Thank you to Tor Dot Com and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this book.

I ended up DNF'ing this book about 33% of the way through. There was a lot of info dumping and I was really struggling to read. The characters all seemed really interesting but I struggled with them because of all the info dumping, I felt like there was more exposition than seeing the characters actually doing something. My book club will be reading this over the summer so I will pick it up again then and see if I like it better the second time.

I was super excited when I saw that Witch King was on NetGalley and I was so happy to receive a copy of it in exchange for an honest review.
 
Unfortunately though, this was not a book for me.
It is partly my fault: I was hoping for it to be more funny and engaging, and reading the blurb I was expecting a different story. Also, since it is a book with a demon as the main character, I was expecting a lot of sarcasm.

This wasn't the case at all.
 
The book is told from a third point of view, and it goes back and forth between the past and present.
In the present, you just start to follow the demon Kai after he wakes up, and nothing is explained to you at all. It was a sink or swim situation, and I just did not stay afloat.
 
In the past sections, it was a bit easier to follow, but there are still so many new names of people, places, and different people's titles that are used without much context. The book also flips between past and present when you are finally starting to figure out what is going on with some catching lines, which made the experience even more frustrating.
 
Maybe some people like being thrown into the world and just having fun going along with all the action without understanding much, but sadly, I am a slow-paced reader, and this read just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and TOR for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

This was my first Martha Wells book and what a first book it was. I hope there will be many more books in this world, especially with Kai and his found family.

The alternating timeline between the past and the present was probably the best execution I have ever read. The interweaving of the storylines was seamless. They were subtlety connected. They gave foreshadowing to each other. *chef's kiss*

I could go into heavy detail about the plot and the characters' relationships but I don't want to because I suggest you go into this book blind. I went in only knowing what I read from the back and that was enough.

It was a gloriously written story with sublime intricate worldbuilding and a wonderful cast of characters.
I could not recommend it more.

After seeing so many of my mutuals on bookstagram and Goodreads adore this book, I was SO excited to dive in. But unfortunately, I had to DNF around the 30% mark.

I’m Witch King, we follow Kai THE baddest of bad guys, who has just been resurrected after being unconscious for years cannot recall the events that led up to his “big sleep”. Kai was, most definitely the BEST part of this book, and the reason I stuck it out for as long as I could.

Unfortunately my issues are with the writing style and story telling in this book. Told in two timelines, today and what I can assume is the past leading up to Kai’s big sleep. It was impossible to follow, with enough info dumping to make my head spin.

However, if you’re able to handle that better than me ( and I have no doubt you will ) this is probably the book for you!

Thank you to Tor & Netgally for providing this e-arc for review.

A temporary DNF at 36%. I fully intend to pick this up again during a time where I am not exhausted and too busy to focus on the plot.

At this point, I like the characters, I love some of the non-gender conforming elements being used (like men wearing skirts and girls wearing pants, or Kai being a male demon who makes himself comfortable in either male or female bodies with seemingly no preference). I am intrigued about the plot and want to know what happens.

BUT, I am struggling with the plot, find the time jumps confusing, and generally feel like I picked up book two in a series. I think this is a book where I would benefit from being in a physical copy and not the digital ARC. I would also love a map and more information about the various factions/races. We are given a character breakdown at the beginning, but that doesn't necessarily help.

I will pick this back up, but with a physical copy and when I can dedicate time to reading and give it all of my focus.

I love Martha Wells books and this was no exception. Amazing storytelling going back amd forth, deep characters, world building that might confuse you until you get in tune with the story and then you're along for the ride. And what an amazing ride! I loved the MC a lot and I was on the edge of my seat trying to understand who wanted them gone. I am not a very good detective so I didn't guess anything but I loved reading the story unfolding from his POV and seeing all the characters he encountered along the way.

Thank you to Tor for providing me an arc in exchange for a review!

This is my new favourite Martha Wells’s book!

“I know who you are, the demon the mortals call King of the Witches. Do you promise revenge?”

I was hesitant going into this after reading fellow reviews of the complicated intricacies, time jumps, and the numerous characters which made the book hard to follow.
However, I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I expected - always the best feeling after becoming scared to pick it up.

