Witch King by Martha Wells shows just how much range this author has. I've loved the Murderbot series and this book is different but equally as compelling.

I received a review copy of this book from the author/publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Format: Audio (Netgalley via publisher)

Narrator: I really enjoyed the narrator. I thought his voice was perfect for the setting and he did an excellent job helping me connect with the story and the characters.

Story: This story was complex in all the best ways. While some may find it difficult to follow since the timeline shifts between the present and the past, I thought this was the perfect way to maintain tension and suspense while slowly giving the reader answers as to the character's motivations and the root causes of the conflicts. Some of the political and character names were hard to follow, but overall it was pretty easy to keep track of who we were rooting for and who we trusted.

I thought the characters were well-developed, and as always, I am a huge fan of Martha Well's writing style. I love how she weaves in natural ways to provide exposition (oh, you have a new person in the group who has no idea what's going on? have them ask questions of the MCs!). I am also a fan of how she creates powerful, but not overpowered, characters who are dynamic and resilient enough to get pretty beat up and keep going. I enjoyed this book a lot and will likely read it again.

Martha Wells has been a long time fave author of mine and it was good to have a new fantasy novel from this amazing writer. This is darker than some of her previous fantasy. Enjoyable. Narration was terrific. Have 2 family members who bought book in hardback. So, yeah, many stars****

I received an e-audio galley of this book from NetGalley and the publisher.

I want to believe that if I reread this it would get a higher rating from me, but I did not have a great time with this. I think the narration by Eric Mok was good, but something about the distant writing style or the dual timeline or the way the world was explained (or a combination of those things) left me really indifferent to the story and the characters. About 20% of the way through, I realized I had no idea what was happening so I went back to relisten and was just as lost. I continued on hoping it would come together and while it did in some aspects, in others it just felt really flat.

That being said, it has so many elements that I love like demons and body-swapping and political intrigue. I will definitely be giving it another shot when I’m in a different headspace, and maybe as an immersion read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a copy of the audiobook.

I read the first book in the Murderbot series earlier this year and loved it, so I was really looking forward to this one. But it was pretty disappointing, unfortunately. It had all the hallmarks of a good adult fantasy novel - imaginative world building, intriguing characters with strong motivations and a steady plot - but there was no flair to the writing style. The narrative felt dry and lacking in humour and vigour, and the balance between world building and action/plot-driven scenes felt too heavily weighted in favour of world-building, which slowed the pacing down a lot. I liked the main characters, but I just didn't feel fully connected to them, and I think, again, that was down to writing style. So a bit of a miss for me, unfortunately.

Book Thoughts
Witch King by Martha Wells

As a huge fan of Wells’ Murderbot Diaries I was so excited to start this audiobook. Wells’ descriptions of complex magic systems, new worlds and their history/beliefs, badass characters, and action packed adventure are beautiful. I loved the main character Kai from the start, he’s a sarcastic demon that is hard to not love. The book is a dual timeline, and I found myself enjoying the chapters set in the past much more than the present. I think that having to learn about the complex history/magic of this world made for a slow read or listen in my case. I found myself feeling like not much was going on, Kai awakened and set out to find who wronged himself and his friends. At 85% through the audiobook I stopped listening. I am still intrigued by the story and I may pick it back up again when my morning commute in September starts up again.

Thanks to Net Galley and Macmillan Audio for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this audiobook and thought the narrator did a really good job with the story. I would have liked a bit more variation to the different characters voices though. The story was really enjoyable, and I loved the interactions between immortals, demons, humans and other creatures. I want to thank the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for giving me an e-copy of this book, in return for an honest review.

I loved the story but I did not enjoy the audiobook. Martha Wells does a wonderful job at making their characters real. Coming from the Murderbot series I was excited to dive into this fantasy book and I was not disappointed. However, I felt that the audiobook and production was lacking. I will give it another try now that the book has been released.

This book just has none of the warmth or humor of the murderbot books. Good for horror and fantasy fans, not for murderbot fans.

This book had a lot of nothing going on.
I truly am beyond the definition of bored with this novel.

I was very excited to listen to this book because I love the Murderbot series. It is so much fun, and explores one of my favorite areas of sci fi, "Who gets to be a person?" In a way that is lighthearted while still being meaningful. I liked that it was secondary world serious fantasy that, despite the title, doesn’t hold up monarchy as a good idea. There are lots of independent and loosely allied societies trying to fend off a genocidal invader.

