The Last Wish Cover Reveal. . . of sorts!
This week we ran a little Twitter competition: Guess the title, win the book!
The rules are as more or less exactly as you’d expect; we give you a few clues and if you’re one of the first people to correctly tweet us back we’ll send you a copy of the book.
This week your clues were:
# It’s a Gollancz title
# We are reissuing a little later this year
# It has a three word title
# The first word in the title is THE
# This book was first published in English by Gollancz in 2007
And we even supplied a line from the book itself:
“ ‘You’ve made your choice,’ she said slowly. ‘Are you sure it’s the right one?’ ”
Of course, we could have supplied some slightly different clues! Did you know that this title:
# Won the inaugural David Gemmell Legend Award
# Comes from an author who has outsold both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in his native Poland
# Is the inspiration for the stunning computer game franchise THE WITCHER – and THE WITCHER 2 is heading for a store near you in April!
# Is being reissued by Gollancz in March, with this amazing cover from artist Alejandro Colucci
Interested in hearing a little more about the book? Well read on:
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 assassin. Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent. He roams the country seeking creatures to battle, but gradually comes to realise that while some of his quarry are unremittingly vile, vicious beasts, others are the victims of sin, evil or simple naivety. One reviewer explained: ‘This book is a sheer delight. It is beautifully written, full of vitality and endlessly inventive: its format, with half a dozen episodes and intervening rest periods for both the hero and the reader, allows for a huge range of characters, scenarios and action. It’s thought-provoking without being in the least dogmatic, witty without descending to farce and packed with swordfights without being derivative. The dialogue sparkles; characters morph almost imperceptibly from semi-cliché to being completely original; nothing is as it first seems. Sapkowski succeeds in seamlessly welding familiar ideas, unique settings and delicious twists of originality together: his Beauty wants to rip the throat out of a sensitive Beast; his Snow White seeks vengeance on all and sundry, his elves are embittered and vindictive. It’s easily one of the best things I’ve read in years.’
Andrzej Sapkowski was born in 1948 in Poland. He studied economy and business, but the success of his fantasy cycle about the sorcerer Geralt of Rivia turned him into a bestselling writer and he is now one of Poland’s most famous and successful authors.
Want to play too? Follow @GillianRedfearn for the new competition, starting at 1.00 p.m. next Tuesday! Not on Twitter? Don’t worry we will be giving you a chance to win a fabulous prize next week here on our blog.