Winterstrike is a city on Mars which is on the verge of war with the city of Caud. Hestia Mar, noblewoman and spy, is in Caud searching through the ruins of a destroyed library for information about an ancient weapon of awesome power. She is provided with information by the ghostly manifestation of the Library itself, but only after she has been captured by scissor-women, the terrifying police of the cities. Shortly thereafter the prison where she is held is destroyed... by a terrible weapon. She escapes from Caud, takes up with a marauder, passes through the ghost-haunted realm of Noumenon, encounters someone who claims to be the long-dead warrior queen, Mantis, and eventually goes to Earth where she meets the servants of the Centipede Queen.
Back in Winterstike Hestia's cousin, Essegui Harn, is concerned about her sister, Leretui, who has been imprisoned in a room in the family mansion for a year. Her crime – associating with one of the vulpen, the genetically altered remnants of men. This is the ultimate perversion, for males are vermin. After Leretui escapes, Essegui goes in search of her. In the course of this search Essegui also visits Noumenon, also encounters Mantis, and also tangles with the Centipede Queen's servants, though in addition she meets the Queen herself who has come to Mars for reasons which are never explained.
The story is largely told in alternating first person chapters from Essegui and Hestia, with occasional "interludes" in third person from the point of view of Leretui and Shurr, a servant of the Centipede Queen. This created a problem for me as the voices of Essegui and Hestia are almost identical, and as the book progressed I had sometimes to check the chapter titles – which give the name of the narrator and her location – in order to be sure who I was reading about. Further, Essegui doesn't only talk like her cousin, she acts like her, too, with capabilities for escaping and violence which I found a tad unbelievable in view of her sheltered, aristocratic background.
The beginning of the book, with its descriptions of a winter festival of Ombre, drew me in at once and I was entranced by Williams' wonderful imagination and ravishing descriptions – her writing is atmospheric, even poetic at times. There is wit in the voices, the dialogue between Essegui and her mothers is perfectly caught, and the characters are real and memorable. However, for some reason I found it hard to empathise with either Essegui or Hestia and their repeated misfortunes didn't trouble me or invoke any sense of sympathy.
Moreover, there is little or no character development here, save for Leretui herself, whose story of change, which for me should be the crux of the book, is curiously sidelined by the way it is told, with so much emphasis on the event-filled journeyings of her sister and cousin. Both Essegui and Hestia are involved in incident after incident – they are attacked, kidnapped, threatened, held in captivity, freed, and escape only to be recaptured... After a while it felt repetitive. Also, it is clear they are merely puppets, and that someone is manipulating everything and everyone behind the scenes.
The women's stories began to pall as the book progressed and by the end I was left somewhat dissatisfied with the novel as a whole. Moreover, this is only the first of a trilogy and the book ends abruptly with only part of the overall story resolved.
Despite the Mars setting, and the fact this is set millennia in the future, with Mars's terraforming a thing of the distant past, the feel of the book is more fantasy than science fiction. Any sufficiently advanced technology may be indistinguishable from magic, but here Williams has made magic her technology, with soul-stealing, ghosts which power defences and space travel which kills the travellers and revives them again. I gather this blurring of SF and fantasy is a staple of Williams, and it certainly creates a unique atmosphere.
Overall, this was an intriguing book, well-written, with depth, great imagination and some wonderful description, but, for me, Winterstrike doesn't maintain the promise of its opening. I'm interested enough in the world to read the second volume as and when it appears, but I so wish I could be sitting on tenterhooks waiting for it, as I might if the middle and end had remained as captivating as the beginning.
This is a condensed version of a longer review on my website http://www.damarisbrowne.com/#/review-winterstrike/4563370984
Back in Winterstike Hestia's cousin, Essegui Harn, is concerned about her sister, Leretui, who has been imprisoned in a room in the family mansion for a year. Her crime – associating with one of the vulpen, the genetically altered remnants of men. This is the ultimate perversion, for males are vermin. After Leretui escapes, Essegui goes in search of her. In the course of this search Essegui also visits Noumenon, also encounters Mantis, and also tangles with the Centipede Queen's servants, though in addition she meets the Queen herself who has come to Mars for reasons which are never explained.
The story is largely told in alternating first person chapters from Essegui and Hestia, with occasional "interludes" in third person from the point of view of Leretui and Shurr, a servant of the Centipede Queen. This created a problem for me as the voices of Essegui and Hestia are almost identical, and as the book progressed I had sometimes to check the chapter titles – which give the name of the narrator and her location – in order to be sure who I was reading about. Further, Essegui doesn't only talk like her cousin, she acts like her, too, with capabilities for escaping and violence which I found a tad unbelievable in view of her sheltered, aristocratic background.
The beginning of the book, with its descriptions of a winter festival of Ombre, drew me in at once and I was entranced by Williams' wonderful imagination and ravishing descriptions – her writing is atmospheric, even poetic at times. There is wit in the voices, the dialogue between Essegui and her mothers is perfectly caught, and the characters are real and memorable. However, for some reason I found it hard to empathise with either Essegui or Hestia and their repeated misfortunes didn't trouble me or invoke any sense of sympathy.
Moreover, there is little or no character development here, save for Leretui herself, whose story of change, which for me should be the crux of the book, is curiously sidelined by the way it is told, with so much emphasis on the event-filled journeyings of her sister and cousin. Both Essegui and Hestia are involved in incident after incident – they are attacked, kidnapped, threatened, held in captivity, freed, and escape only to be recaptured... After a while it felt repetitive. Also, it is clear they are merely puppets, and that someone is manipulating everything and everyone behind the scenes.
The women's stories began to pall as the book progressed and by the end I was left somewhat dissatisfied with the novel as a whole. Moreover, this is only the first of a trilogy and the book ends abruptly with only part of the overall story resolved.
Despite the Mars setting, and the fact this is set millennia in the future, with Mars's terraforming a thing of the distant past, the feel of the book is more fantasy than science fiction. Any sufficiently advanced technology may be indistinguishable from magic, but here Williams has made magic her technology, with soul-stealing, ghosts which power defences and space travel which kills the travellers and revives them again. I gather this blurring of SF and fantasy is a staple of Williams, and it certainly creates a unique atmosphere.
Overall, this was an intriguing book, well-written, with depth, great imagination and some wonderful description, but, for me, Winterstrike doesn't maintain the promise of its opening. I'm interested enough in the world to read the second volume as and when it appears, but I so wish I could be sitting on tenterhooks waiting for it, as I might if the middle and end had remained as captivating as the beginning.
This is a condensed version of a longer review on my website http://www.damarisbrowne.com/#/review-winterstrike/4563370984
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