Following the heels of its predecessor The Last Wish, Sword Of Destiny is another collection of short stories featuring the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. Rather than solely introducing characters integral to the overarching story, Sword Of Destiny serves as a direct prequel to the Witcher saga.

It is hard to discuss Sword of Destiny without a direct comparison to The Last Wish; to its credit, Sword Of Destiny excels where The Last Wish excelled, and falters where The Last Wish failed.

Geralt is an interesting yet stoic protagonist, and some of the highlights of the book involve epic battles with his adversaries, both monster and human. However, take the monster hunting out of the book about the monster hunter, and things slow down considerably. Some of Geralt’s toughest (and least interesting) battles involve his plight against his own morals and destiny. Geralt is intentionally stubborn, but watching him constantly wrestling with the woman he loves whom he is fated to never be with or faltering with his own responsibilities is tiresome. Perhaps this is intentional; perhaps it goes to show that the mutant is actually very much human after all.

Sword of Destiny excels in its storytelling and world building, but fails to set itself apart from The Last Wish and, in my opinion, contains the lesser stories out of the bunch.