The new Liz Williams SF novel, Winterstrike, is set in the same world as Banner of Souls, though it is not a sequel. Liz’s future Mars is ruled by a matriarchy that, in a nod to The Gate to Women’s Country, has not only kicked the men out of the cities, but has genetically engineered them into the animal-like vulpen so that they can go live in the wilds where they belong. The filthy degenerates on Earth still allow human males to participate in civilization – a fact that causes much disapproving tutting amongst the matriarchs of Mars.

Actually, however, there isn’t much gender politics in the book. I did, for a while, think that Liz was developing something interesting, but perhaps she had second thoughts as she killed the character off almost immediately. For the most part the book is an action adventure in which the characters get thrown from one mess to another through a succession of plot devices, and the whole thing ends on a cliff-hanger in readiness for a sequel. It is an entertaining page turner with a lot of nice imagery. I did, however, find the two viewpoint characters virtually indistinguishable, which is a shame because there are some other nice character portraits in the book.

As far as I can see Winterstrike is not available from Amazon in the US, but if you can order from Amazon UK here is the link.