An interesting take on what society would be like 100 or so years after our world as we currently known it is gone.

The plot kind of meanders, but as I'm well aware having read Carrie Vaughn books for almost a decade now, the characters are full-formed and alive in a way that's sometimes hard to find in plot-driven books.

I don't know if I'll read the others books in this Saga. Depends on how I can across them, I guess.

I just finished the first two books of **The Bannerless Saga** series by Carrie Vaughn and loved them. They fall into the Venn diagram sweet spot of all of my favorite reads: fantasy, post-apocalyptic, mystery, police procedural, California/West Coast communities.

The series is set after “The Fall” when most people have died & our physical infrastructure of buildings, roads, etc has been nearly swallowed up by nature. Some communities in future California (and presumably all other parts of the world) have banned together along common Roads to help ensure everyone’s survival. Some individuals, though, subsist in smaller loose-knit groups by scavenging old world goods and remaking or reusing them; these people are living in the Wild and are greatly mistrusted by the Coast Road community members.

Enter the inevitable human characteristic of greed and chaos ensues. Therefore, the Coast Road communities have chosen to codify their histories of interpersonal trouble and any flaunting of community rules so that a small group of Investigators can use them to mediate disputes and pass appropriate judgement on those acting against the will of people.

I first read about this world that Vaughn created in her short story *Amaryllis* that was first published in the original issue of Lightspeed back in 2010. I recall reading it for one of the first Book Bingos as it was offered free for online reading. Later, she wrote the short story *Bannerless* for the anthology “The End Has Come” and this story is where we first meet Enid as an Investigator in Vaughn’s world.

“Earning a banner” is how a household can increase their size via pregnancy & childbirth. It is earned by proving to an outside committee that the household is stable and meeting its economic quotas for the region. Essentially, no one is supposed to be having babies willy-nilly because they take resources and resources are in short supply. To do so is to put the whole community at risk and therefore it is socially unacceptable. This remains a key feature of the Coast Road communities in her new series.

Enid of Haven is re-introduced in book 1 of Vaughn’s series, **Bannerless**. She is the series protagonist who serves as one of these Investigators and must use her wits and tenacity and the lessons learned from a mentor to police & judge the Coast Road communities well. Each book covers a different case and different community setting.

I should add that **Bannerless**(Book 1) is the winner of the 2017 Philip K. Dick Award. **The Wild Dead** (Book 2) was released in 2018.

I’ve always enjoyed Vaughn’s writing—all the way back to her Kitty paranormal series which begins with Kitty and the Midnight Hour. This series includes some of the first audio books I ever listened to and that I checked out from my library’s then-tiny downloadable audio collection. Her writing is clear, concise, and without flowery prose. I also find that her characters are complex and interesting with dialogue that feels natural.

Using the typical Goodreads metric, both books have earned 4 of 5 stars from me. If you like episodic stories, lighter police procedurals, mystery investigations, rural village life, and/or survival stories set after the Apocalypse, I think Carrie Vaughn’s new series will suit your fancy.

Carrie Vaughn's <em>Bannerless</em> is a quiet little book that sneaks up on the reader like the moon slowly appearing from behind a cloud. You know it's there but it's more and more beautiful as it reveals itself.

In some dystopian future of our world, civilization is recovering from some sort of socio-political, economic, and environmental collapse. Life is slower and simpler than the days before the collapse. The population and agriculture are carefully controlled in order to maintain a status quo. In order for a household to have children, they must first prove that they are responsible enough to earn the privilege and then they are awarded a 'banner'. Having a banner is a mark of being a good citizen.

But mankind and human nature hasn't changed too much over the decades.

Enid is an Investigator. It is a law enforcement job in which she is detective, cop, judge, and jury all rolled into one. She is young and hasn't worked on any serious cases but that's about to change. Enid and her partner Tomas are called to the quaint community of Pasadan along the Coast Road to investigate a questionable death.

Although the Investigators are asked to come, the locals aren't particularly welcoming to the duo. Enid knows that this sort of reaction is typical for someone in her line of work, but Pasadan's citizens seem to have something to hide. The dead man, Sero, was a loner with no friends and all signs of the death indicate that it was an accident. But something doesn't 'feel' right to Enid and Tomas is letting her take the lead.

Complicating Enid's investigation is the appearance of Dak, her former lover and now a wandering minstrel.

The tone here is quiet and methodical but still tremendously fascinating. I am reminded of Margaret Atwood's <em>The Handmaid's Tale</em> but less dark and creepy.

