Witch King

After my second reading of this novel, I still don't know what to make of it. The story is gripping once it gets going, but very hard to follow: chapters set in the present are interlaced with flashback chapters set in the past, featuring the same main characters, and sometimes I briefly lose track of which time period we're in.Perhaps next time, I'll try reading the story in chronological order: all the past chapters, followed by all the present chapters. Perhaps it would make more sense that way.It has a strange ending that cuts off the story abruptly when I was expecting more. Is that it? It doesn't feel to me like the end of a novel, although presumably it felt like the end to the author. Maybe she's planning a sequel.It's not only the chapters set in the present that cut off abruptly. In the last chapter set in the past, Bashasa is alive and well; but he's gone by the time we reach the present. In the penultimate chapter set in the present, we're told his last words before he died. We never find out anything about his death: when, where, why?I started reading Martha Wells with the Murderbot Diaries: sf stories set in the future. Of her fantasies, so far I've tried only [b:The Death of the Necromancer 321357 The Death of the Necromancer (Ile-Rien, #2) Martha Wells https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1287846738l/321357.SY75.jpg 2510225] and this one; I think she's improved, and this one is better. The quality of writing is high, the background details are confidently filled in, it's a convincing piece of fiction. But my enjoyment of it is limited by the confusing out-of-order chapters, and also by the strange and violent world in which it's set.Vast numbers of people, perhaps most of the world's population, were systematically massacred by the Hierarchs some decades in the past, and the survivors are still divided and fighting each other intermittently. The world is also littered with supernatural hazards of various kinds. I feel uneasy visiting a world where life is so precarious, for everyone.The hero of the story is a demon called Kaiisteron (Kai for short), occupying a human body, the original owner of which is dead—which is normal for demons in this world. Although Kai and Murderbot have different personalities, they have some things in common: they recover relatively easily even from serious wounds, and they're good at killing people when required, but they're not particularly keen on violence and care deeply about their friends and allies. They mean well.I was surprised to find that Kai's experiences seem even bloodier than Murderbot's. Partly because Kai's world is more disorderly, and partly because Kai draws magical power from his own pain, so he sometimes hurts himself deliberately.Kai is close to immortal and has magical powers, but he's not indestructible, and much of the time he seems curiously vulnerable. He spends the whole book on the run from powerful enemies, in the past and in the present.Technically, I would call this wild fantasy, as the author never explains how magic works or what its limitations are. However, she artfully manages to imply all along that it has definite limitations that every magic user has to struggle with. There are various different types of magic and types of magic users in this world.