Okay I have so many thoughts for this book and they’re a bit conflicted but hopefully this review isn’t all over the place. The premise was sooo interesting. We have Kai, the titular Witch King, who is a demon that sucks life out of people, uses pain as power, and can change mortal bodies. He’s EXTREMELY powerful. So when he wakes up in a tomb of water, which limits his powers, he has to find out who did this and why, and he’s likely been betrayed because otherwise he would never have been trapped in the first place.

The plot takes place over dual timelines, one being the present of Kai trying to find out who trapped him, and the other being the past of when Kai first inhabited a mortal body. I usually love dual timelines and I’d say this one was written well in that hints and revelations are done super well but I was a lot less invested in the past timeline than the present so every time it switched to the past, it was a bit draggy for me. There are also so many different characters with fantastical hard-to-pronouns names, having the two sets of characters switch between the timelines got confusing because I couldn’t remember who was who and who did what.

That being said, the characters are very lovable, like one big chaotic found family, and there’s lots of diversity for sure (queer characters and non-binary worldbuilding and poc rep ❤️) Kai in particular is such an endearing morally gray character and it’s fun to watch him pick off enemies like flies while being sarcastic about it the entire time. The worldbuilding is also super fascinating with a cool (if a bit unlimited) magic system and very unique fantastical elements - like a ghost boat that doesn’t know it’s a ghost and a Kai riding a whale even though he doesn’t know how to swim. I would say there’s a bit more worldbuilding than necessary for a standalone and it may have made the beginning more complex than it should have been but that’s sometimes what you get from epic fantasies. I think that’s my biggest complaint that the complex world and so many characters made the beginning very confusing but once it picked it, it was very enjoyable!

I haven’t read anything by Marsha Wells before but I think I enjoyed this one enough to read more!

The Witch King, Kai, is having a very bad day. He is a body-jumping, life-sucking demon and he has been betrayed, But who would do this to the Witch King? After awakening from his watery grave, (water limits his powers extensively) Kai and his second-in -command, Zaide must figure this out and why, Then there's the whole second timeline regarding the revolution that helps give some background to this. You also get Kai's inception in the mortal world to said revolution. But all the body-jumping can get confusing and Wells doesn't slow down to explain who is who or what is what. The world-building is vast and fast. You're kind of just expected to know what's going on but with all the body-jumping and strange-sounding names, it's difficult to keep track.

*Special thanks to Net-Galley and TorDotCom for this e-arc.*

I'm so sad I'm joining the people disappointed with Witch King. I had such high expectations for this book since I love Murderbot and had an excellent time with Wells' writing in that series, but this story and how it was presented and developed really did not work for me at all.

The opening chapter was pretty great. It felt a little bit like I got dropped in the middle of a story, but in a positive way. It was engaging and Kai's situation was a tense and intriguing one and I wanted to know more about it. The world-building was a little confusing at first, yet I would say that was one of the strongest part of this book.

I'm going to echo what other people said about not being able to connect with the characters and the story. The non-linear narrative didn't help me at all since we jumped timelines whenever things started getting interesting. I don't think Wells successfully developed any of the characters and so I found myself not caring about any of them or what they were going through.

That means I did find this book pretty boring. I kept expecting a spark of connecting and/or interest and it didn't come. The extremely slow pace at the beginning didn't help at all, even though the plot picked up during the third half of the book.

I'm sure other people will have a good time with this, especially if they enjoy world-building/plot driven stories, but this one was really not for me.

Witch King
by Martha Wells
Fantasy Magic
NetGalley ARC

Kai wakes in a coffin, with a lesser mage trying to make him into a familiar. Kai isn't a typical demon, he is the witch king and isn't about to become a weak mage's pet.

Kai doesn't know how the body he inhabited ended up dead, in a coffin at the bottom of a water trap. But he wasn't the only one trapped or dead. Now with the new body of a young man who was to be a sacrifice, a young girl who was to suffer that same fate, and a close friend who was also left for dead, Kai is determined to find out who did this to them and why. But they weren't the only ones betrayed, and now he must find another friend.

The opening chapter grabbed a hold, then the rest of the book let go, and allows the reader to fall into confusion while waiting for some action, that never comes.

