Liz Williams’ BLOODMIND (TOR, 2007) continues the story set up in DARKLAND. Williams reminds me of a juggler as she launches three separate plots in motion. The main one involves the assassin, Vali, on the war-torn planet of Muspell. In the second plotline, Sedra, a dying woman on the planet of Mondhile holds the key to a super weapon. And the third plotline, on the misogynist planet Nhem, women flee the male dominated cities and join a secret camp. The ending is open-ended so expect additional books in this series in the years ahead.

DARKLAND (TOR, 2006) features Liz Williams’ one-eyed female assassin, Vali Hallsdottir, who works for the all-woman organization, the Skald. The book opens with Vali assassinating a brutal dictator and then being betrayed by her partner. The secret identity of the partner leads Vali on a mission to the super-secret nation of Darkland and later to the weird planet Liz Williams started her SF career with in GHOST SISTER, Mondhile. The novel gets bogged down from time to time as Williams alternates from Vali’s first-person narrative to a third-person narration by the characters on Mondhile. All in all, a satisfying SF adventure.

Liz Williams’ sophomore effort, EMPIRE OF BONES, has all the flaws of a second novel: too many characters, too many subplots, and a breakneck pace. Williams’ develops a future where a highly regimented social structure is maintained by vast intelligences in “The Core” of the galaxy. This social structure resembles the caste setup in India. This is where the novel starts to go wrong. One of the lead characters is Jaya who just happens to be the leader of the anti-caste faction in India. She is also a Receiver who has the power to communicate with the aliens’ depth ship. So part of the novel concerns the revolutionary struggle on Earth and the second part of the novel concerns the galactic conspiracy of the castes to destroy up-and-coming castes like humans. If you can put up with the flaws, there’s still enjoyment in this crammed novel.

Liz Williams says that one of the writers she admires is Jack Vance. There are plenty of Vancean touches in THE POISON MASTER. The planet of Latent Emanation is ruled by the mysterious Lords of Night. Humans live in feudal conditions while the servants of the Lords, the Unpriests, cruelly police the populous. Alivet Dee, an apothecary, flees when one of her clients dies. Alivet meets the Poison Master who takes her off-planet to help him develop a poison that will kill the alien Lords of Night. But there is a conspiracy Alivet needs to untangle before she can decide which side she’s on. At 370 pages, there’s a lot of padding here. A good editor could have shortened the book by a 100 pages or more and made it a better book. But Liz Williams delivers a compelling story with intriguing characters. I’ll be reading more of her work.