Sword of Destiny

Sword of Destiny

Publication information
Original	Miecz przeznaczenia. SuperNOWA, 1992
Author	Andrzej Sapkowski
Translated by	David French
Type	Short story collection
Published	Gollancz, May 2015 (UK) Orbit, December 2015 (US)
ISBN	978-1473211537 (UK) 978-0316389709 (US)
Preceded by	The Last Wish
Followed by	Blood of Elves
Translations	More...

Sword of Destiny (Polish: Miecz przeznaczenia) is the second book in Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher series in terms of internal chronology, although the original Polish edition was published in 1992, before The Last Wish (but after the Wiedźmin short story collection was made obsolete by The Last Wish). Some of the individual short stories were first published in the Fantastyka magazine.

The book has been translated into Czech, Russian, Lithuanian, German, Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Serbian, French, Finnish, Hungarian, Portuguese and at last, English. The publisher of the English edition of the Witcher books initially decided to skip Miecz przeznaczenia and publish Blood of Elves (the first novel in the Witcher 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. Finally, in May 2015, an English translation of the collection appeared, timed to coincide with the publication of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Stories included[ | ]

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
Something More (Coś więcej)

Translations[ | ]

Bulgarian: Меч на съдбата, (ИнфоДар, 2008)
Czech: Zaklínač II - Meč osudu, (Leonardo, 2000)
German: Das Schwert der Vorsehung, (Heyne Verlag, 1998)
English: The Sword of Destiny, (UK – Gollancz, 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)
Brazilian Portuguese: A Espada do Destino, translated by Thomasz Barcinski (WMF Martins Fontes, 2012)
Russian: Меч Предназначения, translated by Yevgeny Vaysbrot (АСТ, 1996)
Serbian: Mač sudbine - Saga o vešcu 2, (IPS 2010)
Swedish: Ödets svärd, (Coltso, 2011)

Audio versions[ | ]

There are two audio versions of Miecz przeznaczenia 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 Miecz przeznaczenia. Miecz przeznaczenia, lasting about 15 hours, was voiced by 49 actors, including Krzysztof Banaszyk (Vernon Roche in the Polish version of 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.