It's missing a lot of backstory. Who these people were, the magic levels/casts, even just a little bit more of each character's world/tribe, etc, would've given the story and its characters a reason for a reader to connect with them. (((((POSSIBLE SPOILER BEWARE!) I couldn't help but compare the story and its characters to Christianity, the witch hunts, and other historical events. Makes sense because they are witches, demons, and possibly angels.)))))

I was very disappointed in this story, as I was expecting a lot more because the author's Murderbot series is the bomb. This one wasn't bad, but it failed to reach the level of great to make me look for another book if this becomes a series. I've read nothing that states this, but it's left open enough that it can happen.

Not too graphic, but there is murder, killing, and other violence, so not very suitable for readers under 16.

This one just missed the next star.

2 Stars

i've heard so much about martha wells and when i was approved of this, i was so excited to read it. but i've had this for a good 2 weeks i think on my cr and there was never a time where i feel pulled towards continuing it and instead i cheated on a lot of other fantasy arcs and other books (i thought i was having a fantasy slump but my recent reads say otherwise).

i think my issue to this book is just that it's slow and a bit clunky and i wasn't engaged with the story - which is a bummer because the main character so far has been interesting and that usually would help me in deciding whether i should continue a book or not. 20% in and i still could not bring myself to care about the world building and i still couldn't grasp the bigger picture of it all.

this is not to say i won't try reading this book again in the future, and i still have the Murderbot series in my tbr as well!

A found family adventure that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Martha Wells if an epic fantasy heavy hitter and you can see her chops in this one with a dual timeline, huge cast of characters, and intricate world building!

I am a huge fan of Murderbot and I've never read any of Martha Wells' fantasy. I didn't know what to expect and I'm not sure epic/high fantasy was it. This isn't a bad thing. There is a lot of world building, a ton of characters, and a non-linear story line. I suspect those unaccustomedto high fantasy will get lost easily. Kai's story is an interesting one that I very much enjoyed.

I think I want to go back and listen to this as an audiobook later.

I have really struggled with what to say about this book, because I think I liked it but I'm not sure, and I don't know why either way.

The settings are the strongest point for me, for feeling both unique and real, and grounding the story in a particular flavour. I particularly enjoyed the grasslands of the Saredi and had a handful of "I want to go to there" moments. I liked the main characters a lot, too, Zeide in particular, and loved the names. The magic systems were interesting and clearly well thought-out. It has the solid skeleton to support a great story, I love a good dual timeline story, though in this particular case, I had a strong preference for the Past storyline. The Present one just never quite grabbed me.

However, and where my primary concern comes in, there was just way too much of all of it, to the point that I had a hard time keeping track of what was going on, or contextualizing any of the story. Too many characters, too many places, too many different kinds of being and magic, and all of it with proper nouns that I couldn't keep track of. I generally like the high fantasy style of being dropped straight into the world and figuring it out as I go along, but this one just never provided enough background for me to actually be able to figure it out. The whole thing is generally lacking in context and exposition, in my opinion. Which is too bad, because I really wanted to like it and I love the elements, but it just didn't come together in a coherent whole.

I genuinely do love the setting and the major characters and would love to read another book set in this world, but this one unfortunately was just really difficult to follow.

Like a lot of readers, I was introduced to Martha Wells' work through The Murderbot Diaries series (a huge favorite!), but knowing that most of her books were fantasy titles made me really want to try those; so I was really excited to read a stand-alone fantasy from her! And, overall, I really liked Witch King and would like to try more of her fantasy titles.

Witch King takes place in a fully realized fantasy world that I find REALLY interesting; we get different nations of people with their own cultures, traditions, languages, etc., along with multiple magic systems that are used by different groups.

Honestly, I did struggle at first - Wells really drops you right into the action with little hand-holding (the novel starts with a LONG list of characters with descriptions that did not make sense to me at first); I think I hit the 20% mark before I started really following along. However, what kept me reading was the characters, a rag-tag found family team of misfits, whom I found very endearing and fun right from the get-go.

