Sword of Destiny (Polish: Miecz przeznaczenia) is the second book in Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher series in terms of story chronology, although the original Polish edition was published in 1992, before The Last Wish (but after the Wiedźmin short story collection made obsolete by The Last Wish). One of the individual short stories was first published in Fantastyka magazine.[1]
Both English publishers decided to skip Sword of Destiny and publish Blood of Elves (the first novel in the saga) directly after The Last Wish, even though the short stories in this collection take place earlier and introduce some of the characters that become major characters in the novels.
The UK edition was subsequently published by Gollancz on 21 May 2015 and the U.S. edition was released by Orbit on 1 December 2015. Gollancz later released a second edition on 10 March 2016.
Stories Include:[]
- The Bounds of Reason (Granica możliwości)
- A Shard of Ice (Okruch lodu)
- Eternal Flame (Wieczny ogień)
- A Little Sacrifice (Trochę poświęcenia)
- The Sword of Destiny (Miecz przeznaczenia)
- Something More (Coś więcej)
Translations[]
Bulgarian: Меч на съдбата, (ИнфоДар, 2008)- Czech: Zaklínač II - Meč osudu, (Leonardo, 2000)
- Danish: Skæbnens Sværd, (Gyldendal, 2017)
- German: Das Schwert der Vorsehung, (Heyne Verlag, 1998)
- English: The Sword of Destiny, (UK – Gollancz, 2015, U.S. – Orbit, 2015)
- Spanish: La espada del destino, translated by Jose María Faraldo (Bibliópolis fantástica, 2003)
- French: L'Épée de la Providence, Alexandre Dayet (Bragelonne, 2008)
- Italian: La spada del destino, (Nord, 2011)
- Lithuanian: Likimo kalavijas, (Dagonas, Kowno 1997)
- Hungarian: Vaják II - A végzet kardja, (PlayOn, 2012)
- Dutch: Het zwaard van het lot, (Dutch Media Uitgevers, 2012)
- Finnish: Kohtalon miekka, translated by Tapani Kärkkäinen (WSOY, 2011)
- Portuguese: A Espada do Destino, translated by Thomasz Barcinski (Saída de Emergência, 2017)
- Brazilian Portuguese: A Espada do Destino, translated by Thomasz Barcinski (WMF Martins Fontes, 2012)
- Romanian: Sabia Destinului, translated by Mihaela Fiscutean (Nemira, 2019)
- Russian: Меч Предназначения, translated by Yevgeny Vaysbrot (АСТ, 1996)
- Serbian: Mač sudbine - Saga o vešcu 2, (IPS 2010)
- Slovak: Zaklínač II.: Meč osudu, (Plus, 2015)
- Swedish: Ödets svärd, (Coltso, 2011)
- Simplified Chinese: 猎魔人系列·卷2:宿命之剑, translated by 赵琳/小龙 (重庆出版社, 2015)
- Greek : Το σπαθί του πεπρωμένου, (SELINI 2016, translated by Dimitris Houliarakis)
- Turkish: Kader Kılıcı, translated by Regaip Minareci (Pegasus, 2017)
Audio Versions[]
There are two audio versions available in Polish. Classic audiobook, lasting about 13 hours and read by Roch Siemianowski, was released by superNOWA (Polish publisher of Sapkowski's works) in 1990s.
In 2011, after huge success of audio play based on Sapkowski's Narrenturm, Fonopolis and audioteka.pl released audio plays based on The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny. The latter, lasting about 15 hours, was voiced by 49 actors, including Krzysztof Banaszyk (Vernon Roche in Assassins of Kings) as Geralt, Anna Dereszowska as Yennefer, Sławimir Pacek (minor characters in video games) as Dandelion, Joanna Pach (minor characters in video games) as Ciri, Wiktor Zborowski (famous Polish actor) as Istredd and Krzysztof Gosztyła as narrator. Samples from all short stories can be found on audioteka.pl's site.
Book Covers[]
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- ↑ The Bounds of Reason (1991) was first published in the Fantastyka magazine. Another was published in the magazine the same year as this collection: A Shard of Ice (1992).