Walter Jon Williams

Williams, Walter Jon. Quillifer. Quillifer No. 1. Saga, 2017.
I know Walter Jon Williams best for his science fiction, but Quillifer shows that he can create a consistent, original fantasy world and use it to tell an engrossing story. Quilifer’s world is a lot like Renaissance Europe, with plenty of minor wars, pirates, untrustworthy aristocrats, and vengeful barons. But it is also a fantasy world in which our quick-witted hero can be bewitched by a nymph if he is not careful. Our hero is a show more butcher’s son who is an apprentice lawyer. We first meet him making his escape from the bedroom of a woman whose father does not approve of is daughter’s dalliance. Soon, his town is sacked by pirates and he is kidnapped by bandits. He wants to be a sensible coward, but his resolution never lasts for long. When he is offered immortality by a goddess, like Odysseus, he turns it down in the name of autonomy and self-definition. It is a dangerous choice. I am not a big fan of this genre, but I enjoyed this one. show less

This is an interestingly ambitious novel, in that it's trying to be a lot of different things at once: a hard SF story; a police procedural with a mystery so strange it appears supernatural; an intimate look at life in a seedy, slowly dying New Mexico mining town; a thoughtful meditation on science and religion and the kinds of miracles that each can produce; and a portrait of a man who, depending on how you look at it, is either a corrupt bully or a righteous protector of his town and his show more people, or maybe both. These are all good things, and individually, the novel deals pretty well with all of them (even if the scientific premise isn't all that plausible), but somehow, for me at least, it never quite gels together fully, with the wilder SF aspects feeling a little out of place in the story about life as a small-town cop, and the slow-paced story about the small-town cop sometimes feeling like it bogs down what could otherwise have been a nicely suspenseful SF mystery. I get what Williams is doing in attempt to integrate all these disparate elements together, and in theory I appreciate it, but while the result is interesting, I think it misses the bullseye by a couple of inches. show less

If I could choose a term that described my overall impression of this book, it would most likely be: pleasantly dissatisfied.

Yes, an oxymoron.

Simply put, I expected more from this book. The pleasant part comes from the way certain events played out, covering major ground without treading too heavily on any particular subject.

The dissatisfied part comes from the blandness of the writing. I could discern no noticeable style or flair to Williams' writing, though, to his credit I was never show more annoyed by repetitive phrases or cliché situations.

I also never noticed any particularly well-written sections.

Admittedly, Traitor is a difficult success to follow, with the deep introspective passages, and intrigue surrounding Vergere’s intentions. Instead, Destiny’s Way is a sprawling epic, with appearances by a huge cast of characters, including a rather disturbing, but revealing portrayal of Ackbar. Because of its epic proportions, Destiny’s Way doesn’t have a chance to focus on any particular character for long.

Some of the things I enjoyed about this novel were the reappearance of Luke as a leader, taking large strides to help the Jedi. His dislike of Vergere is refreshing, but seeing Luke come to terms with a different point of view about the nature of the Force is the first truly original thing I’ve seen in the New Jedi Order to date.

Luke and Mara’s scenes were comfortable, though I’m a bit disturbed by how little Ben Skywalker seems to matter to them right now. Or at least by the way Williams portrays their emotions about him. The author had many opportunities to shed more insight into the characters’ emotions and actions, but did not capitalize on those chances.

Looking back at the book, after having read it, I realize that it was more action-oriented rather than character-oriented. That fact is what makes the novel unremarkable. A very good action-oriented novel might be remembered as great fiction, but this novel is simply another decent Star Wars novel. Had it been a paperback publication, this review would be much more positive. However, I don’t feel as if my $26 was well spent.

I must give credit to Williams for one thing I found fantastic. The space battles were indeed large and involving. Not to slight Aaron Allston or Michael Stackpole, whose portrayals of space battles are second-to-none, but Williams is the first author who has truly made me see a humongous battle, encompassing tens of thousands of troops on either side, in full-scale combat. He showed us utter fatigue and desperation of the fighter pilots that never seemed to show before.

We got to see the toll this war has taken on many of these pilots.

With that exception, and the final battle being the crown jewel of the novel, the myriad of events occurring in this book damage what might have been a fantastic story. Hopefully, this explains the oxymoron ‘pleasantly dissatisfied’.

Now on to Sean Williams and Shane Dix’s trilogy, for which I hold very little hope... show less

Hardwired is like a datablast straight from the cyberpunk id. Guns-and-drugs-and-sex-and-tech-and-power all tangled up and flashing with neon lights.

Cowboy is a panzerboy, the pilot of an armored hovercraft smuggling lifesaving medicine across what used to be the midwest, before the orbital corporations shattered Earth's government in a hostile take-over proceeded by meteor bombardment. Sarah is a bodyguard and assassin, hustling in Tampa to buy herself and her brother two tickets off-world. show more When a job and a betrayal brings the two of them together, they decide to fight back: for money, for revenge, for respect, for the sheer thrill of armored combat in the glow of the interface.

What transpires is some high-octane action in a neon hellscape, as Cowboy and Sarah slash across a damaged world writhing under the exploitation of the orbitals. There's all the cyberpunk tropes you'd expect: Addicts, deviants, megacorps, mercenaries, operators, and that awesome mid-80s computer tech. Hardwired doesn't aspire to high art or grand statements, but it gets what it means to be an outlaw and to fight for what you believe in against something huge and slick and inhuman in all aspects.

This is one of my new favorite books, a cyberpunk essential, and has catapulted Williams way up my 'to read' list. show less