Scan barcode
A review by artemisia_vulgaris
Witch King by Martha Wells
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
4.0
Wells’ world-building is top-notch, and absolutely nothing is handed to you on a plate, in fact some things still lie unexplained in the end (what’s with the pearls?). Shifting back and forth between the present and past of long-lived magic-wielding beings in the two-generations-later aftermath of having overthrown a genovidal magic-user’s invasion, it follows a character called Kai and his friends and allies as they unravel a conspiracy that endangers the Rising World, the society they helped they helped build when they were younger and toppled the tyranny of the Hierarchs,
It takes a while to work out that almost all the various titles (demon, witch, Blessed, expositor, Hierarch) are all about what powers the magic and what form manipulating it takes. As with all Wells’ work, there are a lot of new names and terms to remember, and this can sometimes take you away from events (I, at least had many “who the hell is this character?” moments), but damn this is an original and complex work of fantasy. Her imagination is unbeatable, and while it’s sometimes hard work to parse what the hell is going on, I appreciate the extent to which she expects her readers to be alert and intelligent.
It takes a while to work out that almost all the various titles (demon, witch, Blessed, expositor, Hierarch) are all about what powers the magic and what form manipulating it takes. As with all Wells’ work, there are a lot of new names and terms to remember, and this can sometimes take you away from events (I, at least had many “who the hell is this character?” moments), but damn this is an original and complex work of fantasy. Her imagination is unbeatable, and while it’s sometimes hard work to parse what the hell is going on, I appreciate the extent to which she expects her readers to be alert and intelligent.