🖤 Witch King ARC Review 🖤

Thank you so much to Martha Wells and Tor Dot Com Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this book!!

Witch King is a fantasy novel. Prince Kaiisteron, also known as Kai, has just woken up in an incorporeal state with no idea how he got there. As he hovers over his body, he realizes a few things - that he’s been betrayed, he’s been dead for about a year, that sorcerers are trying to capture and enslave his spirit and that his sister is being held nearby. Thankfully, Kai is the Witch King and he still has some tricks up his sleeve…

This was an interesting read and a fun magical world. I enjoyed Kai, the side characters and their relationships with each other. While I enjoyed the overall story, I really struggled a little bit with the dual timelines presented in this book. I personally struggled with who was who and when certain things occurred during the story, which caused this to be a little bit of a tedious read for me - but that’s absolutely a “me” issue and not necessarily a book issue

Overall this was a three star read for me. The magic system and characters were intriguing enough for me to keep going even when I was confused about what was happening. There is some queer rep in this book, which I enjoyed, but nothing on page so no flames for spice

If you enjoy fantasy books with dual timelines, quirky characters, political intrigue and engaging magic, then definitely pick this one up! Witch King is out now in ebook and hardback!!

An amazing title by Martha Wells! I've only known her work from the MuderBot series and this was such an amazing read, different of course but with her own particular style that makes it impossible to put down! I definitely recommand this title for reader both fans of fantasy and/or sci-fi!

What an exciting ride! I have been a fan of Martha Wells’s excellent Murderbot series for some time now, and I knew I had to read her new fantasy book immediately. And I was not disappointed!

Witch King starts off slow, with the waking of demon Kaiisteron from a watery tomb, confused and angry and ready to take revenge on those who have wronged him. As Kai collects his allies and tries to collect his memories, the reader is slowly introduced to the world and to the history of a political revolution in the not-too-distant past.

There is a lot of complexity here, with various factions with completely different cultures and agendas and magical abilities competing to rule, and while it can seem a bit overwhelming at first, I think Wells did a phenomenal job balancing her complicated world with her grounded characters. With wry humour and plenty of intense action scenes, we follow Kai and his friends through the years, as they fight deadly expositors, escape on the backs of shell-whales and ascension rafts, communicate with light imps, and craft magical intentions to burn bridges and drain life-forces.

I loved untangling the threads of this multilayered novel, and I kept marvelling at the author’s originality and ingenuity; the magic systems were unlike any I’d seen before, and the flashbacks to the past had a legend-like quality that fully made me believe in the infamy of Kai and his fellow revolutionaries. The book may be finished, but now I need a whole series!

Thanks to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with a e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is such a terrific read! It’s everything I love in a high fantasy novel.

The story opens with a bang. Demon prince Kai awakens to find that his mortal body has been murdered and his spirit trapped in a tomb. When he realizes that he has been released by people who plan to enslave him for his magic, Kai inhabits the fresh corpse of another of their victims and quickly disposes of them. He then discovers that his friend, the Witch Ziede, was entombed as well, alive but in a state of suspended animation. Neither of them has any idea how or why they were imprisoned, and Ziede fears something may also have happened to her wife, Tahren. So, they set off to find Tahren and solve the mystery of Kai’s murder, pursued by their enemies and gathering allies along the way.

The pace of the storytelling is relatively slow. Partly that’s a function of the plot, much of which involves Kai and Ziede traveling from one place to another on their quest to find Tahren. The way the author chooses to structure her story, including regular flashbacks, and the complexity of the world she’s created also play a role in slowing the pacing. To enjoy this book, you really have to be prepared to just settle in and appreciate the journey.

Martha Wells excels at worldbuilding, and there’s a lot of it going on in this novel. Her world consists of a complicated mix of nations, peoples, and groups, including demons, Witches, the Blessed, and more. They have a variety of magic systems; for example, Witches control elemental spirits, while expositors cast spells powered by the life force (and death) of other beings. Their recent history involves a horrific war of annihilation committed by forces led by powerful Hierarchs, who were eventually defeated after devastating losses by an alliance in which Kai and his friends played a central role.

Readers are initially thrown into the middle of all of this with little explanation. No big info dumps here! Instead, patience is needed, because details about this world’s inhabitants and history are slowly doled out as the narrative unfolds. The periodic flashbacks to key episodes in Kai’s past also help to illuminate elements of the story, as well as how Kai became known as the famous Kaiisteron the Witch King.

Kai makes for a fascinating main character. He’s lost so much at the hands of the Hierarchs and their followers—his mortal family, their entire people and culture, even his own demon body. It’s left Kai jaded and cynical and transformed him into someone who can kill his enemies almost without thinking. But he's fundamentally good at heart, and that shines through. I enjoyed his sense of humor, too.

