Book completed
Feb. 1st, 2026 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeWitch King, by Martha Wells. This fantasy world, its characters, their motivations, and their actions are all tremendously interesting. I find it a bit difficult to read, though – even this time, my second time through. That’s because there are two stories being told, with (often) alternating chapters – but with mostly the same characters, and often in approximately the same places. Getting reoriented each time we change to the other storyline can be a significant mental challenge.
It’s a story about overcoming colonization. One story tells about how Kai and his friends, many of whom have unusual powers, worked to overthrow the Hierarchs. The other story, set “a mortal lifetime” later, tells how Kai and many of the same friends are still trying to get their world back on track, because defeating their oppressors was just the first step.
I would also like to add that the first time I read this book, the book was basically presented to the world as a standalone story. I don’t know whether that was Wells’ preference or the publisher’s, but I follow her on Dreamwidth and I never saw her mention that it was the first in a series. I would have enjoyed my first reading of the book much more if I’d known it was starting a series, because the story didn’t make a lot of sense as a standalone book. Yes, they have problems that they attempt to overcome within the course of the single book, but if that had been all there was, it would have been bizarre. And yet, since I’m used to books that begin a series being marketed as such, I could only conclude that this oddly abbreviated introduction to the world was all there would be. What a relief when Queen Demon was eventually announced! (They’re repeating the same approach with Queen Demon, but at least its list of the author’s other books says that Witch King was the first in the “Rising World” series, and I’m told Queen Demon ends on a cliffhanger, so I can have faith that there will be at least one more book, even if they don’t want to tell us so quite yet.)
It’s a story about overcoming colonization. One story tells about how Kai and his friends, many of whom have unusual powers, worked to overthrow the Hierarchs. The other story, set “a mortal lifetime” later, tells how Kai and many of the same friends are still trying to get their world back on track, because defeating their oppressors was just the first step.
I would also like to add that the first time I read this book, the book was basically presented to the world as a standalone story. I don’t know whether that was Wells’ preference or the publisher’s, but I follow her on Dreamwidth and I never saw her mention that it was the first in a series. I would have enjoyed my first reading of the book much more if I’d known it was starting a series, because the story didn’t make a lot of sense as a standalone book. Yes, they have problems that they attempt to overcome within the course of the single book, but if that had been all there was, it would have been bizarre. And yet, since I’m used to books that begin a series being marketed as such, I could only conclude that this oddly abbreviated introduction to the world was all there would be. What a relief when Queen Demon was eventually announced! (They’re repeating the same approach with Queen Demon, but at least its list of the author’s other books says that Witch King was the first in the “Rising World” series, and I’m told Queen Demon ends on a cliffhanger, so I can have faith that there will be at least one more book, even if they don’t want to tell us so quite yet.)