Witch King – Martha Wells

Next up for my Hugo nominee reading is Witch King, the new fantasy book from previous winner Martha Wells, creator of Murderbot.

I actually liked this more than I liked Murderbot. Despite the oft-repeated adage about everyone loving it, Murderbot was extremely mid for me. And don’t get me wrong, I did not come out of Witch King full of love and adoration either, but it was, in my opinion, a bit of a step up. What I do think is interesting is… well, there are two things. Firstly, the fact that almost all of the discussion I’ve seen of this online has been framed around it being “disappointing” compared to Murderbot, and secondly (and I suspect connectedly) that precisely what I like about it is that it “fixes” some of the issues I had with Murderbot.

Maybe I should be treating this as its own separate book, unfettered by comparison to its sibling series… but I think their connection is important, both in the context of how I feel about Witch King, and what I think about its place in the award shortlist.

For the first part, because my thoughts about Murderbot run quite so counter to the general vibe, I came into this full of caution that the same would be true, that I would just not be into it and that Wells’ style is not my style – what I got, then, was a pleasant surprise. I think it’s a pretty well crafted book with some relatively interesting ideas, themes and characters. It’s not perfectly done, and it would never have made my own shortlist, but I can see why it made someone’s. Or… well, more on that in a minute with my second point. It does things that I thought were absent in Murderbot, that I generally need in a story – I cared far more about the characters and their feelings and their relationships with each other and, critically, with their context. I felt a sense of connection to… something in the story. I was invested. I was intrigued, even. Not always, not in vast amounts, but enough to keep me going through. Because that sense of connection was stunningly lacking for me in Murderbot, it so often felt like it was trying to be funny at the expense of being a good story, that I just ran out of bother. Clearly, others disagree.

But equally clearly, and on to my second point, that shift here isn’t what people wanted from Wells, based on the general vibe I’ve seen in reviews. Very little of it is overly negative, it’s just “aw, not as good as Murderbot” or “not as x as Murderbot” for a variety of x. Why, then, has it been nominated, when I would call its critical reception… tepid? Well… Martha Wells did recuse herself from nominations for Murderbot, but not for anything else she writes. Is this just overflow love? I mean, it’s impossible to say. It’s probably impossible for a single nominating person to say even inside the quiet space of their head, because it could well be entirely subconscious. But I do wonder if it played a part.

Aside from its place in the context, it’s hard to talk about this book because my approximate response to it is “fine, tending to good”. It’s a story about the eponymous Witch King, who has been trapped in a tomb for some time, and is awoken by treasure seekers who stumble into something more powerful than they can handle. As he frees his ally, saves a small child who was due to be sacrificed, murders some baddies and eats their souls, he tries to figure out what has happened that has led to him being imprisoned here, and what is going on in the world, because his memory shears off before giving an explanation. To complement this, we have a parallel thread of the story that begins in his youth, long ago, telling us about who he is, his place in the world, and that world’s relation to the wider political space of the story and history. The two timelines alternate, and eventually, as we reach the end, we begin to see how the past has bearing on the present, and how the two stories are very likely deeply intertwined, before the final denouement and action happenings, via a number of shenanigans and altercations, and a fair few soul eatings.

Which is something the story – and specifically the main character – does have in common with Murderbot. They are both enormous grumps with outsized ability to cause harm to humans and whom many people woefully misunderstand, but who, despite their attitude and powers, ultimately are trying to do the best for those around them. Kai, the Witch King, however, works far better for me, I think because we get to spend so long in his backstory. We are not limited to a novella length to get that handle on him before the story ends, and also, critically, we are seeing him alongside a close ally for the duration of the story. He has to interact with Ziede, and we get to see those interaction, get to see him deal with someone he likes, trusts and respects, and that gives us a side of him that the first Murderbot book lacks.

This isn’t just because character relationships are my favourite part of stories, I promise. I mean, they are, and that’s probably a part of it. But I do also think that Kai’s position in his story and his world, having to relate to people, communicate with them, bounce of them, work with them, both in his present and past narratives, necessarily gives us more of him as a character, which is critically necessary for the grumpy sort of anti-hero-ish thing he’s trying to be. He eats souls! The story needs to give us something to work with so we can sympathise with him (beyond just “well they were bad guys who deserved getting their souls eaten” because that isn’t reeeeaaaally enough), needs to show the person he is beside soul-cronching, to give us a reason to excuse it or understand it. Even with what it does give, I don’t think Wells has fully succeeded – I think soul-eating may be a bit inexcusable, and I can see why some of the other characters in the book aren’t enormous fans of it. But she’s given us something to work with, even if it doesn’t quite work for me.

It’s a shame this is such a closely tied novel to Kai’s perspective. In many ways, I found Ziede – a powerful elemental worker who would really fucking like to know where her wife is now please, thanks and or-else – much more interesting. I wanted her perspective on things, and not just what we get in her dialogue with Kai, especially because her presence in the past-narrative parts of the story is limited. Likewise, there were several side characters I’d have loved more time with, because what they brought was fascinating, but sparse.

I did also, unfortunately, get a little setting-bored. It’s a novel that is very interested in the world being built, and has every right to be, because it’s an interesting world, but it hasn’t fully balanced that out with all the other aspects of the story. The memories that are going to linger with me of this are likely to be nuggets of lore, rather than plot or people, and that’s never what I’m after. If we’d had just a bit more of everything else – more character time, more dialogue, more plot, more interaction – I think I’d have been much more sold on the whole thing, and then there could have been just as much of that perfectly excellent world building, but it could have taken more of a backseat to the more novel-shaped parts of things.

But it is an interesting world, I’ll give it that. It’s drawing on a number of historical cultures to craft things, but I saw echoes of several pieces of early Mesopotamia in there, as well as their more northerly and easterly neighbours, and some pieces of eastern Mediterranean drawn in too. It’s not a close pastiche – no full on pseudo-Phoenicians to be found here – but there are little glimmers of the familiar, interwoven with each other and with a healthy dose of “just made up”. The magic also takes up just the right amount of space within all that – the different types of it are all part of the world, but not all of the world, and politics and reality still intrude alongside them (and can overcome them). Despite also being very heavily focused on that worldbuilding, Wells hasn’t strayed into the zone of overexplaining the magic, which is one of my less favourite trends of some modern fantasy – it all, largely, still feels magical, even with the bit of explanation we do get. No Sandersonian logic puzzles to be found, no sciencifying of the mystical, just as I like it.

I also listened to this as an audiobook (which I’m getting into doing more, as it’s a great way to keep my brain busy while embroidering), and it was really well-read. The narrator did a great balance of distinctive voices for the characters without going overboard and silly with it, and really managed to inject some emotion and drama into some of the more exciting parts of the story. Would definitely recommend that part.

So on the whole, I enjoyed it. I would never have picked it up but for the Hugos, and I’m predominantly glad I did, but it’s not well-crafted enough or interesting enough to threaten the top spots in my ballot. It was a fun book that I had a pleasant time reading, did a few things I’ve not seen all that much of and did them mostly well… but not stellar, not stunning. A solid 3 stars.

This leaves my current Hugo novel rankings as:
1) ???
2) ???
3) ???
4) Witch King – Martha Wells
5) The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi – Shannon Chakraborty
6) Starter Villain – John Scalzi

There’s something of a gap between 3 and 4, possibly even more so than the gap between 5 and 6, so when I get to those, we’re heading well into “well this is GREAT” territory. There is much to look forward to discussing.