One thing that I find interesting that the description doesn't mention is that the story is split between the present day (which is what's in the marketing material with Kai finding he has been betrayed and imprisoned) and the past, with Kai's childhood/young adulthood and an invasion and war that changed everything for everyone - which explained a lot about the present (and shapes the world so much). Getting the backstory made a huge difference and explained so much, both about the world and the characters.

I thought that this split-timeline worked well and I was equally interested in both; if anything, I wanted more about the time between the past and the present that we didn't get to see, but I did really love that it felt like we as the readers are given hints and glimpses into how that time went.

My main complaints are simply that I found it hard to get into at first, but once I was in I was really into it; I also kind of wanted more about the mysteries of the world, but I can't help but hope this secretly isn't a stand-alone and we'll get answers in a sequel.

Regardless, that's how I know I liked this a lot - I thoroughly enjoyed my time in this world and with these characters and will be thinking about them for a long time.

HIGHLIGHTS
~‘misfits adopt random orphan’ is a trope I will never not love
~women ready to burn the world down to get their wives back
~pain-magic packs one hell of a punch
~ghost-ships that don’t know they’re ghosts
~family means a lot of different things
~‘I’m the demon’ indeed!
~anti-imperialist heroes FTW

Witch King is a story spun out of silk: endlessly soft, smooth and flowing, richly coloured. Quiet as silk is quiet; and surprisingly, impossibly strong, as silk secretly is. Luxurious even when plain; unembroidered, because it does not need to be. Its quality speaks for itself.

It is a masterpiece.

Not the kind we’re used to. As I said; it’s soft, and quiet. This is not a tale of clashing armies and Dark Lords that need overthrowing. There is a quest of sorts, but not the kind you’re thinking of. The battles are more like skirmishes, even if some of them are devastating. World-changing.

Witch King is the story of what happens when the world-changing adventures are over; what does the world do with its heroes, when it decides it doesn’t need them anymore? Intertwined is an earlier timeline, letting us trace the thread of how, exactly, our main character became capital-k Known – but it stops where most stories are just getting going. Wells carefully, deliberately avoids what most of us would think of as the real story, the big story, the dramatic and cinematic war against evil – we see its beginning and its aftermath, but not the war itself, not really.

It’s puzzling, and fascinating, and here, for this book, this story, it is also exactly right. Witch King is not a sweeping, grandiose epic; it is a smaller story, and because it is small it feels more human, more real, more believable. Like something you could reach out and touch, if you could just work out the right magic for slipping your fingers past the print and paper. Because it is a story woven out of human connections and human moments it is easy to grasp, easy to fall into; you come to care about the characters quickly and completely, because they are people, not characters.

People with extremely impressive skill-sets, yes. But still people.

<Kai leaned on the rail, concentrating on being enigmatic and not looking as if he was frantically trying to come up with alternate plans>

(I do not mean to suggest that Witch King is cosy, or that the stakes are low. Neither of those things are true. But even during the fights, I found it oddly peaceful. Maybe because it pulled me so completely out of my world and into Kai’s; it’s been a while since any book had me this subsumed in its story. Every time I stepped away from Witch King was like surfacing from deep water, like taking a breath I didn’t know I needed – but it was also disorientating; it took me minutes to adjust to this world again, after being so deep in Kai’s.)

If you zoom out a little, and look at the big picture Wells is painting, then this is a story of a group of people – allies who become friends who become family – who pulled their nations together to fight off an indisputably evil empire…and now have to stop that Alliance from becoming a new empire.

(It probably wouldn’t be as terrible a one as their old enemies were. But empires never work out – I say that as someone with a UK passport – especially for the ones being devoured by and into said empire, and our characters know this. Kai and his companions are fiercely, passionately pro-independence for everyone, which is a philosophy I can definitely get behind – and so they are not going to let this happen.)

You might expect this to be fairly grim and cynical, but it isn’t. Kai and co definitely feel betrayed, and oh boy are they pissed, but there is never any sense of futility, of why-even-try, of the despair of having to fight the same fight again. For one, because it’s not the same fight, not at all: there is no genocidal enemy army on their doorstep this time (thank all the gods). And two, because Kai and co are just…not like that. The book opens with Kai and the absolutely amazing Zeide confused and angry and somewhat scared, but from the get-go there is the very clear sense that they are both people who will never lie down and give up; not so much ruthless – they have strict moral codes – but endlessly determined, and maybe even more importantly, capable. They are world-wise and street-smart and they know – they know – exactly what they are capable of, and that there is nothing the world can throw at them that they cannot handle.

