Winterstrike

by Liz Williams

Winterstrike spy Hestia Mar has been sent to Caud to recover details of an ancient weapon. During her stay in the Martian city, she encounters the ghost of a warrior, who turns out to be the encoded representation of the city's bombed library. Hestia Mar manages to access the library's data, but realizes too late what she has done: by downloading the information, she has virtually guaranteed the use of the weapon against Caud by her own government. Desperate to rescue the situation she makes her way back home across the dangers of the Crater Plain.

Meanwhile, in Winterstrike itself, the festival of Ombre has been taking place upon the eve of war. Hestia's cousin Shorn -imprisoned by her family for accidentally consorting with a male - manages to escape. Her sister Essegui, pursuing her to the dangerous mountains of Mars, discovers a plot by creatures who hold the secrets of the Martian past, and its future. While Essegui battles forces back in Winterstrike, Hestia travels to Earth in an attempt to save her city . . .

'Williams's prose is unfussy and compelling . . . this is adventurous, thought-provoking science fiction' "The Times"

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

358 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Liz Williams is a British science fiction writer. Her first novel, The Ghost Sister was published in 2001. Both this novel and her next, Empire of Bones (2002) were nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.[1] She is also the author of the Inspector Chen series.

She is the daughter of a stage magician and a Gothic novelist. She holds a PhD in Philosophy of Science from Cambridge. She has had short stories published in Asimov's, Interzone, The Third Alternative and Visionary Tongue. From the mid-nineties until 2000, she lived and worked in Kazakhstan.[2] Her experiences there are reflected in her 2003 novel Nine Layers of Sky. Her novels have been published in the US and the UK, while her third novel The Poison Master (2003) has been translated into Dutch.

Series:
* Detective Inspector Chen
* Darkland

Reviews

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book quite a lot and it made me check Ms. Williams previous works so I ordered 4 more novels by her that are similar in style with this one - "gothic sf" as well as looking forward to the next installment in this series.

The book takes a while to get into especially for a novice to its world - Banner of Souls which I intend to read next takes place in the same universe as this one though earlier - but once you start understanding its setup, the issues and follow the adventures of our two heroines, cousins Essegui and Hestia, scions of a powerful family in the Matriarchy of Winterstrike which is one of the dominant cities on a far future Mars, you get hooked both to the story and to the very well imagined with a lot of sense of wonder, fantasy like setting.

Hestia is the daughter of a Matriarch and has some psychic powers including the ability to steal souls and occasional glimpses of the future that made her leave her rigid home and find employment as an operative of an Winterstrike sorceress/spymaster Generra that is connected at high levels with the Matriarchy.

One of Essegui's mothers, Allegheta - no "normal" men on Mars since they have been edited out of the genetic code a while ago - is also very ambitious and wants to become a Matriarch so she makes some shady deals with the same Generra and the Matriarchy in return for advancement.

In the middle of this are the 2 younger sisters of Essegui, especially Leretui who is close in age with both Essegui and Hestia and has been unusual since childhood, while the youngest sister Cantelei is just a child but worships Leretui and shows some of her more unusual tendencies.

When at the Martian annual festival of Ombre, Leretui transgresses the moral codes of Winterstrike by publicly consorting with an illegal "man revenant" - vulpen - she puts a span in Allegheta' status plans, so she gets imprisoned in her room, stripped of her name and called Shorn from then on

But Leretui/Shorn disappears mysteriously a year later after the same festival of Ombre and both the sheltered Essegui and the adventurous Hestia who is currently on an undercover mission in rival city of Caud are enrolled to find her.

In the meantime on Earth, a powerful ruler, the Centipede Queen - on Earth some of the genetically created races called "The Changed" live in peace with humanity, while on Mars they are barely tolerated and mostly persecuted - prepares to go to Mars to find Leretui since omens about the stirring of ancient and dark powers are connected with the missing girl.

Adventure on both Mars and Earth follows, with a satisfying ending tying the main threads of the novel, but the larger issues are still hovering in the background so I am awaiting eagerly the next installment in the series.

The only small niggle I have is that for most of the novel the voices of the two narrators Essegui and Hestia are barely distinguishable, though they both grow on you.

Highly recommended.

[Karaji Sanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

At some point..I couldn't tell which characterizes where which..they all blurred together...they might as well have been clones of each other. ..... The descriptions where too definite... Left little for the imagination... The scissor sisters made me laugh... If they were meant to be menacing..they were not.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This woman is like sekret ninja author - totally amazing, but totally under the radar?

