Hello, and thanks for checking out my work. My name is Chris Willrich (it rhymes with “stitch,” but don’t worry if you forget) and I write fantasy and science fiction. (More below the jump.)

I’ve had a number of published short stories, many of them in a fantasy setting centered on a country called the Eldshore. Prominent characters in the series are the poet Persimmon Gaunt, the thief Imago Bone, and the black cat Shadowdrop. Gaunt and Bone have appeared in short stories in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lightspeed, Tales from the Magician’s Skull, and the sadly defunct Flashing Swords. Shadowdrop has appeared twice in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

I have a non-Eldshore fantasy story, “Runefall,” upcoming in the anthology Tales From Stolki’s Hall, edited by Lou Anders, set in his world of Norrøngard, which he’s explored previously in his Thrones and Bones novels and roleplaying game books.

I also write science fiction (edging into science fantasy) that has appeared in such places as Asimov’s, F&SF, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. My story “The Odyssey Problem,” which appeared in the June 2022 Clarkesworld magazine, will be (to my shock and delight) reprinted in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023, edited by R.F. Kuang.

Three books in my Gaunt and Bone sword-and-sorcery series (part of the Eldshore series) are available from Pyr.

The Scroll of Years recounts a turning point in the lives of the poet Persimmon Gaunt and the thief Imago Bone, lovers and partners in crime in a fantastical world. Yearning to retire from adventuring, settle down, and start a family, Gaunt and Bone must instead flee magical assassins all the way to the farthest East of their continent, there to encounter a grand empire with dangers of its own.

The Silk Map finds Gaunt and Bone undertaking a quest on behalf of a crafty demigod. They are to find a source of the magical material ironsilk, while contending with dangerous competition and traveling the vast Braid of Spice, a trade route inspired by the real-world “Silk Road.”

The Chart of Tomorrows completes the circle for Gaunt and Bone as they return to the West of their continent — a particularly violent part of the West inspired by our Earth’s Scandinavian history and legends, a region on the brink of war.

I’m also the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel The Dagger of Trust, set in Golarion, the world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Dagger follows the adventures of one Gideon Gull, bard and spy-in-training, as he races to prevent a war between two countries he loves. It’s available from Paizo Publishing.

That amazing cover art for the Gaunt and Bone books is by Kerem Beyit.

The awesome cover art that adorns The Dagger of Trust is by Lucas Graciano.

Thanks to Matthew Kressel for the web design for this page, and thanks again to everyone who has visited. For now I’m still maintaining a separate blog at Goblins in the Library.