Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Witch King by Martha Wells

26 reviews

amylynn44's review

adventurous inspiring mysterious tense 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? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Confinement, War, Violence, Slavery, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, and Death

mes0pelagic_fan's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm

Moderate: Violence, Colonisation, and Murder

Minor: Slavery

lanid's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gore, Murder, Blood, Colonisation, Torture, Body horror, Violence, and Confinement

maryellen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

4.75

I liked this book much better as an audio book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Colonisation, Self harm, Confinement, and Death

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

pvp_niki's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Genocide, Colonisation, and Blood

Moderate: War

Minor: Trafficking and Suicidal thoughts

kkulhannie's review

adventurous funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Death, Forced institutionalization, and War

Moderate: Trafficking, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Confinement, Genocide, Violence, Slavery, Panic attacks/disorders, and Medical content

hanz's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Self harm, War, Genocide, Colonisation, Confinement, and Kidnapping

piendorabox's review

adventurous challenging mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

A bit hard to get into, but I grew to care for the characters that when the book ended I was sad it was a standalone. Overall it felt like watching 5 episodes of the 6th season (there are 9 seasons overall) of a very obscure tv series that isn't available on any streaming platform, and those 5 episodes are all you could find, and you could only get vague ideas of what came before from flashback scenes and was completely in the dark about what came after, but you enjoyed the watching experience nonetheless even though it was nothing like you'd ever had before. A good book. Will definitely check out Martha Wells' other works later.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Colonisation, and War

softanimal's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, War, and Confinement

julesadventurezone's review against another edition

adventurous 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

3.75

I liked the general plot and the characters (Martha Wells makes such compelling characters), but the worldbuilding is a lot to try and memorise as you read. I feel like if I reread this and made graphs and diagrams as I went, I'd enjoy it more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Kidnapping, Child abuse, Genocide, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, and Violence

Minor: Pregnancy, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, and Self harm