3.5 stars only because of the surprise cliffhanger ending - I want my resolution godammit.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Winterstrike is a novel that vexes me as I attempt to write this review. The far future Mars is wonderfully portrayed and created, with homages to Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett. It is a terraformed Mars (water and air) of the far-future where technology is collapsing, spirits and magic exist, and some humans have been genetically modified. Women live in the cities while men are outcasts and live in the wild. There are a variety of geneticallly modified humans that are essentially other species/races.

Now let's get to the vexing parts of this novel. This novel unfolds in first person narratives from the spy Hestia Mar and her cousin Essegui Harn. Both are from the city of Winterstrike and have ties to the ruling matriarchy. For all of William's vivid world building, she fails miserably in characterization and voice. Other than expressing angst, resentment towards their mother(s), there is very little emotion portrayed in the narratives. Being chased by genetically modified humans, for example, rarely creates any emotion in the narrative--it is almost like, okay, since this is first person narrative, we know they will get out of this somehow. Both Hestia and Essegui's narratives sound the same--very lackluster and unemotional. Which requires one to read very closely to keep the narratives straight.

Despite the rave reviews, this book only gets two stars from me. The narrrative is tedious and at times confusing. William's has a great descriptive style, but her storytelling leaves a lot to be desired in this book.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this book as a friend who enjoys space operas gave it a rave review.
I'm challenging myself to try genres I'm not usually drawn to, sci-fi being one of them and want to try and see if its something I'd like.
I felt irritated a lot by this book and thought it was because I'm kinda new to sci-fi and perhaps I wasn't getting the allure but then saw other comments on GoodReads about this book and found myself relating to them so I am not the only one.

The world building is actually a 5, really enjoy reading the descriptions of the locations and the weather, very awesome winter read as this place is a cold icey, snowy climate.
The plot, whilst interesting was very messy and confusing- felt like I couldn't quite grasp it, just wasn't grounded enough for me.
The characters had no personality of their own and I had to keep refering back to names to remind myself WHO is the narrator of the chapter. It's confusing as it feels like one voice for all so nobody really stands out, they all just bleed into one.
However I did enjoy the gothic element to this story and the overall theme of it being a matriarchal/lesbian society-that was bloody brilliant and so interesting- I think we need more themes like this in entertainment.

Can't take characters like 'Scissor women' seriously, I just....I giggle every time but then I'm dealing with difficult things in my personal life right now and need a good giggle! So a blessing in disguise?

Author kept starting many of her sentences with the word 'Then' which I found kinda sloppy and annoying--- 'Then this happened' 'Then I did this', 'Then I saw that', 'Then the gates suddenly closed.'....Once I've pointed this out to you, you can't not notice it-someone should do a tally of how many 'Thens' there are.

Conclusion it felt like a sort of 'beach read' for the more geeky sci-fi person (Which sometimes all of us need, deserve and love) and I can see the appeal, we all need that cheesy read in every genre.

3 star because it was ok overall. But then maybe Sci-Fi might not be for me? Perhaps I'll just stick to magical realism, southern gothic horror and memoirs?

[Nick Ray]

Far future systems, boring DNF

[Sarah Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deliciously gothic space opera in a far future Mars ruled by the Matriarchies. Science and magic powered by ghosts. War, mystery, experiments and wall to wall lesbians. Perfect.

[Soho_Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

The start of any new trilogy is fraught with danger. There needs to be enough to capture the reader's attention and leave them wanting more. Yet, whilst the fact that there is more needs to be obvious, you need to leave the reader with a sense of wonder at exactly what this more may be. There needs to be enough story here, but enough potential story left at the end to sell the other two parts. If the balance is right, the author leaves the reader begging for more and that's exactly what Liz Williams has done here.

In the Martian city of Winterstrike, the Harn family are preparing for the festival of Ombre. To the reluctance of their two mothers, their middle daughter Leretui is allowed out of her locked and windowless room for the first time since she disgraced herself and her family by consorting with an undesirable at the previous year's festival. Perhaps predictably, she takes the opportunity to escape and her older sister Essegui is sent after her into the mountainous region of the Noumenon.

Far away, their cousin Hestia is in the rival city of Caud, searching for details of an ancient weapon that they are rumoured to possess. She finds this, but Caud is attacked soon after, leaving Hestia feeling guilty that she may have caused this to happen by passing over the details. At the same time, up in the Noumenon, a band of creatures thought to exist in smaller numbers and a far less organised fashion are planning an attack to restore their figurehead to power in Winterstrike. A centipede Queen from Earth also has an interest in this and Leretui seems to be important to everyone, although not always for the same reasons.

