Sword of Destiny

The second book in The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski, originally in Polish. For whatever reason, the English translator decided to skip it and jump from the first book straight to the third (despite the small fact that it introduced Ciri, around whom much of the saga revolves), so it isn't available in English yet. As such, the title of this article may change over time. For the record, the original Polish title was Miecz Przeznaczenia.

Like the original book, Sword of Destiny is a collection of six novellas (minus a Framing Device) that continue the trend of merrily deconstructing your favorite fairy tales, though the motif of You Can't Fight Fate comes across even stronger.


 * Limit of Possibility. A deconstruction of dragon-slaying epics. Our Dragons Are Different is prominent.
 * Splinter of Ice. A Myth Arc-heavy story centering on the relationship between Geralt and Yennifer. There are some references to "The Snow Queen".
 * Eternal Fire. A story which plays with the idea of a Doppelganger.
 * A Little Sacrifice. A deconstruction of "The Little Mermaid".
 * Sword of Destiny. Another Myth Arc-heavy episode, which first introduces Ciri.
 * Something Greater. The grand set up for the Blood of the Elves Saga of the following books.

Tropes found in the book:

 * Dead Person Impersonation: Eternal Fire involves a doppelgänger assuming the identity of a dead inquisitor. Nobody catches on, despite a rather radical shift in personality (they assume the man has changed due to a near-death experience and generally being old).
 * Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off: In Sword of Destiny, whenever Geralt gets fed up with Ciri's brattiness, he threatens to do this to her. It shuts her up quick.
 * While Geralt mostly just threatens to spank Ciri, it was mentioned that her grandmother, queen Callanthe, was a firm believer in that sparing the rod means spoiling the child, which is why Ciri tends to take those threats seriously.
 * Fish People: in A Little Sacrifice, later to reappear in the games.
 * The Wild Hunt: gets its first mention in Splinter of Ice. Its depiction there slightly differs from what we learn in the Saga, likely as being a personal opinion.