<“I’m starting to think that a mortal Prince-heir who wanted to consort with a demon in human form may not be a completely trustworthy person.”>

Is it obvious that I adore them???

And then we switch to the older timeline, and it is such a startling but wonderful contrast: by the time we see Kai’s past we are used to him being the unstoppable Witch King, so the sudden pivot to his younger, more innocent self is a lot. Past!Kai was definitely someone who, when pushed past his breaking point, was trapped in despair. (For very, very good reasons. I would have despaired too, if I’d been in his position.) And yet Wells wields her words so deftly that I was never left feeling like past!Kai and present!Kai weren’t the same person; it was so easy to see how the one grew into the other.

<The answer came back on an eddy in the current: Why should I trust?

Always a good question. Kai replied, I wore chains once, too. He sent the whale an image, a memory, of the old Cageling Demon Court in the Summer Halls of the Hierarchs, how we had huddled there with diamond chains around his throat and wrists, the perpetual rain soaking his ragged clothes, searing his skin.>

What we get, what we see, is his origin story, in a way; the painful journey that is him…not so much finding himself as finding his feet, realising his own strength, his own potential, his own capabilities. And we don’t need to see more than that. We don’t need to see him decimating battlefields, because it’s so very clear that he could; that he will; that he did. It would have been redundant for Wells to have actually written the war-parts. And Witch King feels perfectly complete without them. I would absolutely love to have seen more of Kai’s world, and I desperately hope Wells comes back to this verse eventually, but the story told here is perfectly self-contained. We see, are shown, experience everything that we need to and not one bit more. It’s an incredibly elegant efficiency of storytelling that I’ll be mulling over for years.

<“Stop being overdramatic.”

Kai would love to, if dramatic things would stop happening to him.>

Although both timelines in the book have huge implications for the Big Picture story, Witch King feels more tightly focussed on the Small Picture; you have to zoom out to comprehend the prevent-a-new-empire plotline because the view we have is so zoomed in. At its heart, Witch King is intimate and personal, something small and precious and held close. This novel is a snapshot, a magnifying glass held over a quiet corner, a story woven together out of human connections rather than grand destinies. The driving force of the present-day plot is less ‘we must stop the coalition from becoming an empire’ and more ‘where is our friend’ – it just so happens that the latter is vital to achieving the former; Tahren Stargard, Kai’s friend and Zeide’s wife, is a very important member of the Rising Worlds coalition, and necessary for the renewal of the alliance. So yes, technically, they’re doing a Big Epic Thing – their actions will help prevent a new empire from rising – but the motivations feel much more personal.

Which is definitely on purpose; by ignoring (for the most part) the wider world and zooming in so tightly on a small handful of characters, Wells humanises them in a way few epic fantasy writers can – because Witch King is wholly made up of the kind of small human moments most of us would never think to include or see in an epic fantasy story. Kai discovers a game-changing power because of a moment of simple, fearless curiosity from someone who has every reason to fear him; a small overture of compassion is the beginning of the alliance that will bring down their great enemies; the forging, loss, and creation of new family bonds changes the course of history. The devil (or demon) is in the details, and the details are tiny, the kind that never make it into the history books but which we know from our own experiences can be life-changing.

Think of the teacher who took a chance on you, the stranger who asked if you were okay, the coworker who covered for you just because. All of us, I hope, have experienced those moments, and Wells has built her epic fantasy out of them, and the idea of it alone would be breathtaking even if the execution wasn’t fucking flawless.

Is everyone going to love this book? No – especially those who go in thinking it’s going to be something it’s not. I’m really worried that readers who only know Wells from Murderbot will be confused and upset by how absolutely not-Murderbot it is, and I suspect even some fans of epic fantasy will feel cheated by a story that does not do what we expect epic fantasy to do. And even I, who am passionately declaring this not just a Best Book of 2023 but also a new all-time favourite of mine, will admit that Witch King left me pining to see more of the incredible world Wells has created here than the small corner of it she showed us.

