Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quillifer | 2017 | Walter Jon Williams | Buy |
| 2 | The Book of Swords | 2017 | Walter Jon Williams | N/A |
| 3 | Quillifer the Knight | 2019 | Walter Jon Williams | Buy |
| 4 | Lord Quillifer | 2022 | Walter Jon Williams | Buy |
The Quillifer series marks Walter Jon Williams’s move into secondary-world fantasy after decades of writing science fiction. The books are set in a world that resembles Renaissance Europe, and the title character is a lawyer’s son from a provincial town who gets caught up in wars and court politics after his hometown is destroyed. Quillifer tells his own story in a first-person voice that is boastful and self-aware.
Quillifer (2017) sets up the world and the character, Quillifer the Knight (2019) follows his rise in society, and Lord Quillifer (2022) continues his increasingly complicated political life. The Book of Swords anthology also includes a related story. Williams brings the same attention to political scheming that he shows in his space opera, but the Renaissance-flavored setting and Quillifer’s roguish personality give these books a distinct flavor.