Sylvia Kelso’s sequel to Amberlight continues in a similar vein of exploring gender issues without providing any pat answers. I don’t expect Riversend to be any more popular with the current crop of feminist fandom than Amberlight was, but I’m still enjoying the series.

Kelso is still busily torturing her characters by any means possible, but manages to justify the various plot twists fairly well. Also either I’m getting used to her style, or she’s got easier to read since the previous book. There are still a lot of passages where the characters talk in nuances and you have to work out what they were conveying to each other, but the prose appears to flow more easily now.

There are, apparently, more books on the way.

I’ve been asked to write something about feminist SF for Tahtivaeltaja and will have more to say about the books in that. You do all read fine Finnish semiprozines, don’t you…