And yet – as someone who fell in love with Wells’ fantasy as a teenager, and has been following her career ever since – as someone who adores Murderbot and reveres Wheel of the Infinite and would really like to wake up as a Raksura tomorrow, please-and-thank-you – I think this is Martha Wells at her best. Prose, plot, themes, characters, worldbuilding – they all shine like flawlessly cut jewels, a parure of perfection. This is a book that makes your heart happy, that steals your breath away, that fills you with so much hope for people and for the world. I love it. There is nothing else like it. I will treasure it always.

If you are looking for unconventional, beautiful, character-driven fantasy – if you walk into Witch King with your eyes and heart open – I genuinely believe you’ll find a new all-time favourite waiting for you too.

An endearing Paranormal epic fantasy suffused throughout with Magic, Adventure, Friendship and Found Fantasy (some Necromancy too), WITCH KING is the first new fantasy publication in over a decade from the inimitable Martha Wells, author of the wildly acclaimed MURDERBOT Series! Fans will rejoice, as Ms. Wells brings her Fantasy A-game in a fantasy adventure you can't put down!

A big thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

You saw her sci-fi, now get ready for Martha Wells' fantasy.

Witch King by Martha Wells is a standalone fantasy novel that follows the (after)life of Kai, who was previously murdered, after his consciousness has been reawakened following his prolonged dormant state. He awakens to find a lesser mage trying to harness his magic. Which doesn't end well of course. With a new body, Kai must navigate this new world in an attempt to understand all that's happened since his death. And most importantly, why he was trapped.

This book is so wild and weird, it's hard not to love. And to save everyone from spoilers, as the description does it no justice. Read this book! Go read it right now!

CW: war, violence, death, slight body horror, torture, confinement

I, like many others, am a fan of Martha Wells because of her wildly popular novella-series the Murderbot Diaries. She always manages to create multi-faceted characters within a rich world-setting that you just want to know more about, so I was really excited to check out her latest Fantasy release - Witch King.

The book started out with such a BANG! There was action, the promise of intricate relationships and a hint at betrayal in the past. I was ready to jump in, but the longer the story went on, the less I found myself invested in the plot. To me, it felt like we were introduced to Game of Thrones-level political scheming, but without the necessary time to really get acquainted to the world and understand the mechanics and connections. Granted, there is a list of notable characters provided at the very beginning of the book, but I still struggled a bit with distinguishing the territories and abilities/power people held.

Told in the Past and the Present, I appreciated the many parallels that could be drawn between current events and what had already transpired. Sometimes certain chapter endings were meant to lead you astray and make you doubt characters, which I thought was a fun element of the dual timeline, but it didn't always work out perfectly. Certain reveals just didn't hit right, because we e.g. already knew what someone was capable of in the present.
Also, the final reveal was just not shocking or as satisfying as I would have hoped with the build up. The "betrayal" had been built up the entire time, just to not feel as weighty and personal as I had expected.

What I will absolutely give credit to is the found family aspect of the story and the lovable characters. I almost wished we just got more scenes of them hanging out and interacting rather than chases around the world in search of items and people alike. They had such fun dynamics and I would have loved to see even more of the initial "getting to know"-stages of their relationships.

Fazit: 3.25/5 stars! An interesting world that unfortunately didn't quite light the spark in me.

I am rounding up from 2.5 and it breaks my heart. I am a big fan of the Murderbot series and Martha Wells. I hate to say that this novel was disappointing for me. Though the world is quite intricate I was surprised at how distant I felt from the action and the characters. I am still trying to figure out exactly why. I usually enjoy multiple timeline mysteries. Here. we follow Kai in the present as he works with a band of folks to discover how he was assassinated and entombed underwater (the only place a demon like him is vulnerable). The story begins with him waking up and goes from there. The second timeline gives us the events that lead up to his temporary demise in the past. It is a great concept, and yet it fell very flat for me.

