The first four stories dealing with the witcher Geralt of Rivia were collected into a 1990 short story collection titled The Witcher - now out of print - by publisher Reporter. He based " A Question of Price" (and later " Sword of Destiny") on the universally known fairy tale in which a monster or sorcerer saves somebody's life and then demands payment. However, reaction from readers was overwhelmingly positive and Sapkowski wrote more stories, about one or two a year, in response to their demand. Sapkowski feels that his work was the best in the competition, but the jurors relegated it to third because fantasy was considered to be for children at the time in Poland.
He had to wait about a year for the results of the contest, and came in third place. Sapkowski submitted " The Witcher" (1986), which was conceived as a retelling of a Polish fairy tale where a princess turned into a monster as punishment for the incest of her parents. He did so at the urging of his son Krzysztof, who was an avid reader of the magazine. He decided to enter a short story competition, limited to 30-pages, held by Polish science fiction and fantasy magazine Fantastyka. In 1985, Andrzej Sapkowski was a 38-year-old traveling fur salesman with an economics degree and a love of fantasy literature. Production Short stories Īndrzej Sapkowski made his debut as an author with "The Witcher" (1986). The Tower of the Swallow ( Wieża Jaskółki) 2.2 The Witcher Saga and Season of Storms.The video games have been even more successful, with more than 50 million copies sold as of May 2020.
#THE WITCHER MAP SERIES#
They have also been adapted into a film ( The Hexer), two television series ( The Hexer and The Witcher), several video games, and two comic book series. They have been translated into 37 languages and sold over 15 million copies worldwide as of December 2019. The books have been described as having a cult following in Poland and Central and Eastern European countries.
A standalone prequel novel, Season of Storms, was published in 2013. Known as The Witcher Saga, he wrote one book a year until the fifth and final installment in 1999. Due to reader demand, Sapkowski wrote 14 more stories before starting a series of novels in 1994. The Witcher began with a titular 1986 short story that Sapkowski entered into a competition held by Fantastyka magazine, marking his debut as an author. In Sapkowski's works, "witchers" are beast hunters who develop supernatural abilities at a young age to battle wild beasts and monsters. The series revolves around the eponymous "witcher," Geralt of Rivia. The Witcher ( Polish: Wiedźmin pronounced ) is a series of six fantasy novels and 15 short stories written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.