Witch King

Fun, engaging story built around magic, empire, friendship, and vengeance. A familiar quest, but with enough twists and turns and different takes to keep returning to. Easy, comfortable writing that immerses you in an expansive world with complex characters and lots of compelling scenes and powerful moments, but with occasional moments that seem out of place as well. Clearly Book One of a series to come, but a good and satisfying story in its own right, and I'll definitely read the next one.

A curious fantasy story (apparently the start of a series) where demons, witches and other beings (both supernatural and mortal) mix together in a world that has seen devastation after an invasion, but whose future is yet to be determined.

The story is set both in the present and the past. In the present, the demon Kai and his witch friend, Ziede, wake up in a prison. They escape and discover that time has passed during their imprisonment and their friends are also missing, probably detained as part of a conspiracy to prevent them from attending a meeting of allies to determine the future of their coalition. We follow them as they pick up clues to find their friends, and we learn more of their world, which is still recovering after an invasion by people called the Hierarchs.

In the past, we see a younger Kai, sent from the underworld to inhabit the body of a newly dead mortal as part of an alliance agreement. Here, we see the beginning of the Hierarchs invasion, and the devastating power they use to overcome demons, witches and mortals resisting the invasion. Kai is captured, but later escapes with the help of rebels who want the world to rise up and fight back against the Hierarchs.

Both parts of the story intertwine via common characters, places and events that occur in both parts. As the story progresses, we also learn more about the world and the powers that demons, witches, Hierarchs and others posses and how they are wielded.

The ending, and the conspiracy that imprisoned them, would eventually turn out to be rather anti-climatic. Hopefully, this, and other unanswered questions raised, can be addressed in later books in the series.

Witch King flips back and forth between two times. One is a mystery - who trapped us? What intrigue is afoot and how can we foil it. The other is a rising challenge, a hopeless rebellion against an overwhelming authority.

Both are told with strength and warmth- our protagonist is frankly a bit of a shit in the beginning, but we learn why and see where they are coming from and where they are supported more than they see.

It ends with the perfect ending for a mystery and the aftermath of a rebellion. The story is done.

I’d absolutely enjoy another book in this world but this stands well all by itself.

This one is difficult to rate for me. I only had 7 days to read it but it's a book that needs to be savoured. You should take your time with it. So I probably didn't get the full experience. The narrative starts right in the middle of a story that has a long backstory some of which the readers are going to learn during the course of the book. There are also quotes from historical or anthropoligical works from that world at the beginning of chapters. A lot of thought went into the world-building. The chapters switch between the present and the past. While I do like the sense of layers of history that certain places and relationships have due to that I also feel that this narrative structure didn't quite work. A couple of times the timing is such that the emotional impact of places and events is lessened because we don't know of it, yet. I also wish we could have spent a bit more time with the grassland tribes in the beginning.

“I'm so angry, I could burn the world." "Unfortunately, someone else has already burned it. We need to unburn it."

Martha Wells remains undefeated .

I adored how wide the world felt and how much was hinted at by the various, subtly interacting magic systems at play. I feel like there are so many nooks and crannies to be explored around the main storyline of this book that it feels like a nearly inexhaustible mine. More, please!

The narrative structure jumps from the present to the past, each giving context to the other and its people -- literally showing you why the characters act the way they do, showing how the current situation came to be, giving you a real sense of time and consequence. I loved it.

And, as I've come to expect from Martha Wells, her depictions of trauma responses feel on-point and real. How everyone reacts to their own ghastly experiences and how it drives them are on full display and are very sympathetic.

So: great world-building. Fun characters and relationships. A complex, political story with very "human" characters. It drops you in to a rushing river and expects you to swim, which I love.

That said, I feel like the characters besides Kai, the main POV, are a little flat. There's a chance that they feel that way because of how much Kai is struggling with their own inner demons (heh heh); maybe Kai's inward focus makes them somewhat blind to others' personalities and the narrative reflects that?

Overall, this was a decent book, though I approached it with expectations that were unreasonably high. On it's own, it's an interesting story and sets the stage for an interesting setting that could lead to further adventures. It does feel like you're coming in right in between the action so I felt a little lost as to what was possible and who the characters were, which I think is my biggest problem with the book- there is a lot to absorb, but we're only given tidbits in the interest of keeping the plot moving.

For a full review, check out my blog: strakul.blogspot.com/2023/06/book-review-witch-king-by-martha-wells.html

I initially was a little intimidated when I opened the book and was greeted with a list of names and titles from a world I didn't understand, but the characters are all described as they're introduced, such that I didn't ever need to page back to the list, so I worried for nothing. Martha Wells does an incredible job of fitting a lot of world building into a small space, doling out lore as necessary in a way that still sparks the imagination. And what a world it is! Layers of culture, powers, politics, and history unfold in two separate timelines with a scope that feels like a big adventure. Kai is a fun mix of snarky and competent, with other characters distinct, but not given quite as much attention. Overall, characters and their arcs to take a bit of a backseat to the plot and its mysteries. While this seems like it's probably a standalone book, I honestly wouldn't mind seeing these characters do more with a little more breathing room.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for a review copy. All thoughts in this review are my own!

This book is the tale of Kai (a demon prince) who had been trapped with his witch friend Ziede, working to figure out who had trapped them and why, while also trying to rescue their missing friend Tahren. There's also a perspective of Kai from the past being trapped, freed, and working to fight against the Hierarchs.

I have some mixed feelings about this book. It certainly opens up very strongly and the characters, plot, and world grabbed me immediately. I am a sucker for a story with dual perspective, telling a story in the past as well as the present that echo each other. The worldbuilding ideas felt super fresh and I loved learning about the world, the politics, and the characters. However, I was disappointed by parts of the ending, felt overwhelmed by a lot of world detail for quite some time, and wished that there was a bit more character detail for anybody but Kai.

This book drops you squarely in the middle of worldbuilding detail (almost as much as Ninefox Gambit). Even by the end, I'm still not sure that I know what differentiates various magic types, what the Hierarchs are, or the different flavors of Immortal Blessed. I don't know that I need to know all of these things either, but it felt like I was left with a lot of holes in my knowledge.

Because of that, I hope that there is more than just this single book, because so much of it leaves me wanting. There's whole swaths of history that are not described in the past (e.g. Kai's grandmother) as well as between the past and present sections of the narrative. On top of that, it felt like there were some characters like Tenes and Sanja who didn't really get a lot of space on the page. It almost felt like the cast was too broad and so characters didn't get enough room to develop.

I certainly dig the gender stuff going on in the background. Kai is a demon who inhabits multiple bodies over time. There's also some snooty "oh these Arike folks have some binary gender hangups" in an epigraph before some of the chapters. There's some comments about mercenaries (normally women) being forced to present in ways that they normally wouldn't. This is all kind of in the background of the story, but mostly I just want to hear more about demon gender, thank you.

I think my biggest disappointment with the book is the method in which some of the plot lines are wrapped up. I'll leave those thoughts in a spoilerly comment separately: books.theunseen.city/user/picklish/comment/81523#anchor-81523

Despite some negative feelings above, overall I really enjoyed this and it makes me want to go back and reread the Raksura books again.