Netflix's The Witcher Is Not Adapting The Book Fans Think It Is

The Witcher is coming to Netflix later this year, and the anticipated show made a bit splash at San Diego Comic-Con this week. During the show, ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to The Witcher showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich during a roundtable interview, and during the conversation, she explained that while the series is based on the books by Andrzej Sapkowski, the book will not be the original first book in the series. Instead, it will be based on the prequel book of short stories titled The Last Wish.

"Well, The Last Wish was the first book I read," Hissrich said. "You know how with anything it is the first time that you experience the world, you fall in love with it in a totally different way. I love all of the books, but that was really my entrance into the world. So yeah, I drew a lot from it, mostly because I really think that, and forgive me if I said this in the panel, the panel is huge blur that I'm not absolutely sure about. It really is world building in The Last Wish that I found to be the most important thing."

"When I first started talking to Netflix about the show, and I think everyone assumed that we would start with The Saga, because that's sort of the most serialized storytelling, and would lend itself to imaging," Hissrich said. "I said, "But you can't do that without setting up the world first." That was really, I guess that was a big challenge too, where to get, you know?"

The Last Wish was actually published in 2008, which was far after the original novel in 1994. It's a series of short stories that establish the major players in the Witcher universe before the events of the main saga, and as Hissrich points out, is a great way to familiarize yourself with the franchise.

That also means it will probably be the next series of short stories Sword of Destiny that will be adapted for a season 2, before leading into the full Witcher storyline presented in Blood of Elves.

The Witcher hits Netflix later this year.