The ending hints at the possibility of more books featuring Kai and his friends. I’d love that, so fingers crossed!

A copy of this book was provided through NetGalley for me to review; all opinions expressed are my own.

This book really throws you into an unknown wield and you've just got to go with it. I thought it we good but maybe a bit above my level of fantasy that I usually enjoy. Overall, it was good

This is a new epic fantasy world coming to light and be prepared for some epic world-building...lots of names, places, history, and drama. I thought at first I wouldn't need the character list at the beginning but I was wrong. It came in very helpful throughout to reference characters. The story revolves around Kai, a demon or as he claims "THE DEMON". He's been knocked out for a century and now is on the path to figuring out who is to blame. Shenanigans ensue as he and his companions travel the fantasy realm in this imaginative epic fantasy.

“A story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.“

Whoa. This story was…just…whoa.

Martha Wells has been a favourite of mine, since I picked up the first of the MurderBot Diaries. She’s funny, and smart, and can tell an extraordinary story like nobody’s business.

This story was funny…and smart…and extraordinary.

The world building was fantastic. The history and political structures and magical realms, oh my!

I loved the characters. They were all sorts complicated and deep.

The story was intense. The plot was fast moving and dynamic and the dual timelines kept me guessing.

It was also just a little…much.

It was TOO fantastic.
And there were TOO MANY complex characters.
And there was TOO MUCH going on in too many different places with too much political/historical detail.

I was overwhelmed.

Part of the problem, I think, was that I listened to a good portion of this in audio.

While the narrator was excellent, I felt like I needed to chart out all the characters and backstories and timelines.

It was rather exhausting.

I haven’t given up on the author, or even more in this series, should there be any.

I just need to read with my eyeballs, with zero distractions.

6/10

Thanks to NetGalley, Tor Publishing, and Macmillan Audio for this complex ARC.

WITCH KING by Martha Wells (Network Effect and others in the Murderbot series) is the introduction to a new world featuring the title character, a legendary demon named Kai, and his companion, Zeide, who is a witch searching for her missing wife. Politics and conflict abound. I honestly found this novel a bit difficult to follow – not only are there many characters, the rather lengthy (414 pages) book also jumps around in time between the current action and past events involving the same characters. However, Amal El-Mohtar, reviewing for The New York Times, found this temporal aspect to be a plus, writing, "timelines play off each other wonderfully: Elements introduced in a dizzying rush of world building become welcome context for the flashbacks, which in turn escalate tension in the present" and chose WITCH KING as one of just five science fiction and fantasy titles to suggest as Summer Reads. Wells' many fans should (and will!) certainly give this book a try. WITCH KING appeared as a LibraryReads selection for May 2023 and Wells is a prolific, outstanding author in this genre – she has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, and three Locus Awards.

This book was a slight departure for the books I tend to put on my TBR. Despite that, I enjoyed it!

Enter our morally-grey protagonist Kai, who we find buried in a grave with his friend, with no memory of how he got there or who had done this to him.

Consider me hooked: I love a good mystery!

What ensues is a tale of friendship, love, revolutions, betrayal, and war. All very wonderful themes with a captivating cast of characters. They are all (and I mean all) written superbly well and I would read more books about them.

However, to get to these good aspects of the story, you must literally swim for your life when it comes to the world building. You have to be patient with the details and allow it to build around you. Easier said than done - its pretty immense and you have to overcome some significant confusion.

Would recommend it as a dark fantasy for those who love the high fantasy level of worldbuilding and detail. Definitely not for beginners - but its worth the challenge!

I was a tad hesitant when I requested it because I love Murderbot books but I have tried one fantasy by this author and things didn't go bad, but neither went amazingly well. I enjoyed that book, but I didn't love it, and I am not sure I would continue that series so there was that. But I was curious. A lot. And this time my curiosity won the prize!
This book is amazingly good, is like a chess game that you don't know is played,[And I really mean this part. There was a moment in the reading in which I was "scared" because the book was nearing the end and we weren't getting enough answers, there was still a big part of the plot that was "missing" and there were too few pages to do it in a satisfying manner, so I was scared that the book was one of those with no end at all, and this wasn't making me happy and then... then the revelation and all things fall to their place. It was amazing! And I loved it!!! (hide spoiler)] and we have amazing characters to keep us company and led us around. And okay, we have mainly Kai, because I think that he overshadows all the others. And even if this is normal, because he is the MC, it is a bit of a shame, because they all seem interesting enough, and they are, it's just that they are not as bright and as alive as Kai is. But they all are good, and Kai is sooooo worth meeting!
And the world is fascinating. I love that we have different kinds of magic, totally unrelated between them, and quite original. And the plot was so intriguing! Usually, I am not the biggest fan of dual timelines, but here it worked so well! The pace was perfect and the balance between present and past was top-notch!

