A review by bookcheshirecat
Witch King by Martha Wells

adventurous dark tense slow-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

 “Mother bared her fangs. “Stop being overdramatic.” Kai would have loved to, if dramatic things would stop happening to him.”

I received a digital Arc from Netgalley and Tor in exchange for an honest review! The quotes are taken from the Arc and are subject to changes!

I was SO excited to read my first Martha Wells book outside of the Murderbot Diaries, but it gave me a lot of conflicting feelings 😔 Witch King sounded fantastic with a Demon Prince and his mysterious imprisonment, but the execution left a lot to be desired. In the end, I settled on 3 stars, as I enjoyed some of the characters and ideas but felt like the convoluted worldbuilding and slow pace took away from my reading experience. I buddy read this with Destiny @ howlinglibraries so definitely check out her Review as well! ❤️

WORLDBUILDING

✅The idea and concept held so much potential! I was immediately drawn in by the image of a Demon King who’s a bit of a black sheep of his people and has been around for centuries. A deadly betrayal resulting in Kai’s imprisonment and us finding out about it via dual timeline could have been an amazing setup. The idea and tension of the premise were so good and what made me name this as one of my most anticipated releases. I love demons in my Fantasy books in general and I liked what we saw of the Demon world and their interactions with humans via the possession of certain vessels (people who have died and are then possessed by a demon). The relationships between the demons and the humans’ attitude towards demons were such interesting aspects of the story that I would have liked to see explored more. Kai switches between bodies of various genders throughout the story and encounters different reactions to him being a demon. The angst and internal dilemmas we saw were so good, I wanted more of that!

❌ The worldbuilding was convoluted and despite its volume, very mismatched and surface-level. I feel like the author was trying to build an impressive fantasy world, but went a bit overboard. I don’t mind complex magic systems or intricate worlds, but I didn’t see a cohesive worldbuilding anywhere. We have witches, demons, sorcerers and Hierarchs, on top of multiple countries with their own cultures (some of whom don’t exist in the present anymore). The author barely explained any of her concepts and expected the reader to somehow figure it out from the avalanche of details she provided in her description (from the landscape to languages to the fashion style of every single culture, there were simply too many things to pay attention to at once). Sadly, this was the opposite of an infodump – the author didn’t explain anything. Luckily, I knew this going into the story and I actually took notes, but even they didn’t help. Some things, like the origin and true motives of the Hierarchs were still NOT explained by the very end and a lot of concepts remained very superficial because we never got a proper explanation to how they work.

“Kai groaned under his breath. He had been hoping for one dramatic masterstroke that would take down the whole bridge and maybe make him feel better about his continued existence.”

CHARACTERS

✅ Kai was one of the best things about Witch King. He’s the titular character and a powerful demon prince who has been possessing human bodies for centuries. I loved his wry humor and capacity for violence and power, though he also had compassion for others such as Sanja. I wish we had seen more of his humor though, as I feel like it would have made the book a bit lighter. Kai has a vivid past full of loss and pain, but also strong companions such as Ziede who are on his side. I loved seeing his more vulnerable moments and the struggles with what the Hierarchs did to him and his kind. His dynamic with Bashara in the past was really intriguing and the connection he forms with Ramad in the present really spoke to me. Sadly, Kai and Ramad’s dynamic kind of fades out and I was a bit disappointed that the author never properly had Kai express any romantic feelings.

✅ Kai’s friendship with Ziede and the found family vibes warmed my heart. I loved the easy banter and deep loyalty between Kai and Ziede, you can tell that they have been friends for ages. Even better that there’s nothing romantic at all between them, Ziede is dedicated to her wife, who she’s desperate to see again after being imprisoned alongside Kai. Sanja is a little girl who was freed from the sorcerer who kidnapped her and brought her as a sacrifice for Kai. I loved how she didn’t leave, even when given the chance and stuck with Kai. One of my favorite tropes is found family, so I wanted to see even more of these dynamics 🥺

❌ There were a TON of characters, but most of them didn’t get any meaningful Arcs of their own>. The fact that the book opens with a multiple-page long “Cast of Characters” index was a bit of a red flag for me from the very beginning. Especially as there are characters in the Past and Present to keep track of. Some of them, I didn’t find that relevant or interesting and after a while, I gave up trying to learn the names of the random side characters and focused on the main cast. It just made me sad that characters like Ramad, who had an interesting (almost romantic) dynamic with Kai didn’t get much development, as I saw so much potential in them!

“I’ll give you one more answer. The words Bashasa spoke to me before he died were ‘Don’t let everything we fought for be for nothing.”

PLOT & WRITING

✅ The beginning of the story had so much promise! When Kai awakened and found himself almost enslaved by a sorcerer was such a good opening with lots of tension and suspense. I was actually excited to read more as I was eager to find out who had betrayed Kai and why they had done it. After breaking out with his friend and a girl he saved from the sorcerer … it sadly all went downhill. I did love the audiobook narrator, but was only able to listen to the first two chapters that were shared by the publisher for free. I’d definitely recommend the audiobook, as I feel like it makes reading this a lot faster and more engaging! Generally, I also like Martha Wells’ writing style, there is no doubt that she’s a talented author and her Murderbot Diaries – that I love so much – definitely prove it.

❌ The plot was incredibly slow and not much happened. The first couple of chapters were great, but it all went downhill from there, as I was waiting for the action to start. If I had to sum it up, I’d say that the majority of the book is just travelling. The actual progress Kai and his team were making was so small and the fact that we had two timelines didn’t help. The Present chapters were sometimes altered with Past chapters and the latter were a chore to get through.

❌ The ending fell flat and all the work I invested in trying to understand the world didn’t pay off. That was probably the most devastating part of the book. After taking notes and trying to work through the book for days, the ending was so unimpressive. There were no great twists or shocking reveals. Even worse, there was no proper buildup for the reason Kai was imprisoned, so it felt completely fabricated. The story had such potential to lean into the political intrigue of the world, but it never did anything with it!

❌ I enjoyed the Past chapters the least and they really dragged down the story. There were too many of them IMO and I would have rather focused on the Present chapters with an occasional flashback when it was relevant. Often it felt like the chapters of Kai’s past life were like textbook entries meant to teach us about the world. Very few of them had any actual intrigue and most of them dragged so much that I was looking forward to being done with them. They didn’t offer the insight into Kai’s world and past that the author was hoping for. Instead, they added more names and concepts that were barely explained. 
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