fairytale to their world, Andrzej Sapkowski takes the fairytales and thinks what would the world look where they were totally normal and realistic events. He doesn't force the tale to fit him, he nestles his story and world into the fairytales as if it was a vine. Or fungus. Not the kind of parasitic fungus that kills the host, but the kind of fungus that lives in a symbiosis with the host and both become better of it. I love that.
I think he succeeds even better than Terry Pratchett, and THAT is a high praise coming from me.
I don't think these books are misogynic. The world is your ordinary medievalist fantasy world, where women are considered lesser than, but Sapkowski's women are capable leaders, making their own decisions, sexually active - there is even a clear matriarchal mood in these stories, especially in A Question of Price. Not only was the princess the most powerful mage ever known, she inherited the power from her mother's mother, and she wasn't the king's daughter, but no-one ever questioned either the Queen's nor the Princess' right to the throne. Also, the Queen was a celebrated war hero.
Snow-white grew from a pampered and sheltered princess to a tough as nails war leader, making tough brutes and gangsters shut up by simply looking at them.
And none of these ladies was presented as masculine or manly, in any way less feminine than any other woman.
Then I need to address some things I read in other reviews.
"this is basically a no brain, action based, monster squashing anthology"
No, it's not.
There's very much brain and even more heart.
There isn't much action, actually. When there is, like in A Question of Price... it's very much action, but still he manages to put in details that tell something about the people...
Monster squashing? Not many monsters were squashed. Most of the "monsters" turned out to be something else. And the love stories? Oh, my! Better than anything Stephenie Meyer, E.L. James and Diana Gabaldon has ever written.
But I suppose some people don't do subtle. They need to get it spelled out and shown with big letters and neon light arrows, and packaged so that they recognize it.
"the very first short story started with Geralt leering at a sexualized 14 year old girl!"
huh? that bit is missing from the book i read.
"On top of that we had the attempted magical rape by Dandilion"
- yes, that is there, but "magical rape"?
Dandilion was never intended to be in any way flawless or moral character.
"an actual magical rape perpetrated by Geralt at the end of the book via his "last wish""
We don't know what he wished.
"Yennifer's mind rape of a bunch of the characters"
Was never portrayed as anything positive or not a problem. On the contrary.
"Then there was the cringe-inducing fact that all woman sorcerers were bitter ugly woman who used magic to enhance their beauty at the cost of their reproductive organs shrivelling away to nothing."
Not true. The 16 years old princess wasn't bitter, ugly, or old, and she was pregnant, but she was the most powerful sorceress of her time, probably even beyond that.
I think he succeeds even better than Terry Pratchett, and THAT is a high praise coming from me.
I don't think these books are misogynic. The world is your ordinary medievalist fantasy world, where women are considered lesser than, but Sapkowski's women are capable leaders, making their own decisions, sexually active - there is even a clear matriarchal mood in these stories, especially in A Question of Price. Not only was the princess the most powerful mage ever known, she inherited the power from her mother's mother, and she wasn't the king's daughter, but no-one ever questioned either the Queen's nor the Princess' right to the throne. Also, the Queen was a celebrated war hero.
Snow-white grew from a pampered and sheltered princess to a tough as nails war leader, making tough brutes and gangsters shut up by simply looking at them.
And none of these ladies was presented as masculine or manly, in any way less feminine than any other woman.
Then I need to address some things I read in other reviews.
"this is basically a no brain, action based, monster squashing anthology"
No, it's not.
There's very much brain and even more heart.
There isn't much action, actually. When there is, like in A Question of Price... it's very much action, but still he manages to put in details that tell something about the people...
Monster squashing? Not many monsters were squashed. Most of the "monsters" turned out to be something else. And the love stories? Oh, my! Better than anything Stephenie Meyer, E.L. James and Diana Gabaldon has ever written.
But I suppose some people don't do subtle. They need to get it spelled out and shown with big letters and neon light arrows, and packaged so that they recognize it.
"the very first short story started with Geralt leering at a sexualized 14 year old girl!"
huh? that bit is missing from the book i read.
"On top of that we had the attempted magical rape by Dandilion"
- yes, that is there, but "magical rape"?
Dandilion was never intended to be in any way flawless or moral character.
"an actual magical rape perpetrated by Geralt at the end of the book via his "last wish""
We don't know what he wished.
"Yennifer's mind rape of a bunch of the characters"
Was never portrayed as anything positive or not a problem. On the contrary.
Yennefer saw him, jumped up and raised her hand.
“No!” he shouted, “don't do this! I want to help you!”
“Help?” She snorted. “You?”
“Me.”
“In spite of what I did to you?”
“In spite of it.”
"Then there was the cringe-inducing fact that all woman sorcerers were bitter ugly woman who used magic to enhance their beauty at the cost of their reproductive organs shrivelling away to nothing."
Not true. The 16 years old princess wasn't bitter, ugly, or old, and she was pregnant, but she was the most powerful sorceress of her time, probably even beyond that.