The main aspect of Kai’s demon power involves body jumping similar to The Ruin of Kings and Immortal Longings. Basically, the Grass King clans trade the death of a clan member for a young demon, for the chance to hear the last thoughts of the dead. Then, the demon takes up the dead one's place, and works, fights, and even bears or sires children.

Sanja was a good plot device - a young girl drawn into Kai’s world saved from being used as a sacrifice. As she doesn’t know anything, she’s used to explain history, politics, and, most importantly, swear words.

I loved the relationships Kai cultivated. He’s a demon and thus faces so many prejudices and myths, and yet there are some characters who seek him out and treat him as a real person, someone deserving of worth, attention, and even friendship.

“I don't know if I can do what you want me to do, Bashasa. If I can stay calm and always think ahead, like you do. I'm so angry, I could burn the world."
Bashasa didn't seem concerned. “Unfortunately, someone else has already burned it. We need to unburn it." He looked up, his expression serious.
"Will you help me do that, Kai?"

I do understand others’ complaints about complication world-building and info dumping. Sometimes it felt there was too much description for futile things, and then the important fundamentals were skimmed over, leaving me confused and frustrated at the useless-feeling exposition. Then again, I feel many fantasy books suffer from this, so this is no major criticism that should put you off reading this book if you do read high fantasy regularly.

This was a good blend of action, a hard magic system, politics and past combining with the present.

I would recommend this if you enjoyed The Ruin of Kings.

Witch King is a found family fantasy that read exactly like what it says on the tin.

Its theme focuses heavily on forged interpersonal bonds -- the transition from reluctant allies to lifelong soulmates between a ragtag group of survivors united under one common cause, unlikely to meet, let alone befriended, otherwise, but here they are -- and leaves very little exploration for anything else. The so-called antagonist is but fading fog in the background. The world building and magic system are purposefully sparing, just enough for the readers to glean what's going on, but not enough to linger on.

The plot creeps up on you, it's not the kind of action-packed that you come to expect out of high fantasy. This one's quiet, meditative, and honestly, it's not straying far from the cosy fantasy label -- as in everyone is just so damn nice and reasonable to one another, the good just outweighs the bad and you always get the feeling that they'll come out alright in the end. The writing, moving unhurriedly, encourages this. It is Layered with descriptions, of people, their background and clothing, of food, of places and setting -- and teeters on the line of being redundant. Honestly, if Martha Wells wasn't the author on the other side of these words, I would have dnfed this long ago. Somehow, she still managed to make it tolerable enough for me to power through.

One last thing, this is the first instance where the past-present intertwining storyline worked out for me. I enjoyed reading about both timeline and the characters that occupied them, and I appreciate that they seem to be balanced very well. Usually, I'll just get invested in the present and be disappointed in the boring past, but this was not the case.

The premise of this is incredibly intriguing. Even the beginning chapter absolutely hooked me. However over 20% in, I found myself confounded. I’m used to Wells’ murderbot series which excels because of its genius ability to simultaneously built an inventive and exciting world, told my a literal murderbot, but in an incredibly tight and controlled manner. That ability seems to be absent here as Wells has entire pages of exposition and info dumping that doesn’t feel fluid or purposeful. It feels convoluted I stead of elegantly clear and to the point. The use of a past timeline at first seemed to provide good background for Kai, but then also began to meander into its own plot which seems to diverge from the present plot.

Perhaps these two ultimately come together but for me, at least right now, I find myself having to put this down after feeling increasingly lost and confused.

I really really struggled getting into this book. It drops you right in medias res with a bunch of characters and more new worldbuilding jargon in the first couple chapters than I want to handle right now. I just could not engage with the narrative or characters with this writing style, and once I get turned off from a read like this it's hard for me to muster the motivation to keep going. Maybe one day in the future I will pick this up in print and bring the right amount of patience to bear to give it a fair shot.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, Tor, for providing me with this e-arc.

I could not get into this novel so I left was not able to finish it. It was confusing, too complex, and did not rope me in.

