2007 Book Log #3: Banner of Souls, by Liz Williams

I'd been meaning to read mevennen's Banner of Souls for quite a while now, and only now just got around to it. It was worth the wait, by and large.

The most attention-getting thing about the book is definitely the fact that it's set in a distant future where the solar system is populated by an entirely female society--but that isn't even the point of the plot, so don't go in expecting it to be an anti-male screed. It isn't. What the plot is about is how the Martian warrior Dreams-of-War must journey to Earth to become the guardian of Lunae, a young woman destined to become "the woman who holds back the flood", and how Dreams-of-War must prevent another woman, Yskaterina Iye, from killing her.

I've seen reviews that compare Williams' prose to Ursula K. LeGuin, and while I've read less LeGuin than I'd like, I can kind of buy this. Like LeGuin, Williams makes her prose both substantial and lyrical. This went a very long way towards balancing out the small nitpicky problems I had with the book: one, that the intriguing hints of backstory (such as, why aren't there any men in this society? What happened to them?) never became more than hints, and two, that the ending came across as a bit too pat and convenient.

But all in all, a satisfying and interesting read, one that left me eager to find more of Williams' novels. Four stars.