The Blood Debt

“South Australian writer Sean Williams has been deeply ensconced in his Austral fantasy land for some years now, but his latest book is his clearest vision of the place. It is as though it has been gradually emerging as Williams writes, and now, in The Blood Debt (…), the plot lines are clearer and more engaging, and the landscapes more closely articulated.  Williams has been wrestling with a setting that was larger than any single book, and that is a very satisfactory thing. Most fantasy writers have a set-piece, battlefield kind of approach to their worlds, adding extra levels of fable or fiction to keep them interesting. But Williams has been much less mechanical in his approach, stepping through time, and coming from unexpected angles. This time, however, the sense of connectedness in all his landscapes and books is palpable, and various difficult-to-resolve threads have begun to twirl together. … Williams’ writing is suffused with themes of orphanhood, broken parenthood and flawed relations, and in this book the emotional themes and the physical landscape truly begin to reflect one another. It’s the best of the books so far” (Adelaide Advertiser)