Sword of Destiny

By: Andrzej Sapkowski, David French - Translator

Narrated by: Peter Kenny

Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Geralt the Witcher battles monsters, demons and prejudices alike in Sword of Destiny, the second collection of adventures in Andrzej Sapkowski’s groundbreaking epic fantasy series that inspired the Netflix show and the hit video games.

Geralt is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless hunter. Yet he is no ordinary killer: His targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent.

Sword of Destiny is the follow up to The Last Wish, and together they are the perfect introduction to a one of a kind fantasy world.

Witcher collections:

• The Last Wish
• Sword of Destiny

Witcher novels:

• Blood of Elves
• The Time of Contempt
• Baptism of Fire
• The Tower of Swallows
• Lady of the Lake
• Season of Storms

Hussite Trilogy:

• The Tower of Fools
• Warriors of God

Translated from original Polish by David French.

©2015 Andrzej Sapkowski (P)2015 Hachette Audio

Outstanding performance

Peter Kenny is an amazing voice actor. Is performance truly brings Sapkowski's characters to life. I hope they can he performs the rest of the series as well.

Great performance by Peter Kenny

What did you love best about Sword of Destiny?

The origin of Ciri and how she came to meet Geralt

What other book might you compare Sword of Destiny to and why?

It obviously compares to The Last Wish; same main character and book format of a few short stories with one main arc. However, this one fell a bit short for me. It bogged down a bit changing focus from story to story, but made up lost ground when Ciri came into the picture

Any additional comments?

The Witcher books are great, quick reads, but they really take off with the performance of Peter Kenny. He puts energy, character, emotion, and feeling in his voices. Each character sounds and feels different, a rare talent among the many audio performers I've listened to. This is a fantastic series so far, fantasy fans can't go wrong with these.

Witcher 3's Prequel

This is mostly geralt's story on how he found the young ciri.. amazing story! can't wait for the next one!

I'm a grown up man, and it almost made me cry.

Well written short stories about our favorite witcher.

Brilliant performance by the narrator.

Fortunately I was wearing sunglasses, or the other motorists might have seen me tearing up on the freeway.

You bastards.

If you like the games, Read the books!

Ok, so like many people I picked this up after playing The Witcher 3 video game. That's been my only exposure to the world of The Witcher, although I tried to play the first game in the series, I had to give up because the gameplay was just so bad. Nevertheless, if you're reading this and haven't played The Witcher 3, you probably should. It's one of the greatest games ever made. Propelled a tiny Polish video game studio into one of the most respected developers in the world, and made the Witcher franchise a national treasure of Poland.

I decided to read this book first, because it was the first one published in it's native Poland, and I wanted to be exposed to Geralt of Rivia in the same order that his original fans did. I'm already planning on reading Last Wish next, and the Witcher Saga books after that.

This review will be more about my impressions of the Witcher world as a whole, now that I'm being introduced to it as stories as opposed to video games.

So, this is a collection of short stories rather than one continuous narrative. Although they're not necessarily connected, they all do share the same theme of Destiny (with a capital D) at their core.

As this was my first introduction to the characters outside of the video games, I was happy to find that for the most part they lived up to my expectations. The games are pretty faithful to the source material and I can see where the inspiration came from now.
Having read these stories too, many of the characters and events of the game now make more sense. I have a better feel for the nature of Geralt and Yinnifer's relationship, and the history they have together. In these stories, you see much more of the tender, warm side of Geralt and Yinnifer's relationship, whereas in the videogames it's very cold and confusing for the most part. Also, these stories introduce Ciri, which is great background if you've played The Witcher 3.

Since the video games are so action-heavy I was expecting these stories to be thick with fight scenes, but they're mostly a lot of talking. It's really good talking though. The dialogue, even through the English translation, is superb. It's a much higher caliber of discourse than you normally expect from fantasy novels. There's a philosophical and emotional weight to most conversations, but I always felt like the character's voices were distinct, and that they were speaking like real people. Actually, on the note of the character's voices being distinct, Peter Kenny's reading of this is phenomenal. He's a real chameleon of a voice actor, and adds a lot of emotional weight to the characters.

Geralt of Rivia is one of the most interesting characters in both fantasy and video-game history. He's complex and deep, but remains an upright champion of justice, despite his anti-hero tendencies. Geralt reminds me of nothing so much as an old-fashioned, hard-boiled, noir detective. I got this impression from the video games, but it's reinforced very heavily here. He has that grizzled, stoic persona, and has a history with many colorful characters in his past, as well as a long trail of broken hearts and tossed-aside women. Just like a hard-boiled noir detective. It's stuff like that and a few other things that make the world of The Witcher different in small ways, from any other fantasy universe I've encountered.
For one thing, the world of The Witcher is incredibly capitalist. The Witcher might be a hero, and one who is at his core, a heroic personality, but he is still a mercenary hero, and his world is full of mercenary heroes, mercenary antagonists, mercenary sorcerers, and tricksters, etc. Everyone seems concerned about money, and one of these stories, is almost entirely about playing the stock market, and manages to be really entertaining despite it.

After these stories I've got to say, I can understand why they've inspired the media frenzy they did with the videogames. The Witcher series is a classic of modern fantasy, and I'm looking forward to reading as much of it as I can. Even if you don't have any experience with the videogames or other stories, I would highly recommend checking this out.

Get that tissue box ready!!

Omg guys, the last 3 stories are freaking awesome, made me laugh and if you play or know the Witcher games it helps you understand the relationship between Geralt and Ciri even more. Very touching.

Love it

Love it so much the story is fantastic
better then the game at some some

fantastic voice acting

another fun stroll through the world of the Witcher. it's like the fantasy version of Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander series.

Video game fan

I played the video games and am embarrassed it took me so long to listen to this, very worth it.

Much More Character Based

It does a good job of interweaving different stories and overall developing the characters. Some of the first few stories can be a little slow, but the character's are engaging and the dialogue is good.