Witcher

The Last Wish (1993)

Sword of Destiny (Polish: Miecz przeznaczenia) is the second (in its fictional chronology; first in Polish print) of the two collections of short stories (the other being The Last Wish), both preceding the main Witcher Saga. The stories were written by Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski. The first Polish edition was published in 1992; the English edition was published in the UK by Gollancz in 2015.

The anthology consists of several stories, loosely linked in a chronology. The short stories in this collection take place before the events of the novels and introduce characters that become major players in the novels. The titular story, The Sword of Destiny, is the first to introduce the character of Ciri. The following story, Something More, which also features Ciri, is a direct prequel to the Witcher Saga, describing events that take place shortly before those in the Saga (such as the fall of the Kingdom of Cintra).

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Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher book series was almost adapted into a standalone Netflix film, but Kelly Luegenbiehl, Vice President of International Originals at Netflix, dissuaded the producers. She recalled asking them, "How can you take eight novels and just turn it into a film? There's so much material here. Through a number of conversations, the producers got really excited about the idea of using the source material for a longer-running series.In May 2017, Netflix announced the start of production on an English-language drama TV series based on the books.

The first season consisted of eight episodes and was released on Netflix in its entirety on December 20, 2019. It is based on The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, which are collections of short stories that precede the main Witcher saga. Before the first season had been released, Netflix announced a second eight-episode season, to be released in 2021.