The story begins after the protagonist, Kai is murdered. It begins with a tomb robbing magical ceremony. A lesser mage has come to harvest Kai's magic. Instead, he all but offered himself up as a snack for Kai, an embodied demon. Kai must then figure out who entombed him, gather his friends and foil his enemies.

Why I started this book: Loved the [book:All Systems Red|32758901] series and was eager to read something else by Wells.

Why I finished it: This book was fascinating. It telescoped in and out, expanding and contracting in unpredictable ways. At times it felt like the first book in an expansive new series, and at other times the story felt small enough to tuck away in one afternoon. Wells plays with the ideas of what is a villain, and who gets to define the term. Very intriguing story.

I hate to write this about one of my most anticipated reads but this was just okay. It felt pretty long, it meandered in the middle and fell a bit flat towards the end. We also got a sort of a ‘gotcha’ that didn’t feel like a ‘gotcha’ so much as a ‘haha you silly reader, you really thought x’. The characters were great, I enjoyed them very much but the story didn’t seem to serve them.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eArc of this book. Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book. The world building was far too complex for a stand alone, and I couldn’t push through. It was also very slow and overly complex.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor books for the advanced copy of this book!

First, I can't believe I got to listen to this early. Martha Wells can do no wrong in my books, so unsurprisingly I loved this. This was an incredibly unique take on fantasy and a refreshing look at gender. The book definitely throws you right in and expects you to keep up/catch up. However, this really only made me love the book more but if that's not your style I completely understand. I loved the back and forth between Kai's past and present lives. The gender fluidity was so refreshing as well, and I genuinely loved the characters in this book.

A 5 star read for me.

*3.75 stars*

The Witch King is a dense fantasy written in an inimitable Martha Wells way that had me rooting for a demon. While the world building and parallel timeline action took a while for me to get used to, once I was in, I was completely in. Indeed, I ended up having a lot of fun with Kai and his world.

My quibbles are that I wish the worldbuilding had been just a tad less and that we had some more characterization for some side characters.

Overall, a really solid read.

The past POV was hard for me to get into but I loved the present. Common with multiple time POV for me. Found family stories are my favorite and this one was beautiful! Kai will stick with me for awhile!

Thanks to Tor and Netgalley for giving me a copy of this for review!

Unfortunately I feel like Witch King is Wells being undone by her own fame. The author has stirred up such a fury with Murderbot, that any step away was going to met with a lot of attention, but Witch King is definitely not Murderbot. What it is is dense. Full of lore, characters, and balls in the air to keep track of, Witch King is about on par with your average introductory novel in a fantasy series, with exposition coming out of its ears and lore dumps every other page. This is not the say the Lore here isn't interesting, it certainly is, and unique! I love the worldbuilding here, and the magic systems, but for those not attuned to the motions of a typical fantasy novel, this may be a difficult sit. What Wells does bring that elevates the work is some pretty fantastic character work, as many of the characters here could have played out like tropes had it not been for a firm and cheeky grasp on personality that has become a Wells staple. I will surely revisit when more of the series is released, but I was a bit letdown by my own expectations, I think. Still, fans of Epic Fantasy should devour this, as it may become your next favorite thing (calling all Gideon the Ninth stans).

This is an immersive and engaging fantasy about a group of intrepid, perhaps reluctant heroes fighting a rising evil. The world is interesting and so richly described by Wells. I really felt as if I was set down in the middle of every location, seeing it through my own eyes. This is great because the main thrust of the novel revolves around our characters being hunted from place to place trying to figure out who and why. We really get a chance to see how big and expansive the world is because of this. I was introduced to Martha Wells through her Murderbot series and this is the first of her fantasy books that I've read, but it won't be my last.

Martha Wells is one of those authors that I reach for again and again, Witch King is no exception to her fantastic stories! Witch King follows Kai who has just been murdered. Kai is looking for his wife and answers to what happened. This book is rich with worldbuilding and magic. I can't wait to see what Wells comes up with next!

DNF at 30%. This book has an amazing fantasy world, Wells is an accomplished writer and I'm still a huge fan. I just had to put the book down because I wasn't feeling connected to the main characters and was getting a big exhausted by the constant back and forth between past and present timelines. To be honest, I really felt the entire sections where we flashback to the past could have been deleted entirely and the gaps in the history of the main character addressed as short explanations in the present timeline.
The reason I am DNFing is that after putting the book down, I just never got the motivation to pick it back up and it's been a month. I may come back to it in future however I don't know if this one will end up being an adored book for me in the way the Murderbot books are.