This was my first ever Martha Wells and tbh I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Where I know her from most is the Murderbot series, which obviously is quite hyped, but it didn't give me a lot in terms of what to expect.
Save to say tho, this book very much delighted me!
This book is all about a sad emo gay boy and his angry lesbian side-kick and I was here for it!
First a couple of negatives tho. It took me quite a while to get into the book. Idk if it was the writing or just reading it in an e-format (not my favorite format) but while I enjoyed the book when I read it, for the first half-ish of the story I didn't necessarily find myself thinking of it or wanting to pick it up in between chapters.
Part of that might've also been due to the structure of the story, which took me a while to get into. It's told in present and past chapters, where the chapters set in the past slowly reveal the information necessary to understand what is currently happening. Because that information wasn't just worldbuilding or plot-relevant but also added a lot in terms of context for the characters, it took me just a bit to latch onto them (latch onto them I did tho).
In terms of worldbuilding, for me personally there wasn't enough there and I would've probably preferred to have... just more.
Now for the positives: I really enjoyed the plot. While I don't think the way the story is told is for everyone, once I git into it I really enjoyed it. Martha Wells managed to both keep the plot very self ontained and small (we're basically just trying to find someone) while also managing to weave it into this bigger picture. That however mostly provides the backdrop to our central plot and through that raised the stakes. AT the same time there's always parallels between the past and present, which meant that jumping between the two was interesting, rather than jarring and gave a lot of context.
My favorite thing about the book was definitely the characters. Kai is such an emo sad boy and *I was here for it*!!! The side characters as well added so much and I especially fell in love with Dahin.
I think that's all I can think of right now but safe to say I was a fan and am now a lot more confident picking up Murderbot this year!

Witch King by Martha Wells is a fantasy novel that tells the story of Kai, a demon who has been murdered and imprisoned for centuries. When he is finally released, he finds that the world has changed a great deal, and he must now find a way to survive in this new world.

Wells does an excellent job of creating a rich and complex world, with a variety of different cultures and religions. She also does a great job of developing her characters, who are all well-rounded and believable. Kai is a particularly interesting character, as he is a demon who is trying to find his place in the world. He is not evil, but he is also not good. He is simply trying to survive, and he will do whatever it takes to do so.

The plot of the novel is fast-paced and exciting, with plenty of action and adventure. There are also some moments of humor and romance, which help to balance out the darker elements of the story. Overall, Witch King is a well-written and enjoyable fantasy novel that is sure to please fans of the genre.

Here are some of the things I liked about the book:

-The characters are well-developed and believable.
-The world-building is rich and complex.
-The plot is exciting.
-There are moments of humor and romance.

Here are some of the things I didn't like about the book:

-It was a very dense read (you had to be heavily focused on every single line)
-The world building was a bit confusing but that could just be a personal problem

Overall, I really enjoyed Witch King. It is a well-written and enjoyable fantasy novel that is sure to please fans of the genre. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new fantasy novel to read!

I have been eagerly anticipating this book for months since I first heard about it (and then read the excerpt on Amazon). I am a long-time fan of Martha Wells' work, and her settings, worldbuilding, and characters are always top-notch. As a result, I was extremely gleeful to get a galley from NetGalley.

In Witch King, Our Protagonist must solve his own murder and get to the bottom of a conspiracy. Kai wakes to find that he's been bound/imprisoned in a watery cave. (The "waking up" part happens because his body has been dead for months at this point.) Also imprisoned is his friend Ziede. (Who fortunately is still alive.) Both Kai and Ziede were part of a Resistance against the Hierarchs, an extremely nasty bunch of magic users (called "expositors") bent on world conquest and genocide.

Kai is able to find an escape route in the form of an expositor showing up with victims he planned to sacrifice in order to power up and enslave Kai. Instead, Kai inhabits the body of one of the victims (who was deceased) and completely destroys the expositor and his hench goons. (Kai then ends up kind of, sort of adopting the other victim, who is a street kid named Sanja.)

Once they're both freed, they discover that Ziede's wife Tahren can't be reached. This leads them on a quest to get to the bottom of the conspiracy and find Tahren. Interspersed is the story of how Kai's people were wiped out by the Hierarchs and how he ended up joining what eventually became a coalition army to defeat the Hierarchs.