Unfortunately, this book really didn’t work for me overall. By about 20% in I really didn’t care about any of the characters, with the possible exception of Sanja. I liked Kai more as the book went on, but none of the characters really grabbed me. The world-building was very complex, which is not a bad thing, but by the end I still felt like I didn’t know exactly what the various races of magical and non-magical beings all are. It felt like there were too many secondary and tertiary characters. I also had trouble identifying the universal themes that drove the purpose of the book.

I know Martha Wells wrote fantasy before Murderbot, but I haven’t read any of it so I’m not sure how it compares. I fully acknowledge that part of my issue with it might have been that I saw the name Martha Wells and expected snarky fun, but instead got a fantasy that takes itself pretty seriously. Without her name attached this isn’t the type of book I would have chosen to pick up in the first place. I also think the promotional text kind of tries to make it sound like it’s funny, probably to appeal to her Murderbot readers. Kai’s inner monologue is nowhere near as entertaining or unique as murderbot’s, and there are some good moments in the dialogue, but overall it just doesn’t have the same snap.

The narration was good. I didn’t have strong feelings about it one way or the other.

I would recommend the book for people who like to be immersed in new fantasy worlds and new magic systems. There’s a lot to chew on here if that’s your thing.

My full review was released as a Narrated podcast episode posted on May 30, 2023.

Martha Wells remains an absolute legend and I look forward to reading more from her. The lore in this is deep and complex--very different from Murderbot, but still an excellent read!

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for a copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I have been sitting on this one for a while, mainly because I was unsure how to review this. I wanted to like this so badly, I am a huge fan of Martha Wells previous works so I went into this with the expectation that I would enjoy it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case here.

I think the book started out strong. Martha Wells is great at building characters and I loved our MC Kai at the start. The premise sounded great. I murdered Demon King that has to piece together memories to find the identity of his murderer. I love stories that jump from past to present in time. Unfortunately, as the story progressed I lost so much of that initial interest. The characters felt flat and the story was so convoluted. It took me almost 1 month to finish a book I would have normally devoured in a few days.

2.5 Stars

Martha Wells’ latest fantasy offering suffers from comparison to her wildly popular Murderbot Diaries novellas. If you’re looking for more of the dry wit and solid characterization that Wells’ is known for, you may be disappointed by Witch King. Packed with great ideas and featuring an interesting world, this standalone fantasy novel should’ve been a slam-dunk, but it fell short for me.

Witch King introduces the demon prince Kaiisteron – call him Kai – an infamous demon known as the Witch King. Feared and respected in equal measure, demons can possess mortal bodies and drain life from living things. Powerful even by demon standards, Kai’s latest adventure starts when he wakes from a long imprisonment, disoriented and separated from his most recent body. His murdered body, now resting in its watery grave. Severely weakened and unable to recall the events leading to his imprisonment, Kai knows he’s been betrayed – but why? And by whom?

I absolutely loved the setup of this story. Solving your own murder while occupying a new and unfamiliar body? Raging against your oppressors and blasting them into the netherworld with magic? Sign me up! The story’s conceit is compelling, but it never seemed to find its feet. Told in two timelines, the present focuses on solving “Kai’s” murder and the past timeline explains Kai’s rise to power and how he became the Witch King. Tons of characters are introduced in both timelines, most of them with reason enough to want Kai dead.

Unfortunately, the overabundance of characters bogged down the narrative in both timelines. The result? A poorly paced story packed with characters I didn’t really care about. I loved Zeide, Kai’s badass best friend and guard, but even Kai himself couldn’t capture my attention for long. He holds a lot back from the reader in his narration, so is it any wonder I felt distant from him? From a characterization and world-building perspective, I do appreciate Witch King’s normalization of queerness in many forms. There isn’t really a romance, although tender feelings are hinted at between Kai and other men in both the past and present timelines. Zeide is also married to another woman, Tahren, and no one bats an eye.

This is a classic example of marketing doing more harm than good. All the buzzy things I heard about Witch King made me expect an action-packed adventure, when in reality it’s a slower-paced story about a famous fantastical figure. Readers going in with those expectations are sure to enjoy the story more than I did.

