Reviews with content warning for Murder - Witch King

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Witch King by Martha Wells

41 reviews

superstar_y2k's review against another edition

okay so i would absolutely recommend this book, but i am a mood reader and im finding it difficult to keep up with this story. i love the world building and i love that there are two timelines happening. the characters are loveable. my dnf is a reflection of where i am as a reader currently and i hope to find the space and desire to start this story again

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witcheep's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

In Witch King Wells builds an outstanding fantasy world with very detailed cultural differences and interesting, well-rounded characters who have their own motives for action. The main character Kai is an immortal demon prince, and the plot revolves around solving a mystery: who betrayed Kai by capturing him into an underwater prison to die, and why? If you love Wells' the Murderbot Diaries where the Murderbot tries to figure out the uncertainties of their past while being on the run, you'll enjoy the similar elements of the mystery plot of Witch King's as well.

The plot progresses quite slowly, and the present narration is frequently interrupted by chapters where we are told about Kai's past. Both the past and the present begin to slowly intertwine with each other, showing us possible motives and suspects for the betrayal. They also show the reader the different aspects of the worldbuilding, at times in a somewhat infodump-feeling way but often through plot-related action. This slow story progression requires some patience from the reader, but if you enjoy vivid descriptions of worldbuilding and slowly building relationships between characters, you'll enjoy the book.

The main characters of the book are all multidimensional, and even the side characters are shown to have more than just one trait. All of the multiple characters are introduced in a character list in the beginning of the book by their titles, but you'll get to progressively know more about them throughout the plot. The most multidimensional character is unsurprisingly the main character Kai. On one hand, Kai is immortal, and besides that a very powerful magic user. Kai thinks he has been forced by circumstances to become a powerful, violent thing, and this doesn't sit well with him: "Most of the time Kai felt like he was made of razors, bleeding from the inside."

"I'd tell you to be careful, but..."
Kai looked at her through the black film of the veil. "You could say 'be violent' instead."
Tahren, who Kai was beginning to suspect had a very dry sense of humor, patted his shoulder and said, "Be violent."

On the other hand, though, Kai is quite vulnerable in his personality. He yearns to live a peaceful life with the people he cares about. To achieve that, Kai has helped to start a revolution in the past and in the present exerts to stop another one, both motivated by his will to make the world a better place or "unburn the world" as his dear friend once told him. Kai sympathises with the oppressed and has a drive to free any and every enslaved being. During his endeavors to live a peaceful life, Kai has been badly betrayed many times, but he still chooses not to give up on trusting people. In his opinion, the only way to know if a person is trustworthy is to trust them and "then wait for the knife in the back". This makes Kai a very hopeful person in the end.

The worldbuilding is what captivated me the most in the Witch King. There are multiple ethnicities, cultures, and languages around. There are also different magic systems for different kinds of magic users (Expositors, the Blessed, Witches, and Demons), which adds to the depth of the worldbuilding.

Expositors didn't draw power from pain in their own body, like Kai did, or by forming relationships with the spirits inherent in the different levels of the world, both living and otherwise, like Witches. Expositors drew their power from life: new life, stolen life, life on the point of death. It was why they were so dangerous, why greed was their driving force. It was why their power was so susceptible to a true demon's ability to steal life from anything living or once living.

Representation of different identities is done beautifully in the book. For example, some cultures are more queer than others, and this is shown as a continuum between binary and fluid gender and sexual identities presented as varying levels of normal in different cultures. The cultural differences are found in the multiple languages of the world as well. There's a widely used linqua franca Old Imperial, multiple regional smaller languages, and a sign language for Witches (witchspeak) used throughout the book. I loved reading how the link between culture and language, and therefore their connection to one's identity, was brought up in the book many times. My favourite discussion about language is about how swearing shows what is believed to be powerful in a culture.

Ziede said, "Sanja, if you're going to swear, don't do it in Old Imperial. If you use their curses, you'll take on their beliefs."
Sanja blinked, distracted by that thought. "That's the only language I know," she pointed out.
Kai told her the Saredi word that meant "go into the wetland and eat shit-mud."
Sanja repeated it twice, trying to get the vowels right.

Curses are used when you want someone to suffer, or need a way to express extreme emotions. So, in those situations you need impactful language, and it comes from beliefs (what holds power in one's culture). So, Ziede's comment is actually very deep and meaningful, not just a quick way to chide a cursing child.

The different groups of people have some disagreements and interests of their own, which provide interesting challenges to the interaction between them. The plotline of the past shows that most of the differences can be put aside when there is a great common enemy threathening all the groups: the Hierarchs came to conquer the world, killing everyone on their way, which required all the other people to unite against them. On a side note, no one knows where the Hierarchs once came from and if there are more of them, so finding out about the potential threat of Hierarchs' reappearance could make a premise for a sequel. The aftermath of the conqueror Hierarchs and the other people battling each other isn't pretty; it doesn't end in a happy ever after. When enough time passes, the battles and hardships become only legends and the once united people start to scheming against each other to gain power over each other.

