Review: Witch King by Martha Wells
A story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.
“I didn’t know you were a… demon.”
“You idiot. I’m the demon.”
Kai’s having a long day in Martha Wells’ Witch King….After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.
But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?
Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.
He’s not going to like the answers.
Review:
Dear Martha Wells,
After reading your Murderbot books and seeing that there was a new fantasy is coming out I asked Jayne for ARC, I was so excited.
Alas, while this book was undoubtedly well written, reading of the first half of it was an exercise in frustration for me. I mentioned more than once in my reviews of fantasy stories, that I vastly prefer when an author will dump me in the middle of the world they’ve created and explained how it works while telling the story. I do enjoy a slow reveal of how everything fits together in the new imaginary world I am reading about.
Oh boy, dropped in the middle of the new and confusing world I was. So confusing that after I finished the book, I still was not sure I understood how things worked correctly.
To be sure, at least Kai spells out who betrayed him at the end. But I am not sure why should I care, because the main villain is barely in the story. I suppose the secondary villain, or maybe not a villain, just the person who committed some very disappointing acts was a more impactful betrayer for me as a reader, but honestly I still did not feel all that much.
More importantly though, the world of the book is a complex one – the politics, religion, many different gatherings of people, colonialism, slavery – all mixed together in a complicated knot. The “what was happening where” was confusing to me. I mean, not *everything* was confusing, but for example – the book takes place in both past and present. I am still not sure how long ago the events of the past took place. I thought I read sixty something years ago in one place and then in another place I thought Kai said that they were betrayed and captured and put in that weird half dead half sleep less than a year ago.
The first half or so of the book I really did not care much about Kai’s being upset about the betrayal he and his friends suffered, because I did not know him and Ziede and the other two friends at all. You know how sometimes a writer makes you care about the characters right away? Well, in this book this did not happen for me at all, not right away I mean. I certainly grew to care for Kai and his little family over the course of the story, but that meant that his angst only touched me in the last third or so of the book.
Also, it is not just Kai being upset I did not care about in the first half of the book, as I said the story was taking place in the past and in the present and those chapters were rotating, but there were fewer chapters overall taking place in the past. For a significant part of the story, the events of the *past* were much more dynamic than the events in the present. Events in the present once again started moving a little faster and came to a stop just as fast only in chapters 13 and 14 of the book for me and the whole book has sixteen chapters taking place in the present (I am not counting past chapters here).
What I liked? Oh, the magic was fun, especially magic that Ziede weaved. Kai’s abilities were interesting too. And they were good people and hopefully they will have their happy ending wherever they end up being at the end.
Again, please note that I can easily see how this can be a five star book for another reader. But for me it just did not quite work.
C+
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I hate to admit that I agree with a lot of this review. Mine will be out in the weeks to come.
I surely didn’t expect writing this review you know?
@Sirius: Definitely not what I was hoping for.
I waited to read your review, @Sirius, as I wanted to read the book first. I finished it last night and agree with much of your review.
I have a lot of admiration for the author’s ability to build this complex world and to go back and forth between two timelines, and I was sufficiently intrigued to read to the end. However, I doubt that this is a book I will reread.
As regards the sixty years and the one year you mentioned in your review, Sirius. I believe that the earlier timeline is sixty years in the past. And one year ago, Kai and Ziede were trapped. Their escape from that trap begins the present day portion of the book.
@Kareni: thank you so much Kareni for timeline clarification. Yes, I definitely will not be rereading this one thats for sure.