Book Review: Witch King, Martha Wells

[aschooloffish]

I love being less than five chapters into a book and knowing it's going to change me forever. That was certainly the case with Martha Wells' expertly crafted 2023 novel Witch King.

I suggest reading this book with as little information as possible, so I'll include a brief, spoiler-free review, before diving a longer review with minor spoilers.

The spoiler-free version is: This book is excellent. Its characters are memorable and complex; its worldbuilding is rich and well-delivered; and it weaves the characters' interpersonal relationships into the plot beautifully. It's probably not for everyone - I can imagine someone finding it slow, as there are long stretches where characters are traveling and talking - but the pace was just right for me. A+ 10/10.

Minor spoilers below:

The book follows Kaiisteron, a demon born of the Under-Earth but living among mortals. He and many others of his kind accepted a treaty with an elder of the mortal Saredi nomads, to take on the bodies of their recently deceased and live with them as part of the clan. Generations of Saredi mortals and demons have lived together as family, to the point where many Saredi have ancestry in both bloodlines.

But that was in the past. In the present, the Saredi are all but forgotten, and even the Hierarchs, who destroyed them and many other peoples in their quest for world domination, are beginning to fade from memory. Kai's only remaining family are his best friend, the witch Ziede Daiyaha, and Ziede's wife, the immortal marshall Tahren Stargard.

Kai wakes up in an underwater prison with no idea how he got there. He and Ziede have been trapped, asleep, for nearly a year; adn what's worse, Tahren is nowhere to be found. They've been betrayed, and it's probably political. Tahren serves on the council of the Rising World, the coalition which grew out of Kai, Tahren, Ziede, and the mortal prince Bashasa's rebellion against the Hierarchs. It's hard to say what's more dangerous: the Rising World council without Tahren's influence, or Ziede without her wife. Either way, Kai and Ziede are determined to rescue her at any cost.

It's the forgetting, Kai thought again. That was what hurt.

This book poses a question that never fails to fascinate me: What happens after the day is saved? In Witch King, our protagonist has already lived through two iterations of society: his early years with the Saredi, and the rebellion against the Hierarchs. We come into the story 60 years after the end of the war, just as the post-Hierarch generations are coming into power (among mortals, anyway). Much of the book's overall intrigue, and Kai's internal turmoil, comes from the fact that society's memory of the war is beginning to fade.

The book does an excellent job exploring this question, both through the characters themselves and in the structure of the story itself. Interspersed with the adventure to find Tahren are flashback chapters depicting the opening salvo of the rebellion. Neither Kai nor any of his companions expected to survive that day, let alone lead a global revolution. That adrenaline rush and sense of finality contrasts potently with the melancholy of Kai and Ziede's journey through a world that, 60 years later, is beginning to move on.

Though the present-day plot covers only a few weeks and takes place far away from the big political events, the question of what the Rising World will become looms heavily over the characters. Kai, Ziede, and Tahren are only in this predicament because someone wanted to prevent them from taking part in the Rising World's treaty renewal. They spend most of the book performing a complicated dance of trust and mistrust with other characters they come across, such as Rising World vanguarder Ramad, who seems to be constantly balancing on the edge of a dramatic heel turn. I can't speak too specifically to any character's politics without giving up major spoilers, but suffice it to say that the memory of the Rising World's past and the specter of its future haunt the narrative almost as much as Bashasa himself.

He hesitated, and Kai wondered what he was going to say. Then Bashasa squeezed his arm and said, "Make them pay for it."

Speaking of Bashasa haunting the narrative, boy howdy does Bashasa haunt the narrative.

In the present timeline, Bashasa has been dead for some time - exactly how long, and what he died of, aren't clear, though given that he's a mortal I'm guessing (hoping?) it was old age. Much of the past timeline revolves around Kai meeting him and joining his proto-coalition of rebels with nothing left to lose. Bashasa is charismatic, brilliant, and strong-willed; and he and Kai were lovers for many years before his death. We don't get to see much of their actual relationship, situated as it is between the past and present timelines. But the whole book is infused with its influence. Like the war itself, Kai and Bashasa's love story has faded into history and folklore. Kai's deep feelings for Bashasa and the love we see beginning to grow between them stand in stark contrast to rumors about the demon prince who seduced the great revolutionary for power. It's another great example of the dissonance between past and present (or between the past and the stories we tell about it) that's such a powerful motif in this book.