Audiobook lovers should take note: Eric Mok narrates and he delivers a solid performance. Mok’s voice is mellow and pleasant, and I thought his “proper” sounding English accent fit Kai’s somewhat uptight personality quite well. I’d happily listen to another book narrated by him!

DNF'd at 30%

I think this book started out with a strong hook but ultimately got bogged down with convoluting or minimal plot development. I may return to this in the future physically but the audiobook was not for me for this one.

DNF @ End of chapter 7, page 161
on July 7, 2023

I started out by listening to the audiobook and that may have been my downfall. All the unfamiliar places/names threw me for a loop and I just couldn't keep up. The narrator was wonderful, I enjoyed his voice a lot! But I had no idea what was actually happening in the book. 161 pages in and I could not tell you a single thing of this plot.

There were chapters told in the present and some in the past - sometimes it takes me a bit to get into stories like that. (Nevernight by Jay Kristoff, for example. I was confused until something clicked and then I loved it! I was reallyyyy hoping that would happen with this book but I've read enough to call it quits.)

I've heard so many good things about Martha Wells though, I will certainly be giving her Murderbots series a try one day!

Witch King. Wow.

Martha Wells is the absolute Queen Bee of fantastical world-building.

Her MurderBot is probably my favourite SciFi series ever.

This one was fantasy vs SciFi, but Wells does nothing half-assed.

This book WAS A LOT.

A lot of world building.
A lot of characters.
A lot of politics.
A lot of history.
A LOT OF EXPOSITION.

Thank goodness for the Character Index, or it would have been easy to get lost.

If you like getting totally immersed in a world to the point you don't know past from present, good from bad, or up from down, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU.

Eric Mok is an excellent narrator, but in this case, I felt his voice was a bit too soothing. There were scenes that needed a bit more depth of emotion. Otherwise, love the voice!

I loved the Murderbot books and was excited to dive into Martha Wells’ latest release, Witch King. It’s fantasy rather than sci-fi but I like both genres so my hopes were high.

The first problem was that the book starts with a “dramatis personae” – ie a cast list. It is long. Many of the names are complicated “fantasy names”; some of them are very similar and, there was just no way I was going to remember almost any of them. The cast list describes who they are, their race and/or role and where they might fit into the story. Or, at least, I expect that’s what the intention was. It’s completely useless on audio.

In a print book, one can go back and forth from the story to the front matter to refresh one’s memory about who is who. In an ebook, it’s harder but possible. (I think it would be annoying though.) On audio it’s just not an option.

Consequently, I started the book with only the blurb to help me. There is no explaining – I was just plunged into an entirely different world with many characters, most of whom I could not place. And, apart from about five or six of them, when they came up again, I couldn’t remember exactly who they were. I made it about a third of the way into the book but really at that point I was so lost and I had no real hope of ever being found. It’s not enjoyable to spend hours listening to something where my prevailing thoughts were “who is that?” and “what is happening?”. Most of the time, I could not answer those questions.

Added to that, the narration was unevenly paced with some parts being at a good speed and others being way too fast. It meant I couldn’t slow the entire listen to fix the problem. Mr. Mok had little differentiation between characters of different genders and that made it even harder to work out who was who. After a third of the story I really didn’t know all that much more about the world or the story than I had from the blurb.

Possibly Witch King is a great book. But it’s best read in print I believe. Maybe once a listener is familiar with the story and the cast (ie having read the book already) the listening experience would be entertaining. But for me, it was not.

I’m sorry to say Witch King was a DNF for me.

This was my first title from Martha Wells, and I absolutely loved it. The story world building, and characters were so dense that you really felt a part of this world. This truly felt like a great band of adventurers, very reminiscent of dungeons and dragons type vibe. . Definitely fell in love with this world and story and especially the characters. I love a good found family trope book. Thank you net, Galley and Macmillan audio for this early copy and I am very excited to see what Martha does next!

I was told to not expect Murder Bot when picking up this book. After reading Witch King, I can somewhat agree with that sentiment. There is one thing that consistent between these "books" (I know M-bot is a series), Martha Wells finds a way to create completely loveable characters. It's found family!!!!

The premise and magic in this book is incredibly unique. We follow Kai is a demon prince, who can inhabit mortal bodies, in two timelines the past and the future. The past we see how Kai got his name the Witch King. The future were is awoken after being betrayed and no idea who did it.

Warning you will be thrown into this world and it does take a minute to figure out what is going on. This was an enjoyable read for me.