MW: I don't know. It's always been something—I was a lonely kid. I was not neurotypical, and at the time when I was growing up in the '70s, there was no diagnosis for girls, for young girls, of ADHD or anything like that. You were just badly behaved and couldn't pay attention and all those kinds of things. They never did think that maybe there was a condition that was causing this. I've always kind of felt isolated a lot. My sister was nine years older than me, so I was alone at home. Our house was isolated by a really busy street from other kids, so I didn't have anybody to play with except at school, and I wasn't getting along there. SD: Right. So, you mentioned world-building. One thing I admire about your world-building is how you allow the listener or reader to discover it sort of organically, via the characters. Tell me a little bit about how you approach world-building in your writing practice. Are you one of those people who lays it all out before you start, or does the evolution kind of happen as you go?

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.” I think I'll just pin it on terrible pacing. I am so disinterested that the bit of humor and banter didn't even make me smile once. 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. Narrator Eric Mok makes this wonderfully inventive and diverse fantasy eminently accessible... Mok's Kai is appealing and relatableâ??he sounds simultaneously young and resigned, weary of death and pain and betrayal and yet still hopeful for something better. Listeners will hope we get more of this fascinating world."- AudioFile SD: Great. I was hoping to hear that. Because there's just so much in this novel that I think you could delve into even further. There are moments throughout where I was like, "Ooh, I want to laser in on that a little bit." And like you said, I think it stands alone as a great fantasy story, but there's definitely plenty more to be explored.

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. MW: Yeah. That's because just a cool description of a lot of stuff that you're not emotionally involved with doesn't have any kind of impact, as opposed to watching someone move through that world and being very much affected by it does. To me, it's really hard to characterize someone who doesn't have a sense of humor because I think it's such an integral part of your personality." 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. One other specific aspect of the worldbuilding I want to call attention to is Kai’s body-shifting. Kai has both a demon body in the underearth, the underground region where demons dwell, as well as various human bodies he inhabits in the world above. Some of those human bodies are male, some are female. Wells hasn’t necessarily written Kai to read like an intentional trans allegory; demons simply don’t care about human genders all that much. I found myself wondering multiple times how Kai might present to trans readers, because Wells did such a good job of both exploring Kai’s experience as well as painting various human cultures in her world as having varying levels of gender conservatism. This meaty complexity makes the story feel more poignant. Witch King doesn’t need a sequel (even though I’d devour one)

And also, I kind of wanted the Saredi to be separated from the rest of the cultures in the continent, not just because of distance, but also because they have these practices, which to them are very basically wonderful and loving, and to the outsiders, it's so easily misinterpreted. It's like you're sacrificing your children to demons. And like one of the characters says at one point, actually, it's the other way around. So that was the basis for that. When I developed that, figured all that out, that really kind of set the tone for Kai's relationship with humanity, which is actually very close. His human family has a much closer relationship than his demon family did. I am just not getting into the story. It feels like an endless and stale list of things the protagonist says and does.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.

From the breakout SFF superstar author of Murderbot comes a remarkable story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.In that way, Witch Kingalmost reads more like an expanded novella than a typical epic fantasy novel. The exact nature of the story Wells is telling doesn’t become clear until late in the game. It doesn’t exactly reframe everything that came before in the way a huge plot twist might. Instead, Wells reveals what kindof story Witch Kingis, thematically speaking. And a big part of why it works is when the author chooses to end it. So as much as I wish there were going to be more novels featuring Kai, Ziede, and all the rest, as a standalone book, Witch Kingis a resounding success. Verdict