“Quillifer, You are singular, like your name.”

Who is Quillifer? A merchant adventurer (owning multiple ships carrying valuable cargo or playing privateer), a pricy jewel dealer (fabricating stories to match gems with their buyers), a knight errant (being called “a rampallian knight” by his betters), a monster slayer (dealing with dragons, iron birds, etc.), a self-promoter (paying a bard to sing a complimentary song about him at a court feast), a natural actor (donning the faces of choirboy, lawyer, country squire, etc.), a serial lover (advising young men to find a wife—another man’s wife), an inventor (creating mass-produced ink, savory cuisine, neologisms, etc.), a target of divine malevolence (suffering the machinations of Orlanda, a goddess who doesn’t take well to being rejected), and, he tells us from the start, a traitor to the crown in some way (working with his current lover on some great treason that will see them triumph or get executed). His constant curiosity, endless energy, and original intelligence kick into high gear whenever he faces a challenge or encounters a stultifying tradition. It’s amusing to watch the nobility scorn and insult Quillifer, only for him to get the better of them. And once he conceives a plan, he MUST put it into action no matter how dangerous it may be to the people around him or to himself.

And he’s not quite 22.

Quillifer lives and operates in an Elizabethan-esque fantasy world of swords and canons, a non-human humanoid species (the Aekoi) that produces pirates and prostitutes (their women can’t be made pregnant by human lovers), a region that spawns chimera and other monsters, and (so far) two dominant human cultures: longtime rivals Loretto (Italian-French-like culture) and Duisland (English-like culture and home of Quillifer).

When Quillifer (2017), Walter Jon Williams’ first novel about his protean young hero, ends, the butcher’s son has been made a knight after a big novel full of (mis)adventures including the massacre of his family and the sack of his home town by Aekoi pirates, capture by a bandit lord, a key role in foiling a rebellion, a knighting, and the first inimical attention of Orlanda.

When the second novel, Quillifer the Knight (2019), begins, Quillifer is narrating his story to his current lover, strategically withholding her identity from us while detonating foreshadowing bombs referring to their treason. He starts his account with his return from a long-distance trading voyage bearing a rich cargo when, not far from his home port, an terrific storm savages his ship.

In the rest of the novel, Quillifer conceives new projects, gets new married lovers, takes tennis and guitar lessons, hunts a dragon, races in a regatta, hires a manservant/bard, becomes court Warden (i.e., monster hunter), hangs out with his friends (the Duke and Duchess of Roundsilver, Blackwell the playwright, and Lipton the cannoneer), banters with Princess Floria (she and Quillifer are great together), duels enraged nobles (never let Quillifer choose the setting of a duel), not quite works for the scary dead-eyed royal spymaster Edevane, and so on.

We start suspecting that Quillifer and his lover are engaged in a little rebellion because of the increasing religious, economic, and political tyranny that Queen Berlauda’s husband from Loretto and his people are imposing on the hitherto independent Duisland.

The extended and detailed two-chapter sequence involving storm, shipwreck, and salvage that starts the novel is a bit too long, straining the bounds of credulity as to how anyone (even Quillifer’s lover) could sit still and listen to his monologue story without once reacting or interrupting.

In general, the conceit of Quillifer telling the whole novel to his lover stretches past the breaking point before it finally gets interesting in the resolution to the climax. I’d have preferred Williams to just have Quillifer tell his life story to undefined readers.

The novel is also a little too heteronormative for today’s world, compared to things like, say, Martha Wells’ Witch King, but it does feature some formidable female characters, like Lady Ransom (a brilliant astronomer), Countess Marcella (a mysterious Aekoi woman), Princess Floria (a petite, charismatic, careful, and clever young woman), and Orlanda (an apparently spiteful, malificent, and omniscient goddess).

There are moments of fine faux Elizabethan dialogue, like “You purpose to fight dragons now?” and

“I am charged to bear this message.”
“Do not then lose your bearings, for what you bear is beyond all bearing.”

There are also many fine, vivid descriptions, like this:

“The dragon lay in the sun on a tawny field spotted red and white with murdered sheep. It rested on the grass in shimmering, tumbled coils, and it seemed to gleam with shifting colors like a fire-opal. I had seen that scintillation before, in that great serpent that rode the storm earlier in the year, and I knew it was a sign of the supernatural power that animated the worm. The drake was difficult to look at, and I did not care to look at it directly, but only from the slant of my eye, and even then I felt uneasy, and there was an eddy in my thoughts at the touch of the extramundane.”

Ralph Lister reads it all with aplomb and a wry, almost insouciant manner that enhances Quillifer’s wit.

The large novel is mostly quite absorbing, and it features a great surprise revelation near the end of the climax, and I’m looking forward to the third book, Lord Quillifer (2022).

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

Our Hero and the Goddess l

I enjoyed listening this book by Walter Jon Williams. Once I became used to the narrator speaking in the language of true English, it was exciting to listen. The book is interesting and pleasure to listen to. The Narrator is gifted with his talent and held my interest from cover to cover.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Lots of fun!

Quillifer fights a dragon, rescues a princess, and invents ink. What more could you ask for?

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

WJW does it again

I’ve read nearly everything this author has published, and am continually amazed at his inventiveness and skill. This is a great story, presented in prose that accentuates the narrative. Sailing, ink making, swordplay, clothing, dining and travel across the countryside are all described in vivid, minute detail that gives the reader a sense of what it was like to live in the 17th century.

Can’t rave enough.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Amazing twist

The author does it again the story is amazing and has the best twist I have even heard

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Worst choice of narrator

I loved the first Quillifer novel and thought an audio would be a great way to follow up on the sequel. Wrong. The narrator couldn't be worse for this novel. I'm sure there are many selections where he's a fine choice, but his voice is completely wrong for the smooth, whimsical, Errol-Flynn-type narrator you expect with Quillifer. I don't know how old the narrator is but he sounds like he's in his 70s.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!