Witch King (Rising World)

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MW: I'm definitely writing a sequel. There’s some stuff I set up in the book. I guess to avoid spoilers, I won't tell you what it is. When you read it, I think it's a little bit more obvious what I wanted to enlarge on. I kind of have a habit from when it was very difficult for me to sell books; I don't tend to start a series, I tend to do a standalone book that has the potential to have a sequel so that I don't end up putting out a book with a cliffhanger or there's an unfinished story and then I'm not able to finish it. And so I am writing a sequel now, so hopefully that'll come together as I write. I'm hoping it will. And after that we'll see where it goes next. Martha Wells’s writing is solid, but Witch King suffers from slow pacing and a dense, disengaging style that makes the book a struggle to read. As a result, I never felt fully invested in the story or characters.

Witch King is the new standalone dark fantasy from acclaimed Murderbot author Martha Wells. Witch King marks her much-anticipated return to fantasy after completing her Books of the Raksura series. Kai is an intriguing being, as an under earth demon inhabiting a mortal host. Of course his history has lent him special traits that aren’t typically associated with demons in this world. Ziede is equally fascinating as her powers are more elemental (she controls wind spirits or devils). And Tahren, whom we travel far to meet is of another kind altogether being one of the immortal blessed.Witch King alternates between two timelines. In the present day, Kai tries to piece together the puzzle of who betrayed him. The present-day timeline is interspersed with chapters from the past, showing a more powerful Kai imposing his will on the world. Clues from the past timeline help to inform the reader about the present-day narrative.

Thankfully, Wells is a master at her craft, and that trust is well deserved. While it took me a couple of chapters to really get adjusted to the vastness and strangeness of Witch King’s world, it ultimately ended up adding to the sense of immersion. There’s always a strong feeling of intention behind the specific choices Wells makes in telling the story; the magic, cultures, and various creatures and bits of lore are expertly drawn. The characters are vivid and lovable, especially Ziede, who is a consistent scene-stealer. Witch Kingis simply a well-wrought fantasy book in pretty much every respect. This is something that some readers may have trouble with at first, depending on how much handholding you like in your fiction. Wells explains various ideas when they will add the most to the story and not a moment sooner, meaning you’ll likely have lots of questions as you read. That can require a bit of trust that the author won’t leave you hanging. Distracted by unwilling suspicion, Kai said absently, “Your great-aunt Kavinen thinks your nine-volume history of the Hierarchs war was a boring waste of time.” SD: I'm sure. And I think he does a great job not only with the characterizations but kind of those more action-oriented scenes, really bringing up the intensity and the excitement and the anticipation during those scenes. I really enjoyed listening to him. I hope he does a lot more. Always great when you find that perfect fit, especially if you're going to have an ongoing series and ongoing characters. And I know our listeners appreciate that continuity. The scenery, the characters’ personalities and the found-family dynamics are all very Martha Wells-ish. It’s not my favourite, which is to say I’m not as invested in Kai as in some of Wells’ other protagonists, but I thought it was excellent storytelling.SD: Yeah, I can see how being in Murderbot's head a bit during the pandemic could be a little anxiety-provoking. And that opening scene, of course, is so iconic. Diving right into your main character, his name is Kaiisteron, a.k.a., Kai, a.k.a., the titular Witch King. He is a demon who possesses mortal bodies, but not quite in the way that you might immediately imagine. He actually has quite a significant attachment to his first mortal body, that of a young woman named Enna. I'm so curious, what was the inspiration for this character? Why write a demon? Where did that come from?

SD: Well, thank you so much again for your time, Martha. I can't wait to hear what our listeners think of this new adventure, of Eric Mok, of everything that you've set up here. Thank you so much for being with me today. The book begins with Kai, the Witch King, awakening in a watery prison. He has to escape, find his friends, and figure out how he ended up there. The story alternates chapters set in the past and chapters set in the present. The reader is dropped into the middle of events, and information about the history and context is spread out throughout the book. This is fine writing and world building. It’s easy to fall in step with Kai and Ziede and the characters who share their quest for a time. Indeed, although it is billed as a standalone novel, I think you will, as I do, hope that Kai and Ziede’s story continues in some form in the future. Kai, the eponymous Witch King, is a powerful demon with a necromancy-type magic enabling him to occupy the bodies of deceased mortals. As the novel opens, Kai slowly regains consciousness to find that his mortal body has been murdered and his spirit is imprisoned in some sort of water cage: So, you mentioned nonhuman characters. Between this novel and your past work, there is sort of a running theme of main characters, often nonhuman, who are being othered. Murderbot struggles with relating to humans, while Kai develops the strong connection to mortals, particularly the Saredi people. What draws you to this theme?SD: Yeah, and I think a lot of sci-fi and fantasy listeners can really relate to that feeling. These worlds kind of provide us with very interesting angles to approach that theme. I appreciated that in this novel in particular. Your characters defy gender norms as well. Kai inhabits bodies irrespective of their assigned sex or gender identity during life. We also see a lot of gender norms kind of turned on their head in Witch King. A lot of nonbinary characters in your work as well. Why is that kind of representation important to you? MW: You want to try to make it feel for the reader as complex as the real world is, without overwhelming them. And that's kind of the balance you have to strike. MW: Yeah, I think everybody's been in situations where things were so bad you just had to laugh because there was nothing else to do except panic. And kind of the inspiration of this book was looking at a map of the world and seeing how much colonization there had been and just trying to think about the ancient world before that and what our world would look like now if the colonization hadn't happened. And thinking about how terrifying that would be, to have these people come out of nowhere and these things to happen and just this invasion for no reason out of nowhere by people you'd never heard of before. That was really the inspiration for it. And also looking at how different countries have been taken over by others and what that process was like. Because in the book, the Ariki are basically infiltrated first. They were a fairly powerful culture and they were infiltrated first, where others that were not as well armed, not as well organized, were just swept over and destroyed. So yeah, just looking at all that stuff and just thinking about how that would affect the world I wanted to create.