Perhaps it is the limited third person narration that is focalized through Kai- it limits us to what he knows, which isn't much. I normally prefer third to first person, but here I think it is part of what creates such distance as we observe the events of the story more than feel them. There is a large list of supporting characters, but again, none really popped off the page for me and at times (especially with body hopping) it was difficult to keep track of everything, Still, there are hints of the humor and deprecation I enjoyed in Murderbot sprinkled throughout what is a very dark and complex story. It is possible I will enjoy this more when I am in a different mood and the timing was just not right, but I am sad about how indifferent I felt while reading. I expected to be far more invested. Had this not been Martha Wells, I likely would have DNF'd.

I was so happy to also have access to the audiobook of this and believed it would help me to finally get into the story, but I found it to be less of a help than it normally is for me. I found myself lulled by the narrator's voice and it was easy to dose off in the middle of a scene. But again, I think this had more to do with the words on the page and the distant characterization than it did with the narrator's performance. . Overall the audiobook is well produced, it just lacked the ability to pull me into the story or care more than I was able to muster with the book alone, which for me is a rare experience.

I am thankful to Netgalley, Tordotcom and Macmillan audio for access to arcs of the ebook and audiobook in exchange for a fair review.

DNF at 40%

The Murderbot Diaries is one of my favorite Sci-Fi series and thus this new book my Martha Wells was once of my most highly anticipated releases for this year and unfortunately this instead became one of my most disappointing reads.

While I did not find anything overtly wrong with grammar and syntax, I felt that the sentences did not really come together to make a cohesive story. It feels as if Wells handed me the middle of book 2 in a series without making me read both the first book or the first half of the second book. Even after 40% through, I cannot remember a single thing about the book, other than its meandering feel and over the top descriptions about everything. Nothing felt important enough and everything purposefully vague.

I was very lucky enough to get both the eARC and the audioARC and honestly, regardless of what format I read it on, it was an extremely frustrating experience. I picked up the ebook multiple times, zoned out and fell asleep mid-read. I then tried co-reading with the audiobook but I was just frustrated at having to concentrate too much. Then I also tried reading the audiobook on the go, which is the way I usually enjoy audiobooks, but it really highlighted that the narrator was just as bored as I was! His sentences were monotone and ended on the very same note. While I loved the tone of his voice, he seemed as detached as I felt.

I think the one thing I would’ve enjoyed most about this book were the characters and yet I never really knew who they were and what motivated them. As frustrated as I was about this book, I knew that pushing forward reading the book would be an impossibility as the rest of my reading experience was already quite jaded. I did love the first couple of pages of the book and the possibility of amazing characters but I didn’t find that it was worth any more of my time attempting to read it.

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan.Audio, Tor Publishing Group, Tordotcom for both the eARC and the audioARC in exchange for an honest review..

I really enjoyed being dropped in the middle of the action! Kai’s story was clearly unique and interesting, but the book was a branch of fantasy that isn’t particularly my personal taste. I absolutely adore the Murderbot series mostly BECAUSE of how deeply human the characters are, and this just didn’t have that quality. Perhaps it wasn’t my current mood, but the pacing didn’t hold me as much as I hoped. It was beautifully crafted in a lot of ways, the plot just didn’t grip me. I may retry it when I’m in less of a “summer reading” frame of mind.

I love Wells's The Murderbot Diaries, so I was super excited to be approved for the ARC of her new standalone fantasy novel Witch King, a chance to sample some of her other work.

This is the story of a rebellion. Years ago, the Hierarchs came out of nowhere to make war on the world, cut down civilizations and take over. We see this process and the aftermath, including the rebellion, through flashbacks. In the present day, something has gone wrong: Kai, a demon from the now cut-off Underworld, and his band of friends escape imprisonment and they need to figure out who conspired against them.

Wells has created quite a complex world for her novel and I appreciated that, but it was almost too complicated for me. I had to read with so much attention for the first half of the novel that it became a bit of a chore. I think a lot of people will see this as a positive, but too many long, hyphenated names and complex regional lore weighed me down. Sometimes it got in the way of enjoying what was actually a really good story.

I’m glad I persisted, because the last third of the novel gripped me. The story flowed easily, perhaps because I’d gotten the rhythm of the names and places, but also because the narrative truly gained momentum.

