My first exposure to The Witcher came in 2015 with the release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I had never played the previous video games, was extremely unfamiliar with the characters, and had to piece the plot together as I went, but the world and mythos of The Witcher left a lasting impression. Although I never actually finished the game (despite sinking well over 100+ hours into it), I will always have nostalgia when it comes to the White Wolf of Rivia.

The Witcher is a concept about which I know frighteningly little. The Netflix series is set up in My List, the book series is sitting on my bookshelf, but I just never got around to starting the series from the very beginning. 

Until now. 

Geralt of Rivia is a witcher, a man mutated into becoming the perfect monster hunter for hire, and The Last Wish serves as his proper introduction. The Last Wish is a collection of short stories and starts off strong, with multiple fantastic entries, each inspired by, but not a direct copy of, classic folklore or fairytales. The pacing unfortunately slows down towards the latter half of the book (the adventures of a monster hunter are not quite as interesting when the monster is removed), but does not detract from the overall enjoyment of the book. In my opinion, "The Lesser Evil" is the best short story included in this collection.

For a book about hunting monsters, a surprising large amount of the story and lore is told explicitly through dialogue. I initially thought this was an interesting choice, but quickly saw the utility; Geralt is a wanderer and a traveler, and needs to quickly discover the world around him and the people who inhabit it. Moreover, this allows us as a reader to quickly adapt to the setting of the land inside each short story. 

Geralt is the ultimate badass. He's good at what he does and how he does it, looks cool at what he does and how he does it, and will impress you with what he is able to do. I am excited to see how the rest of this series pans out.