This is a fascinating setting with Martha Wells' trademark attention to detail in regard to worldbuilding and the creation of cultures and nations. The characters are interesting and sympathetic, and the narrative has a lot of wry or sarcastic humor that lightens the darker sections of the novel. (I will warn for some body horror. Expositor magic is kind of horrifying and gross!) I loved this book and was not in any way disappointed or let down by this adventure. (I am hoping this is not a standalone novel. I would love to read more about Kai and his found family.)

Martha Wells' Witch King is an alternating past and present magical journey of a demon prince searching for his missing found family as he retraces his past to solve his murder. It has a highly engaging beginning that gets bogged down by a large cast of characters that distract from the wondrous magic spewing or demon possessed bodies.

We begin, quite literally, in the dark. Kaiisteron, the witch king, has had his consciousness separated from his body and both are trapped in a specially constructed prison. He is awoken by a scheming magician (called an expositor) who tries to make Kai his pawn, but is woefully unprepared. All of the magician's party are killed save for Sanja, a young women purchased to be a sacrifice.

Kai's journey is to solve his murder and find the rest of his new family, while the main narrative is pursued, a second plot runs parallel retelling the war against the Hierarchs and Kai's role in the conflict. The Hierarchs were/are a powerful people who are seeking to conquer the known world, and as tokens of their strength and to have control over conquered peoples they keep hostages, such as the charismatic Prince Bashasa who is seething following the murder of his sister. Kai is captured during the war and is brought into contact with Bashasa and becomes a key component of his planned uprising.

Wells strength in writing compelling characters makes the dialogue and frequent conflicts of wits compelling and very engaging. The first few chapters are very well done, having Sanja along for the adventure makes for a simple, but easy way to explain some of the history and mechanics of magic for this world, but only when she asks. Sanja is the audience surrogate, and between her questions and the chapters about the past, the world is built. And in this world Magical spells can be performed in a variety of ways, all of them using energy from difference sources such as the underworld, personal suffering, the life force of others or natural sprites and spirits.

Unfortunately, there is a large cast in this novel and keeping track of everyone's motivations and background can be difficult. The latter especially with the transitions between past and present. When the mystery of murder is finally solved it feels like an anti-climax. The scope of the novel is broad, trying to tell the history of a lengthy war and the fractious diplomatic scheming and planning of it's aftermath alongside Kai's hero journey is a bit too much.

All that said, I did enjoy reading the book, the magical mechanics were well integrated and more unique than the standard wand or natural talent based magic. The dialogue between characters was lively and engaging, at times laden with hidden meanings or subtleties of diplomacy.

“I’ve always liked your razors, Kai. They’ve cut us out of a number of tangles. But it would be good if one day you could stop bleeding.”

First, I’d like to say a special thank you to @Netgalley for trusting me with an ARC of this book, which releases to the general public on May 30, 2023.

Martha Wells, author of the beloved Murderbot Diaries, has come out with her first Fantasy novel in over a decade. My only experience with her work is Murderbot, for which I fell head over heels. So, when I saw she was coming out with a full-length Fantasy, I immediately put in a bid for it without even reading the description.

Let me level with you: I’m so glad I went in blind. The blurbs I’ve read really don’t do this book justice. Without giving anything away, the premise is this: Kai is a demon who wakes up in an underwater tomb to find out that someone has both betrayed and murdered him. We follow him on his journey to find out who, and how. But this isn’t a revenge plot, or even a Whodunnit. Kai’s physical journey mirrors a complex, intimate emotional journey through his past that left me feeling satisfied even as I found myself thinking that with any other book, or any other author, I might have found the trajectory anticlimactic.

From the moment I stepped into this story, I knew it was going to be a five star read for me. I sucked in a breath after reading the first page, turned to my spouse, and exclaimed “You HAVE to read this! I haven’t felt this way since I read Interview With the Vampire for the first time.” Weird thought? Probably, but I instantly sensed an emotional depth to Kai as a main character that I hadn’t felt in so, so long. I was so giddy to dive into this rich world Martha Wells created, and it completely absorbed me.

I can’t lie and tell you this book is perfect. It isn’t, but it also isn’t trying to be. This is a read that is all about the journey, not the payoff. Let it take you where it’s going to take you, and I think you’ll have an amazing time. If you liked Murderbot as much as I did, you’ll like this. Martha Wells has a knack for taking a dark and twisty premise and turning it into a heartwarming emotional tale.