"There aren't many people there. Most of them died." Kai looked down at her, watched her tremble on the edge of a terrible understanding. "The world used to be a much bigger place, with so many more people in it."

The underlying message of the Witch King seems to be that there will always be hardships and battles to fight, but trying to prevent them or –if unavoidable– going through them is always worth it for the people you trust and love and for creating lasting peace. I would love to read more about Kai and his friends, or in some other form return to the world of the Witch King.

Review written 5.3.2024

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saracat's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I loved so many of the ideas in this book, especially concerning demons. I have never come across demons written in this way before, though it's possible Wells drew inspiration from somewhere specific.

I really liked the main character as well, Kai. Though, there were some characters with similar names that I often got confused. And while trying to remember and keep track of so many characters that weren't in the majority of the book was hard, I didn't think you could tell a story like this without a large cast of characters.

Towards the end when things began to get resolved, revealed, and brought to a close, there were some cases where it felt like bits and pieces I remembered fell into place. But for a few, I couldn't recall even hints about certain things and it felt like completely new revelations. However, halfway through reading this book I had a lot of life stuff happen so there was a 3~4 period where I didn't make progress on the book. So it's possible I just forgot some details.

I would like to read this again and see if I pick up on more of the hints and clues throughout the book leading to the conclusions the characters come to at the end.

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mes0pelagic_fan's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

I loved this book! I was instantly hooked and fell in love with the main cast of characters. I think my only qualms with this book are related to pacing-- I flew through this book and by the time I was 90% of the way through I wanted to shake the audiobook to see if a second half would magically fall out.

Once we hit the Summer Halls in the present timeline, I was like .. woah. hold the phone. The way things went with Ramad so quickly I just felt like I'd gotten whiplash (I was kind of rooting for him and then was sad when he ended up sucking so unexpectedly-- not sure if I missed the clues about him being a spy but I felt like I must have, or they just weren't there).

I honestly think the past timeline was a bit more coherent, but that might just be because the situation was more clearly laid out and the stakes were higher; the mystery of the present timeline kind of flew past me. I was also obsessed with the effortless queerness of this book from the get-go;

especially with Kai's body hopping/general life (and the other demon's reactions!).

There were also a lot of themes/plot threads I wish were explored more, but there just wasnt time

(the self-harm to magic thing was never really addressed, same with the hierarchs' potential return, and Kai's whole under-earth family, along with a bunch of other stuff I wanted to dig into)

. There is definitely plenty of room left in this world for more adventures. This book isn't perfect, but was delightful to read (especially after dnf-ing a few books for taking sooooo long to pick up any meaningful threads!)

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lanid's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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micksland's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

3 stars

While I'm a huge fan of the author's "Murderbot" series, I thought this fantasy novel was somewhat lackluster.

The story alternates between two timelines, only one of which had an interesting plot. The present-day story involves a missing person and a tepid whodunnit mystery, while the flashback scenes (which take up about 50% of the novel) involve a daring escape and several excellent battle scenes. I kept wishing that the present-day scenes would end and send me back to the exciting part of the story.

The magic system is complex but under-explored. It seems that there are many different kinds of magic with their own limitations and uses, but none of the rules are fleshed out sufficiently for the magic to be used except as a deus ex machina.

I appreciated the exciting battle scenes and the potential for expansion in future installments, but this felt more like a debut novel than something by an experienced author.

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hanz's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I loved this. Martha Wells's worldbuilding is unlike anyone else's. This is my second of her fantasy books and both have very interesting worlds, and I'm looking forward to delving more into her older fantasy books.

I was captivated by this start to finish and was thinking about it when I wasn't reading it. It almost felt like another installment in a beloved series, despite never having read about these characters before.

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skudiklier's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

The only Martha Wells I've read is the Murderbot series, and in a lot of ways this was quite different from that, so I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. And honestly there was a period in the beginning where I was worried I wouldn't like the book and thought about DNFing. But I'm glad I stuck with it because in the end I really enjoyed it.

You just sort of land in the middle of things without a lot of context in the beginning, so it can be hard to follow, especially with the time jumps. But I think it all came together really well and I cared about the characters and was engaged in the story. That said, I do think if I hadn't been reading an audiobook, I would have struggled more. It probably would have taken me a lot longer to read it.

All in all I'd definitely recommend this to anyone interested, especially if you like Wells's writing or if you like fantasy more broadly. However, if you're just looking for more Murderbot, you might be disappointed. I wasn't though, and I'm glad I read it.

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julesadventurezone's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The worldbuilding is very thick, so much so that even on a reread i haven't grasped all of it. Despite that I had a lovely time reading this book again, and found myself quite captivated, especially by the storyline set in the past. The main character Kai is so compelling and i love both his arcs.
My favourite relationship was

between Kai and Bashasa, who have this very fun desperate allies to mutual respect to tender friendship to possibly future lovers dynamic.

Kai and Ziede I didn't really care for until late in the book, when

she helped him bury his former body.

Ziede is very cool but I feel like for a main character she was a little underdeveloped.

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stephaniemcuervo's review

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adventurous challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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