Netflix’s The Witcher grew to worldwide popularity almost overnight, bringing in huge numbers of viewers for the streaming platform and becoming one of the biggest releases in 2019, not to mention boosting book sales and substantially increasing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt‘s number of concurrent players on Steam.
The new live-action adaptation has been so successful at chronicling the life of the lonesome White Wolf, in fact, that any media related to The Witcher is also simultaneously becoming a subject of debate and attention. The novels that revolve around Geralt of Rivia in the world of the Continent have never been as popular in their 30-year lifespan, and landing at #4 on New York Times’ Bestseller list this week was the first collection of short stories that introduced us to this high fantasy world back in 1993.
The Last Wish, on which the first season of the Netflix series is based, was translated and released in English in 2007. It includes stories like the Striga, the Djinn, the hunt for the Green Dragon and of course, Renfri and Stregebor’s squabble that was adapted for the pilot episode. Another book of the saga, titled Blood of Elves, has also found its way at #12, though surprisingly, there’s no trace of the second collection of short stories, Sword of Destiny.
Readers who start on Blood of Elves should know that they’re reading ahead of where the show is now, as the last scene in Sword of Destiny also marks the end of the first season. Still, if you’re keen on knowing what’s to come for Geralt and his companions in later seasons of The Witcher, you can read the pentalogy of novels that officially represent the “saga” in the chronological order as listed below:
- Blood of Elves (English release: 2008)
- Time of Contempt (English release: 2013)
- Baptism of Fire (English release: 2014)
- The Tower of the Swallow (English release: 2016)
- The Lady of the Lake (English release: 2017)
Also noteworthy is Season of Storms, which serves as a midquel set between the stories of The Last Wish.
In any case, if you can’t possibly bring yourself to wait for the next season of The Witcher, like many other people who are devouring the books as of now, the whole story is currently available for you to read at your convenience.
