Lovely world & descriptions, the characters and plot leave me somewhat lukewarm though.

Part of the reason why may be the two POV characters failing to detach themselves from each other. Though the fine detail of their abilities might be a tad different, they share a good amount of past memories, appearance, and sort of react the same way to somewhat similar situations.
While there are in-world reasons why this may be so, more distinct voices might have been more enjoyable. ( )

For some reason I just could not get into this book and found it a bit of a slog. As it is the first part of a mooted trilogy this was dispiriting. There were thematic and stylistic similarities between this and the Darkland/ Bloodmind duo of books by Williams which I have read in the recent past but Winterstrike seemed to lack something in comparison.

On a far future Mars inhabited by women - any men are of the changed and to be shunned, contact with them is ostracisable - a woman called Alleghetta has her sights set on becoming a member of the ruling Matriarchy. The daughters of her union with her partner Thea are the main focus of the book as they play out the ramifications of the choices Alleghetta has made about their genetic inheritance.

The changed come in at least two types, strangely altered humans known as demotheas and vulpen who seem to be exclusively male. Curiously - and against the normal English usage (ox/oxen, child/children, brother/brethren) - Williams renders the singular also as vulpen.

Not much is made of the all-female scenario. The characters have all the venalities, jealousies and weaknesses that you might find in any society. Beyond the absence of sex scenes there isn’t much to set this novel apart from others. Maybe, however, this was the point.

The Mars in the book is as you might expect, terraformed and with canals on which someone of course takes a trip. This last is the one bit of using such a setting that is almost obligatory.

The two main protagonists are Essegui and Hestia whose paths soon diverge and never recombine, which is something of a fault in a multi-stranded narrative. (The book does end with a message between the two but this serves only to set up the succeeding volume.) Their other sisters Letetui, also known as Shorn, and Canteley are not viewpoint characters but Letetui is the hinge of the narrative. She has associated with a vulpen, been shut away, but escaped.

At times the treatment tips over from SF into Fantasy – or at least there is no convincing explanation of how certain things occur. Williams has shown such sensibilities in the past and this may be one of the reasons why Winterstrike did not appeal. Her descriptive writing, the convincing dropping in of essential detail, can be excellent though.

However, when a book fails to grip, infelicities begin to stand out, make the reading more difficult than it might be and, crucially, undermine trust in the author. Examples weren’t hard to find. There is a military aircraft - probably the one depicted on the cover – which Williams dubs a dreadnought and which, to indicate age, is described as having rust on it. Now, I would think that, even on Mars, a flying machine made of iron would have too high a density to get off the ground successfully. Some later chapters are set on Earth and feature a post-warming flooded Ropa (Europe) where there nevertheless is a city with an iron tower still surviving to poke up through the waves. The tower plays an important part in one of the scenes but it seems this iron structure is not susceptible to rust, despite enjoying the optimum conditions for it. Also at one point we have the phrase, “The woman brightened imperceptibly.” Really? If the brightening was imperceptible how, then, did the viewpoint character know it had occurred? There is also some confusion between born and borne.

Maybe it is this lack of the necessary consideration which is at the root of my dissatisfaction. A proper editing could have picked this sort of thing up but, increasingly, books do not receive the sort of close attention during the publication process they once did.

Unlike in either Darkland or Bloodmind this book does not bring all the strands together and as a result ends inconclusively. This is perhaps not surprising from the first part of a trilogy but I did feel somewhat short-changed. ( )

On a far-future, cold but terraformed Mars, the cities of Winterstrike and Caud square off against each other. Both are ruled by Matriarchies: men, in a degenerate form known as Vulpen, live as outcasts. Chapters alternate between two viewpoints: Hestia Mar, a Winterstrike spy in the city of Caud and Essegui Harn, her cousin, who is searching for her missing sister, Shorn, who was accused of consorting with Vulpen.

Deeper conflicts are slowly revealed: the Changed, genetically altered people/animals, want a place in society, secret genetic experiments are going on in Winterstrike along with cynical political deals, the Centipede Queen has traveled from Earth to Mars to meet Mantis, the legendary Martian necromancer and the two warring cities start to use ancient weapons of mass destruction, one of which Hestia found the plans for in a disused library in Caud.

While there is lots of invention and depth and the writing is crisp and stylish, there are problems. The two main characters have the same 'voice' and are distinguishable only by name. For them, being captured, getting in fights, etc are only ever minor inconveniences. Everyone else schemes and backstabs. The 'technology' used in this world seems to be magic and the dead ('Haunt-tech'). Why not label this novel as fantasy? This mileux reminds me a lot of her earlier Banner of souls and Bloodmind which also feature scheming women using magic 'technologies'. Is Liz Williams getting stuck in a groove? And finally, this novel just stops: how many more parts are to come? ( )