If this wasn't already intriguing enough, some of the ideas Williams has come up with are incredible. Admittedly, the thought of a society made up completely of women isn't a new one and the political manoeuvring is something you see a lot, but it's the details that really make this story. The armour that warriors wear, for example, uses something called haunt-tech, which is essentially power generated by the spirits of former warriors. It's an idea so wonderful in its imagination that I couldn't help but be impressed by it. Even better, rather than going into the mechanics of this haunt-tech and taking some of the magic out of it, Williams just puts the idea out there and lets the reader's imagination do what it will with it.

The excisseres are another masterful touch; women armed with scissors who are pretty much the Martian police and who communicate through visual images of wounds on their armour. The idea of the library of Caud taking a ghost form and being able to follow Hestia around to give advice was as unexpected as it was marvellous. The soul stealing to control people isn't an entirely new concept, but the way Essegui used the technique at one point late on added an interesting twist to it and some of the things the centipedes were used for was innovative and unusual as well. This is without even thinking about the race known as the Changed; people or creatures who have been modified, such as the vulpen who have retractable blades in their feet to help them move around the ice world that is Mars.

Of course, you can have any numbers of new ideas without having a decent story, but Williams combines them both. Leretui was never quite what she appeared to be, Peto was hiding a secret from Hestia and I was never entirely sure whose side Rubirosa was on at any given point, not even if she was on her own side. Essegui's aims were fairly clear, or seemed to be, but the person who was helping to control her didn't have the same obvious motives and Hestia's outlook changed frequently the more information she found out and the less she became able to trust her superiors and more or less everyone else she encountered.

Williams' writing kept pretty much all of the characters off balance throughout the entire novel and, thus, keeps the reader off balance in the same way. They thought they knew what was coming, as did I, and both were wrong. Characters appeared and disappeared, not always with the same aims or having made progress between the two points. I've come to the end of the book with no clearer idea of exactly what is going on than I had when I started.

When the end came, despite the impressive cliff hanger the book finished on, I was furious. "You can't leave it there!" I thought. "What about her, where is she? " But, of course, Williams could leave it there and did and all I'm left with is the desperate hope that the continuation isn't too far into the future. This was such a wonderful story and there is clearly much, much more to come. But, at this point in proceedings, I have no idea which direction that will take me, I only know that I really want to find out.

This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

c2008: FWFTB: library, weapon, ghost, Mars, matriarchy. Somehow, I thought this was a stand alone novel and I knew I was in trouble when the blurb on the inside flap mentioned a 'return to the bold and captivating world she created in Banner of Souls'. Perhaps that was why I was just unable to connect with any of the characters and the world seemed so disjointed. There were a lot of things that I just did not 'get' and the plot was not strong enough to make me forget that I didn't know how everything worked. So, unfortunately, unable to recommend to the normal crew. "Rubirosa's armour was cumbersome at firs, but I rapidly got used to it. In the old days, so I'd heard, haunt-armour was haunted indeed, but this simply whispered to itself, then fell silent, as I stripped it from its mistress and put it on."

[Pete Aldin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There'll be many who'll enjoy this book and many who'll hate it. I have a foot in both camps.

The Guardian's review quoted on the cover says, "Beautifully written, seamlessly plotted and profound." Well, they got 1 right out of 3. Williams' prose IS beautiful. She's immensely talented and skilled in narrative.

But plot? This meandered all over the place as if trying to find itself. And I was thoroughly annoyed when the book ended on a cliffhanger suggesting a sequel. I barely cared enough about the characters to make it thru one book let alone another.

Profound? A bizarre description. What was profound about it?

Great world building. Great prose. And if u enjoy rambling narratives set in alien worlds, this is for u. Not my cup of tea.

[Michi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Main characters were indistinguishable from each other. The story is told almost entirely in first person, and the two main characters move from place to place so often while meeting some of the same people that after a while, I gave up trying to follow the narrative. It had some interesting world-building, but when I couldn't tell characters apart or feel anything for them, it was a slog. The ending was a cliffhanger, but I am done with the series.

[Ann Tonks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't read Science Fiction very often but this was a good combination of SciFi and Fantasy. Set on Mars and Earth with ghosts and modified humans and matriarchies, it was an absorbing read...although with the irritation factor of an ending that implies a sequel.

[Martyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating mix of fantasy, sci-fi and the supernatural.

[Flexnib · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars because I couldn't like any of the characters.

[Owen Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh