Quillifer - by Walter Jon Williams (Paperback)

About the Book

"Quillifer is young, serially in love, studying law, and living each day keenly aware that his beloved homeport of Ethlebight risks closure due to silting of the harbor. His concerns for the future become much more immediate when he returns from a summery assignation to find his city attacked by Aekoi pirates, leading to brigands in the streets and his family and friends in chains. First, he has to survive the night. Then, he has to leave his home behind and venture forth into the wider world of Duisland, where he can find friends and allies to help avenge his losses and restore Ethlebight to glory. His determination will rock kingdoms, shatter the political structure of Duisland, and change the country forever"--

Book Synopsis

"Walter Jon Williams is always fun, but this may be his best yet, a delight from start to finish, witty, colorful, exciting and amusing by turns, exquisitely written." --George R. R. Martin

From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Walter Jon Williams comes an adventurous epic fantasy about a man who is forced to leave his comfortable life and find his fortune among goddesses, pirates, war, and dragons.

Rogue. Joker. Lover. Reluctant soldier.

Quillifer is a young man, serially in love and studying law, when a family tragedy throws him into the world to seek his fortune. A charmer rather than a fighter, he soon finds himself embroiled with a bandit gang, caught up in vicious court intrigues, and the plaything of an angry, beautiful, and very jealous goddess. While he struggles to establish himself in the capital, the country finds itself pitched into a civil war, and Quillifer, a unwilling soldier at best, finds himself caught up in the action, and able to tip the scales of fortune.

Quillifer, with its engaging hero and his exploits with lovers, brawlers, warriors, and privateers, is a book that bursts with life. It's the first volume in a new epic fantasy by bestselling and award-winning author Walter Jon Williams.

About the Author

Walter Jon Williams is the author of thirty volumes of fiction, in addition to works in film, television, comics, and the gaming field. Williams has appeared on the bestseller lists of The Times and The New York Times. He is a world traveler, scuba diver, and a black belt in Kenpo Karate. He has twice been awarded the Nebula Award.

Gregory Manchess is an award-winning painter and has worked as a freelance illustrator for nearly forty years on advertising campaigns, magazines, and book covers. His work has appeared on covers and for feature stories of National Geographic, Time, The Atlantic, and Smithsonian. Gregory's excellent figure work has led to numerous commissions for stamps by the US Postal Service, including the Mark Twain stamp and the recently released March on Washington stamp. With Manchess's passion for history, the National Geographic Society sent him on expedition to record the exploits of explorer, David Thomson, and chose his work to illustrate the adventures of the first discovery of an actual pirate ship for the traveling exhibition, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah, from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. Widely awarded within the industry, Manchess exhibits frequently at the Society of Illustrators in New York. His peers at the Society presented him with their highest honor, the coveted Hamilton King Award. Gregory is included in Walt Reed's latest edition of The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000. He lectures frequently at universities and colleges nationwide and gives workshops in painting at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, and the Illustration Master Class in Amherst, Massachusetts.