Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey: Review by Colleen Mondor
Once Was Willem, M.R. Carey (Orbit 978-0-316-50502-4, $18.99, 320pp, tp) March 2025.
Once Was Willem, M.R. Carey’s new supernatural medieval fantasy, is a gorgeously written visit to 12th century England, a time of murderous lords, preoccupied kings and the life-and-death struggles of a small village called Cosham in the fiefdom of Pennick. This was the place and time of narrator Willem Turling, who died from illness at the age of twelve. The story would be sad but unexceptional, if Turling’s grief-stricken parents did not subsequently seek out a rumored sorcerer, Cain Carodoc. In return for a piece of Willem’s soul, they are promised the resurrection of their son. Things do not go as promised, however (they never do), and the Willem who returns is… damaged. A monster in physical appearance and fragmented in memory, he is ‘‘Once Was Willem’’ and his horrified parents turn him away. But Willem remains connected to Cosham and its environs, and the story he tells here is of the events which unfold in the village as Cain Carodoc’s power grows in the most horrifying of ways.
Carey’s plot follows the arrival of Carodoc to Pennick, after a successful assault on the local lord by an invading force. The sorcerer ingratiates himself to the victor while engaging in his own pursuit of a prophecy which promises great power found in Pennick. Carodoc has a few hurdles to overcome, however, including the need of occasional child sacrifice to retain his near-immortality, the need of child sacrifice to shore up the castle, and the need of child sacrifice to obtain the source of the prophesized power. As is all too soon clear to readers, Carodoc needs a lot of living children to kill, and Cosham is home to many children.
Willem becomes aware of Carodoc’s nefarious plans at the same time that he meets, one by one, other ‘‘monsters’’ in the woods near the village. The group become friends, exhibiting levels of kindness to each other that the villagers have often denied them. (This is not universally true, but true enough.) They develop a plan to confront and defeat Carodoc and the others holding the castle and save the children. It relies on the villagers’ help, and in gathering that assistance, they all come to terms with their common enemy and the horrors that Carodoc has been inflicting upon them all.
Once Was Willem is quite effectively plotted and Carey masterfully executes the rousing tale with plenty of action and magic and intriguing supernatural beings each of whom is given their own spotlight. Once Was Willem is much more than the plot, however. Carey’s writing style and rhythm mimics sagas and epic tales, which conveys the era in which it is set without bogging down in inordinately complex language. From the Prologue’s early words: ‘‘My fingers are black with ink and my head aches as if it is about to burst at the seams like an over-stuffed flour stack, but this treatise at last is ended’’ until the very end, Carey maintains a writing sensibility that endears Willem to the reader while also never deviating from the time in which he lived. Altogether, he presents a tale of great heroics versus the obscenest of villainy while incorporating plenty of fantastical elements. Once Was Willem is an exceedingly satisfying tale for a long night and comfortable chair, and the sort to be avidly discussed as soon as the final page is turned.
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This review and more like it in the February 2025 issue of Locus.
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