Have you heard the good word of the Witcher? Seriously, have you read the books? Witcher is a fantasy series of novels and short stories that has spawned a pop culture multi-media sensation. Witcher started with a series of books by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, but added a video game series: now a television series is in the works. A number of other offshoots have come from these books. You can even find strange calendars, or people Cosplaying the main characters.
Play the GOTY Edition of the most awarded game of 2015 — The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Available now!https://t.co/FLiKYy4dxx
— The Witcher (@witchergame) August 30, 2016
If you have done any gaming in the past few years, I bet you have seen a copy of Witcher 3. Netflix is developing a series based on the books. Hopefully, this production is better than the original, Polish production. These books make great companion pieces if you are playing the games. In fact, the games make more sense and gain more backstory if you read the books first. Even if you don’t, the games are still great.
The first two Witcher books are collected short stories, which introduce the main characters. The remaining books follow the story of Geralt hunting for Ciri. The Netflix series will center on this story from Witcher 3.
If you only played the games, you would think Witcher is all about monster hunting; it isn’t. At its core, Witcher is a modern-day fairy tale: the stories contain lessons. They delve into politics and morality. What is good and evil? Racism is a major theme. And, as modern-day fairy tales, the books are great reads. The series still engages fantasy dwarves, dragons, elves, and even a unicorn – all standard fare in this genre and all creatures you commonly see in fantasy.
I was led into these books by video games, and I’m extremely happy the games led me there. The latest entry in the series Season of Storms was just released May 22, 2018, and I am on my way right now to pick it up!