There are a few scenes dedicated to explicit political conversations between Kai and Ramad that emphasize this dissonance. Ramad is a historian as well as a vanguarder, and unlike many mortals of the Rising World, he cares about understanding Kai's story. Kai's politics and his relationship with Bashasa are inextricable in these conversations. It lends a heartbreaking emotional weight to Kai and Ramad's political differences and the uncertainty around Ramad's potential betrayal. The book does such a good job weaving together interpersonal drama and world-altering political stakes; it's intoxicating to read.

Ziede crossed the deck with slow deliberate steps. She said, "Let's start the way we mean to go on. Whose skin am I going to peel off until someone tells me where my wife is?"

It's hopefully clear by this point that I adore the characters in this book. Kai's history with Bashasa and its echoes in Ramad are fascinating, but by far the best relationship in the book is between Kai and Ziede. The two of them met during Bashasa's rebellion, and six decades later, they're inseparable. The implicit trust between them is a much-needed grounding point, surrounded as it is by their apprehensions about other characters.

Ziede herself is delightful: her dry sense of humor, her deep loyalty, and her passion for sharing knowledge make her a really engaging character. I love watching her interact with the other characters in the book, be it her mutual dislike with Tahren's cousin or her mentorship of a street urchin she and Kai met in prison. Given that the book centers on searching for Tahren, we don't get to see the two of them interact much; but Ziede's love for her is very clear and very compelling.

There are a handful of secondary characters I really enjoyed as well: the canny and inquisitive Sanja (the street urchin mentioned earlier); the proud and disaffected Saadrin; and Dahin, Tahren's brother who plays a part in the past and present timelines. Dahin is especially interesting because he's changed significantly between the past and the present. It's always good to see a character undergo significant change, but a character who already has undergone that change can also be fascinating to read.

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."

In addition to being a good story, Witch King is also excellently crafted, and nowhere is this clearer than in its worldbuilding and exposition. Like any fantasy book, it faces the difficult task of introducing readers to its world without overwhelming or boring them. Witch King provides a map and a list of characters at the front of the book, but besides this it drops you right into the action with no explanation and leaves you to keep up on your own. That decision won't be to everyone's taste, but I love it personally, and it's executed very well here. The cold open, Kai waking up in an unfamiliar place and immediately fighting for his life, does a good job of drawing the reader in and demonstrating the worldbuilding in practical rather than theoretical terms. Why can Kai jump between different bodies? I don't know, but it's lucky he can or else he'd be toast. Who's this Tahren person? I'm not sure, but Ziede seems VERY determined to find her. Why is our demon prince protagonist being nice to this street urchin? I have no idea, but she's a cool character and I'm glad she's sticking around!

Crucially, we do get answers to these questions eventually. By the end of the book, I had a clear picture of where the various characters came from, how their abilities worked, and why they behaved the way they did. But I think the real strength of the book is in the pace at which that information is delivered. This is, once again, partly a matter of personal taste; but I always felt like I had enough information to keep up with the plot at any given moment, while still being curious enough to stay engaged. I never felt like I was getting a huge, boring lore dump, and I never felt like I needed one. Everything I learned about the world and backstory was presented so naturally that by the time it was stated explicitly, it felt like I had known it all along. I was extremely impressed with this presentation, and it helped me feel immersed in and connected to the story.

Bashasa shrugged. "Of course, nothing is guaranteed. We could all die tomorrow! But until then, we work."

Witch King was an incredible read, and seemed made specifically for me. It's intriguing and adventurous, but also takes the time to develop its characters and relationships. It weaves together political and interpersonal dramas in a way that increased my investment in both. Its world feels real and interesting, and the exposition balances curiosity and satisfaction in a way that makes it hard to put down. I was devastated to learn that the second book of the series, Queen Demon, won't be available until this fall. I'll definitely be rereading in the meantime.