I loved the gender exploration, queer representation, and the utter imagination. I felt like a child again, my brain just exploding in enchanted fireworks as I took all of it in. What a gift. Please read this!

Also, totally crossing my fingers that this isn’t just a standalone.

This just didn't end up being for me. There were too many characters bring constantly introduced for me to be able to connect with anyone enough to become invested in any MC, which is important for me as a reader. I can see all the structure for a dark.....feels like sci fi but I think it's technically a fantasy book. This wasn't for me, but I can see how it would be perfect for people who enjoy complicated sci fi stories.

This was an utterly fantastic read! I love her writing, and it sounded really great. And it was, I loved this story so much! I loved getting to know Kai and this world! It was all so interesting, and we were dumped straight into it and it was explained as it went along!

The way that this story was told, of the present, and every other chapter or every two, we'd get the story of the past. And while this story was immediately engaging, it was hard to read at the beginning for me, because the past started off on a pretty high note, and things quickly went downhill. It was only when there were about as low as they could go, so they could really only go up, that reading the past chapters got easier.

There was a lot going on in this book because of that, getting both stories. The past had a steady amount of battles, while the present had on and off, as things about why this was going on was clarified. Kai was an amazing character in a world with complex politics and history, and magic system!

Honestly, I'm really hoping that this becomes a series! One, I want more time in this world with these characters. Two, the way things ended in the past was just the beginning of the events there, and there's so much that I want to learn, like what happened to Kai's Underearth body. And three, the way things ended in the present, I want to know what's going to happen from here! Between the figure from the past, and what Danil was investigating, I need more!

This was an amazing read, and I really hope that we get a sequel!

I was given the audiobook and ebook versions of this courtesy of NetGalley. I wanted to like this book, I really did. I made it 35% through the ebook and 24% through the audiobook before I finally DNF'd. Murder bot was a slay, this , sadly didnt live up to my expectations. However, the narrorator was good and the writing style is beautiful. The storyline just wasnt for me.

Martha Wells, best known for her Murderbot series, turns to fantasy for her new novel Witch King. In this book she builds a complex world that is slowly rebuilding itself after a violent takeover and revolution in which many divisions remain. All of this detail and backstory is told through the eyes of a singular, fascinating character.
Kai is a demon. This means he can inhabit bodies of others and while he does so those bodies do not age and can not be killed. But when the book opens Kai is in trouble. He and his friend and witch Kiezi have been captured and imprisoned for an unspecified time. They manage to escape, Kai is in a new body and the two start to search for Kiezi’s wife Tahlen who is also missing. In undertaking this quest they will uncover various plots and conspiracies to undermine a fragile coalition that has pertained since the overthrow of the Hierarchs, a group that had violently taken over the world. As this story plays out, Kai also recalls the series of events that led to that overthrow and about how he formed new alliances to overthrow the Hierarchs regime which cut demons off from their underworld selves.
If that sounds like more than enough world building there is plenty more, including the msgic rules for demons, witches and other beings, a multitude of different tribes and factions within those tribes, and a conspiracy that only really begins to make sense when much of the backstory has been related. And this is a problem. The lack of deep understanding of this world makes the stakes of the current quest completely abstract which drains it of much tension.
There are so many different places and rules and peoples that it is hard to keep straight, or more importantly to care. And while some authors manage to bring readers along into complex and rule-filled worlds do this through the use of engaging characters and situation, Wells struggles in Witch King. Even the title makes no sense given Kai is not only not a witch (he is a demon and other characters are witches) but not really a king either (he gets some authority but many demons do not follow him). So there is never even a “Witch King” which is confusing in itself.
Kai himself is an interesting character but as mentioned, it takes a long time to understand as a reader why we should care about what he is doing and why. There is a kind of found family narrative but again, the story of that group coming together comes too late to make the earlier action seem important.
And the whole endeavour ends with a bit of whimper, making it all seem like scene setting and backstory for something better to come. That is, a 400-odd page introduction to some characters and a world so that readers know why we should care about them next time. But some readers may be too disaffected to want to return.