Genre: Fantasy, Slow Fantasy, LitRPG
LGBTQ+ Category: Ace, Bi, Demi, Gay, Gender Fluid, Lesbian, Non-Binary, Poly, Trans MTF. The main character is also aromantic, and there are a few agender characters
Reviewer: Kristi
Get It On Amazon
About The Book
Sophie Nadash once yearned to understand life and chemistry. Now a disillusioned scientist approaching middle age, she yearns to set aside pipettes and polymerase forever.
A chance encounter with the Goddess Artemis sets her on the path to becoming the Alchemist for the rural Shemmai village of Kibosh, where the rat race gives way to peace and the quiet life. Freed from the hustle of Earth, she can relax, make friends, and rediscover her love for chemistry through its mystical precursor… and come to grips with the Jewish faith she left behind as a child.
Quill and Still weaves together chemistry, mythology, magic, and an off-the-path Judaism to form a slice-of-queer-life, which reviewers described as “like opening up a pulp fiction novel and getting Milton’s paradise lost”. It’s perfect for lovers of cozy, slice-of-life fiction in the vein of Becky Chambers’s “Records of a Spaceborn Few” or Jo Walton’s “Lifelode”.
The Review
There’s something incredibly shock-delighting in being a reader and finding yourself not only at home, but in the kind of fully-realized home that you didn’t think other humans could understand. Quill and Still was that world for me.
This is a review and not a summary, so I’ll stay in my lane fully here. I loved that the setup was immediate and unequivocal, and then we were through the gateway and now I was Sophie of THIS DIVINE SPARK REALM and I could hear and see that connectivity to that beyond time and space. Perhaps it’s due to my literally going to multiple shamanic women communities to learn and share myself that invites the language I’ll use for this story: going along with our protagonist in this languid, time-dilated, interstitial allspace newworld of Kibosh is truly like being both the Observer and Observed, in coherence. It’s a very shamanic, bridge-as-experience feel of storytelling.
We hear Sophie and her interactions on the multi-D of Archetypal space that she never leaves, but yet she does. Because we get her inner monolgists as well as the actual deities who exist in the world where we go with her. Honestly… it was another version of me. Hence the goosebumps. Someone else actually captured that and put a beautiful world for her to be in. She just said yes and keeps analyzing and realizing she bought a non-refundable ticket for the ride.
The author gave a nod to Elizabeth Bear, who’s also a favorite of mine. I do feel that practical architecture through this story, but in Quill and Still, no stone is left unturned. This is a fully immersive tale.
If you’re looking for a story in which you’re given sparse framework and you fill it in within the physics of the world, this is its tension opposite. Quill and Still is where you go where even your own most arcane question about “But how does it work?” will be answered. It’s a cornucopia of realness, within a place just slightly eldritch from your own.
From the summary, I thought I would be walking an entirely different path. To my surprise and disquiet (in that eldritch, yummy way), I found myself more in a dreamy hot air balloon.
Thanks for taking me along for the ride, with such multifaceted views.
The Reviewer
Former extensive beta reader and story reviewer on pre-Russian-takeover LJ. I came from Tolkien/HP/Wraeththu/other fandoms to write some m/m original fiction. I’m so glad to be at QRI as an author and I want to be a voice in the community through reading and reviewing. Looking forward to reading other genres of stories and adding my voice so others can have more feedback and commentary.