Witch King by Martha Wells, a standalone failure

I never read The Murderbot Diaries and, after reading the Witch King, I probably never will.

The book opens with Kaiisteron, Prince of the Fourth House of the Underearth (aka Witch King) waking up as a spirit around a year after his latest mortal body has been assassinated. After finding a new mortal body, Kai must find out who betrayed him and his friends, and what happened during the time he was unconscious.

Now, some books are really good at dropping you off in the middle of the action and letting you piece together what’s going on along the way. A good example of this would be Glen Cook’s Black Company or its successor, the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson.

If we were to say that such stories hit the ground running, then, by comparison, what Witch King does is hit the ground and—after taking a minute to take in its surroundings—decide that maybe staying down here isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Let me demonstrate the trajectory of my enthusiasm for this book:

When Tor first announced that Martha Wells was going to publish a new fantasy novel, I was instantly hooked. And for all good reasons: the Murderbot series has a lot of fans who swear by it; good fantasy standalones are rare yet very rewarding; the book is called Witch King and the cover art by Cynthia Sheppard is really amazing. All in all, it seemed like it could be a great entry point for me to start enjoying Martha Wells’ work.

So I asked Tor to send me a review copy and—after some minor complications—I finally received it early this January (thank you for that, Tor!). I was reading the Black Company at the time and I quickly finished it, excited to dive right into the Witch King. Except I didn’t dive in.

I sank.

Excruciatingly. And frustratingly. Slowly.

To read the Witch King is to test how much one is willing to put up with. And after reading a good chunk of it, I decided that not a single thing about this book is worth giving it any more of my time. You may have noticed that I haven’t told you a single thing about the plot beyond the book’s opening. That is because, after reading for a good while, there isn’t one concrete thing I can tell you about it. It seems to me that the writing is purposefully vague and obfuscating to the point of it being legitimately frustrating.

The book seems to be made up entirely out of placeholder text, like the first draft of a writer who doesn’t have the faintest idea of the direction they want for their story. And as such, it is impossible for me to immerse myself in it and to feel grounded. The fact that my early review copy doesn’t have a map in it didn’t help either (although even after seeing the map, I am surprised by how vague it manages to be; kudos for sticking to the theme!).

Yes, sure, there are characters in Witch King. And they are moving from one place to another and there are some descriptions of what those places look like (though not enough to ground you in the world of course) and what the characters are doing. But they’re not really doing anything.

Now, there are a ton of other things that I could talk about here like:

• the fact that there is a huge dramatis personae at the beginning of the book where half the characters have these long dramatic titles and it is completely useless;
• the fact that really simple things like a period of half a year is called half a season round (Really?? Things like this only serve to pull readers out of the story with how stupid they sound.);
• why would you give your protagonist a dramatic name like Kaiisteron if everyone is just going to refer to him by a cutesy name like Kai?
• why would you call your main character a demon and give him the title of Witch King if you’re just gonna pull back and say that those things don’t really have negative connotations in your world?
• why oh why call it underearth when you can simply call it underworld?
• and a myriad of other things.

…but what would be the point of that?

I just don’t think it’s worth it.

Finally, when I got too fed up to continue reading, I jumped to Goodreads to see what other people thought about it (seldom a good idea). I really wanted to see if there were any like-minded people who powered through and found that the book has redeeming qualities that made it worth reading. But unfortunately, I found several people who mentioned that the problems I encountered persist throughout the book. It was at this point that I knew that deciding not to finish the book was the right decision.

All in all, I’m really thankful for the early review copy of the Witch King, as this way, I didn’t have to spend my own money on a book that is a complete waste of time.

Witch King by Martha Wells is expected to be published on May 30, 2023, and if you were thinking of getting it yourself, hopefully, this review has persuaded you to find a better way to spend your money.