What do You think about Banner Of Souls (2015)?
This was.... an ambitious story - possibly too ambitions - but I will give it this: It's the first time I have ever seen a man-hating, racist, genderist, speciesist, bad humored, standoffish woman portrayed successfully as a heroic character. In a world where the male half of just about every species is considered obsolete and unnecessary, several women journey out to save humanity in a mind bendingly alien world. If you can last long enough through the alieness, I found the story to be quite gripping, if also at times off putting due to some of the imagery and the attitudes of the very strongly opinionated characters. It works, though. It works well. Unfortunately, like many of Liz William's other books, which tend to have a secondary connected plot stream running parallel to the main story, I found myself almost ignoring half of the going ons with the one disconnected girl who was running around on a quest of her own. I kept a close enough eye on her part of the story to get a sense of what was going on - which turned out to be a good idea over skipping entirely - as both threads built up momentum and collided spectacularly with each other.Then, just as I got to the explosive climax - as I also felt with many of her other books - I was left with the sense that the ending was a bit too convenient, even if it worked well with the story. That was a little disappointing.Still, I think it is worth the read.
—Speedtribes
This is a fascinating, complicated book with an interesting story and some excellent world building. The way Williams tosses the reader into the world she has created and then slowly reveals its complexities as the tale progresses is beautifully done.However, for me there was something lacking. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but I think I'll have to go with 'soul' or 'emotion'. That's what got it a relatively low rating from me.All the same, I recommend it to others for the spectacular world building and realise that they may find it not to be lacking in anything at all.[Copied across from Library Thing; 9 February 2013]
—Kerry
I had a hard time reading this book. It's one of the few science fiction books where I couldn't hold my suspension of disbelief.Forget the haunt-tech bringing the spirits of the underworld back to life to serve in machinery. I'll buy that, I'll buy a time travelling 9 year old, I'll buy that all the males are dead and that people on Mars believe that they colonized Earth rather than vice versa.But. This is a civilization which can jump from Pluto to Earth, and they don't have ubiquitous e-mail. Or cellphones. Or anything resembling a police force that would like to notice these interesting characters running around with guns. Not are there barely any characters surrounding the protagonists, there's barely a sense that the world reacts to their presence. It's a backdrop.And looking at it more closely: what in this story had any science behind it, or any kind of scientific thinking? You could transplant this story very effectively into a Lord of the Rings type setting and be none the wiser -- the ghosts would still be ghosts, the one dimensional warriors would still be one dimensional warriors, and the kind nursemaids, the plucky young girl with mystical powers and the evil monsters would all be exactly intact. And it would be more believable.Anyway. The plot is forgettable, the characters hackneyed, and the world ridiculous. Apart from that, it's great.
—Will
