Tag: fantasy

Book Review: Witch King by Martha Wells

Martha Wells is a phenomenal world-builder, and she knows how to create brilliant characters that you just can’t help rooting for. She did it in the Murderbot series and she’s done it again in Witch King.

The titular character, Kai, a demon prince, is captured and entombed by unknown enemies. As he frees himself, his witch friend Ziede, and street urchin Sanja, the three go on a quest to find Tahren, Ziede’s wife, and figure out who was behind the conspiracy to capture them. The narrative splits early on, with the main thread following current events and the search for Tahren and her brother Dahin, and a secondary thread following the past – Kai’s origin story and the story of the Rising World Coalition.

Wells knows how to write a fast and intricate narrative, and the conspiracies of the present and rebellion of the past unfold independently and yet somehow also mirror and enmesh with each other. There’s a lot Wells says here about friendship, belonging, loyalty, and courage, but none of it feels obvious, didactic or forced. Relationships are earned here, as are your affections towards Kai, Ziede, Sanja, Dahin, Bashasa and others.

The world-building is rich and dense, with no “standard” human/clothing/culture/architecture. Wells walks us through it, but there’s no hand-holding here. You are meant to jump in and immerse yourself in her world, learning about it as the plot speeds you along. It’s disorienting for the first chapter or two, and then it just flows. You end up wanting to spend more time in this world, exploring it, really getting to know its people, cultures and geography.

The only minus in Witch King is that you don’t get enough time with certain characters. I want to know Tahren and Tenes more, I want to see the group in their home at Avagantum. This is why I immediately bought the second book in the series, Queen Demon, once I finished this one.

A superb fantasy book that is hard to put down and is well worth your time.

Book Review: Uprooted, Noami Novik

Uprooted cover

A fairy tale for grown ups, Uprooted by Noami Novik is a beguiling novel about being deeply rooted in a place, and yet also uprooted, a perpetual stranger in your homeland and community.

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.” Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows-everyone knows-that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Like all good fairy tales and myths, Uprooted has a compelling, readable narrative that sweeps you from the first paragraph about “Our Dragon” to the very end (which like good fairy tales also ends with Agnieszka talking about the Dragon). It evokes Polish and Russian folklore, Greek mythology, and classic fairy tales in a Polish medieval setting. You can tell just how much Novik knows and loves the source material she draws on, and how much respect she has for the cultures that wove these stories of magical beings, wizardry and mythic beasts to deal with the dark terrors of their world.

Novik is a magical story teller and Uprooted manages to be both very much part of the fantasy world that she creates, and also a timeless tale about identity, belonging, and love. There is a lot of heart in this adventure, a lot of compassion for the characters within it. Novik manages to create not only a very believable world, but a cast of real, nuanced characters: heroes with flaws, villains that you understand and feel compassion for.

Naomi Novik is a phenomenally good fantasy author, and this book justifiably won awards. If you liked her Scholomance series you will love Uprooted, and I am looking forward to reading more of Novik’s work.