Quillifer Is the Most Fun You’ll Have Reading Epic Fantasy This Year
Across his career, Walter Jon Williams has put his own spin on space opera, cyberpunk, contemporary techno-thrillers, and new wave sci-fi. He’s even written historical novels under a pen name. He’s shown a remarkable talent for writing basically anything he cares to write, which means you can never quite tell what to expect when you pick up one of his books.
Quillifer
Hardcover $27.99
Quillifer
Hardcover $27.99
With Quillifer, his first full-length novel in five years, he’s turned his versatile skill set toward epic fantasy, and the result is brimming with the expansive worldbuilding, epic scope, breathtaking action, and wit he brings to everything he writes. He also creates one of his most engaging heroes ever in Quillifer the Younger, a mononymed scoundrel who charms his way past the defenses of readers and Williams’ eccentric cast alike, bringing to mind a slightly more heroic version of George MacDonald Fraser’s Harry Flashman. This is a light, but not lightweight fantasy adventure told in an irresistible narrative voice, inhabiting a world you’ll want to spend as much time in as possible.
This is a chronicle of the life and adventures of Quillifer the Younger, who lives a life of relative ease and comfort, rising through the ranks as a young lawyer, shooting from one caper to the next, befriending and offending people in equal measure—until his home city is raided by pirates and the ruling class falls into disrepair. Suddenly, he finds himself without a country, a family, or a penny to his name. As he sets off to find himself, Quillifer romances goddesses, contends with wyvern-keeping bandits, and argues the finer points of pudding, always managing to stay a step ahead of dangers both personal and political as he navigates the unusual world around him with charm, confidence, and intelligence.
As the narrator of his own exploits, Quillifer is delightful. It’s clear from his introduction—we meet him hanging naked and upside-down from the window of his paramour’s house, waxing philosophically as her father rages inside—that Quillifer is a rogue and a mountebank, but the narration gives him such depth, and such a compelling interior life, you can’t help but regard him with affection. He’s continually inventing words (some of which are actually words in modern English), he resorts to violence only out of necessity or peer pressure, and while he does seem to run breathlessly from situation to situation with very little control over what’s going on, he’s also adept at bluffing his way through life in a way both enviable and deeply human. His highly capable at using guile and cunning to survive any situation, but never comes across as a slick huckster, and is certainly not infallible—he talks himself into as many situations as he talks himself out of, particularly when trying to maneuver around a belligerent goddess who takes offense at the smallest slight.
Quillifer’s sense of humor and preference for guile and tactics over outright force provide a perfect vehicle for Williams’ ear for dialogue. This book is packed with conversations best described as labyrinthine, rapid back-and-forths between well-educated bandits and diplomats happy to spend as much time arguing about the proper translation of a law book or laying out the distinctions between types of pudding as they do plotting a ransom and murder—and all in the floweriest terms possible. The narrative is peppered with idioms, various customary statements, and exhaustive explanations, all voiced with Quillifer’s trademark good humor and flagrant invention, such that the exposition is an engaging as the action sequences. Yet this colorful banter never leaves the story without stakes—menacing villains, that angry goddess, and numerous other schemers and ruthless characters lurk in the shadows.
The cover promises this is but the first volume of Quillifer‘s life story, and I’m happy for it—I haven’t had more fun reading a novel this year.
Quillifer is available now.
With Quillifer, his first full-length novel in five years, he’s turned his versatile skill set toward epic fantasy, and the result is brimming with the expansive worldbuilding, epic scope, breathtaking action, and wit he brings to everything he writes. He also creates one of his most engaging heroes ever in Quillifer the Younger, a mononymed scoundrel who charms his way past the defenses of readers and Williams’ eccentric cast alike, bringing to mind a slightly more heroic version of George MacDonald Fraser’s Harry Flashman. This is a light, but not lightweight fantasy adventure told in an irresistible narrative voice, inhabiting a world you’ll want to spend as much time in as possible.
This is a chronicle of the life and adventures of Quillifer the Younger, who lives a life of relative ease and comfort, rising through the ranks as a young lawyer, shooting from one caper to the next, befriending and offending people in equal measure—until his home city is raided by pirates and the ruling class falls into disrepair. Suddenly, he finds himself without a country, a family, or a penny to his name. As he sets off to find himself, Quillifer romances goddesses, contends with wyvern-keeping bandits, and argues the finer points of pudding, always managing to stay a step ahead of dangers both personal and political as he navigates the unusual world around him with charm, confidence, and intelligence.
As the narrator of his own exploits, Quillifer is delightful. It’s clear from his introduction—we meet him hanging naked and upside-down from the window of his paramour’s house, waxing philosophically as her father rages inside—that Quillifer is a rogue and a mountebank, but the narration gives him such depth, and such a compelling interior life, you can’t help but regard him with affection. He’s continually inventing words (some of which are actually words in modern English), he resorts to violence only out of necessity or peer pressure, and while he does seem to run breathlessly from situation to situation with very little control over what’s going on, he’s also adept at bluffing his way through life in a way both enviable and deeply human. His highly capable at using guile and cunning to survive any situation, but never comes across as a slick huckster, and is certainly not infallible—he talks himself into as many situations as he talks himself out of, particularly when trying to maneuver around a belligerent goddess who takes offense at the smallest slight.
Quillifer’s sense of humor and preference for guile and tactics over outright force provide a perfect vehicle for Williams’ ear for dialogue. This book is packed with conversations best described as labyrinthine, rapid back-and-forths between well-educated bandits and diplomats happy to spend as much time arguing about the proper translation of a law book or laying out the distinctions between types of pudding as they do plotting a ransom and murder—and all in the floweriest terms possible. The narrative is peppered with idioms, various customary statements, and exhaustive explanations, all voiced with Quillifer’s trademark good humor and flagrant invention, such that the exposition is an engaging as the action sequences. Yet this colorful banter never leaves the story without stakes—menacing villains, that angry goddess, and numerous other schemers and ruthless characters lurk in the shadows.
The cover promises this is but the first volume of Quillifer‘s life story, and I’m happy for it—I haven’t had more fun reading a novel this year.
Quillifer is available now.