I think that Wells writes characters really well. I loved MC Kai so much, with his stoicism and difficulty negotiating demon-human relationships. Kai’s compatriots were also well drawn, and truly made this book. I’d absolutely read a sequel to this novel to revisit Kai and the other characters.

In all, a mixed bag for me. I’m super glad I read this, and loved the characters. It was just all a bit effortful in the first half. I think a fantasy-lover would see this as a positive, though. In summary, a fantasy novel that was a bit complicated for my taste, though I ended up liking it overall.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Books, and Martha Wells for giving me an advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was so excited and privileged to be granted this opportunity.

I have to start by saying I'm one of those readers who came to Martha Wells because I really loved her Murderbot series. But boy am I glad I've stayed for her fantasy.

Witch King is a very complex, intricate fantasy book, with a unique world and plot which really keeps the reader on their toes. It has two different timelines going at once, one of which is in the past and helps explain how the characters got to where they are, slowly revealing the plot while also helping with worldbuilding, and the other of which literally starts when the characters wake up to find themselves trapped.

Martha Wells does an incredible job building both complex characters and a complex world from the ground up. Some people might find the level of world building confusing, but because the characters were compelling I found myself keeping up with the story without too much fuss. And then, when the classic Martha Wells battle / action scenes hit, I knew I was going to love this book even more.

This is the kind of book that makes you glad you invested time and energy into learning about the world in which it's set, because now you get to follow these fully-fleshed-out characters around it for a lot longer, enjoying and feeling very engaged by the atmosphere.

There was so much more to learn about the world of Witch King, but I learned about it in bits through the context of Kai's story, and the story of demons in this world. It was compelling, and kept me going. When it was over, I wanted even more.

What's more, this book deals with queer themes very well, normalising queer relationships and introducing us to a main character who, despite identifying as male, finds himself in various different bodies of different sexes over the course of the book. As usual, fantasy gives us such an interesting lens through which to see the world.

* I was provided an ARC copy from Tor, and am so happy to have had the chance to review this amazing book. Thank you!

Demon witch king's quest for revenge.

The story is told in dual timelines in the POV of title character, the Witch King, Kai. The morally gray (and sometimes lovably murderous) life sucking, body-jumping, prince of hell was betrayed. He wakes in a tomb in the middle of the ocean with no memory of how he came to be there, and he wants answers. He reassembles his found family to find the truth. The worldbuilding is dense but stunning and keeps up with the action scenes throughout. Magic. Mayhem. Betrayal. Demons. Pirates. Mages. It's a spectacular story with varied characters, each with their own motivations. Highly recommend for epic fantasy readers who enjoy rich, complex, and untold worlds.

Book Summary:

Waking up can be surreal in the best of times. Finding yourself locked in a tomb (yes, you read that right) will certainly not be a good time. Yet that is precisely the situation Kai finds himself in, as he wakes to realize he has been murdered and locked away.

Who could have locked Kai away? Whomever it was would have to know how to do so, which limits the number of people significantly. Which begs the question – who betrayed Kai, and why?

My Review:

I've been a fan of Martha Wells for quite some time. One of the things I love the most about her writing would have to be her expansive worlds. The second thing I love about her work? Just how unique and creative each world she creates is.

On that note, Witch King is nothing like MurderBot Diaries. Don't enter this read expecting a science fiction romp featuring a robot with an existential crisis. This is a high fantasy novel, and it is pure excellence. Kai's journey is complex and intricate, and I loved every minute.

The story bounces around between two points in time. Effectively, there's the present (post-murder/betrayal), and then there's the past. The two weave together in beautiful and surprising ways. There were times when I found myself more invested in the present and times when I was upset to leave the past timeline. In other words, the tension was balanced pretty evenly between the two.

I'm not going to lie - Witch King is a dense read. It's 432 pages (I believe), and it has a plot that is just as thick. That said, I seriously recommend this book to anyone who enjoys high fantasy, epic tales, and rich worldbuilding. Witch King is that and so much more. I quickly grew to love many of the characters and sincerely cannot wait for the next installment of this series.

Highlights:
High Fantasy
Complex World
Friendship & Betrayal

Trigger Warnings:
Violence
Death
Enslavement