The mystery at hand is solid and Enid's investigation here makes this a really remarkable mystery. The sci-fi aspect is subtle and we get bits and pieces of the history and current state of affairs as the story develops and <em>this</em> mystery is even more intriguing than that of Sero's death (even if it is just a part of the setting).

I look forward to reading more in this world and learning more about these characters.

Looking for a good book? <em>Bannerless</em> by Carrie Vaughn is a wonderful mystery in a beautifully crafted future world and well worth reading.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I was given the opportunity, via NetGalley, to read an electronic copy of Bannerless by author Carrie Vaughn. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Enid is an investigator for her community, usually called on for issues surround theft or fraud. Other crimes, however, carry more serious weight in their society. Population is kept strictly regulated through the use of banners, which are portioned out based on good behavior of members of households who request one. Bannerless pregnancies and suspicious deaths also fall under the purview of the investigative branch, which can be difficult to solve based on the rudimentary tools at their disposal. When a community to their south requests an investigation for a suspicious death, Enid is expecting an ordinary crime that she can solve. As the puzzling pieces start to come together, will a blast from Enid's past change everything for her?

The author unfolds Enid's backstory, unspooling it a little at a time to flesh out her character. I am not usually a fan of time shifts, as they often disrupt the flow of the story, but it works well in the case of Bannerless. The book would not have been as compelling if the story had been told in a linear fashion. I would recommend Bannerless to readers who enjoy dystopian mysteries and I look forward to reading more by author Carrie Vaughn in the future.

This was fine (?), but not particularly compelling in its vision of a post-apocalyptic world. At it's heart, it's actually a detective story, but I don't think it could decide on a focus. Murder investigation or examination of the social conventions after all-out war? You can definitely do both, but this book did not.

ARC/Dystopia: I guess this book is more YA than adult and I'll get to t h at in a moment. This book is new, so no spoilers here. I will only tell you how I feel.

It took me a while to read this. The beginning interested me and I really liked the heroine. I liked that there was a murder mystery. I like the descriptions of the land and societal structure. I liked the flashback of the Enid's background, but I didn't understand why it was there. It only told the romance when I was expecting a whole revelation on why Enid became an enforcer. (And I wanted to know what happened in that town that her and her boyfriend visited). Her as an adult, I felt that part was more fulfilling.

My problem was lack of fulfillment in the plot.

As a side note: When I read dystopian novels, I always find issue with how exactly it doesn't all fall apart. For instance, The Hunger Game's society couldn't last ten years because it was so economically unsound with commerce. This one was better as everyone was expected to stay in commerce quotas and keep the birthrate down. And there lied the problem. About three-quarters of the way through, I realized the birth control used on the women would be the fall of the society. With all women having the implant, men would prey on the women and rape would be a huge issue since the women can't get pregnant. This is never brought up. If a town punishes an individual, they shun them so the enforcers don't come in and punish the whole town; there are no jails or prisons. Both times Enid walks back to her town, she isn't worried about someone attacking her. She doesn't even carry a stick.

love this author but this is not my favorite book from her. It is a dystopian adventure which I usually love but there was not quite enough adventure and mystery for me.

I'm unable to provide a review at this time. Unfortunately, I DNFed this book in the first 17%. It just didn't grab my attention. I apologize for any inconvenience.

I had a hard time getting into this book, it wasn't for me I don't think but the idea of it was really intriguing and dystopian type novels are still very popular in my bookstore and I hope to find the right hands for this book, those hands just weren't my own.
The banner system was an interesting concept and the way the society was presented was interesting, just wasn't enthralled with it unfortunately.

Quite a refreshing post-apocalyptic/dystopian. It isn't about grand schemes and socio-political conflict (not that I don't also love those), but the society in this novel is not-quite-utopian simply because of human nature. Though non-linear in the way that flashbacks tell the story, this is, at its core, a relatively simple murder mystery. It isn't intense, but it did keep me guessing, and the fleshing out of the main character through telling her story of how she became who she is was quite lovely.

I had read the author's urban fantasy series, Kitty Norville before, and this is an entirely different tone. I enjoy it just as much, however. I'd love to see more in this series, but I would picture different narrators telling different stories - the worldbuilding is excellent, and the gradual 'apocalyptic' level event (The Fall) that they reference seems quite realistic.

Not my favorite book as far as (YA?) dystopia novels go. Has an interesting sort-of gimmick and some get action set pieces but I didn't really sympathize with the characters and didn't find it plausible enough to be relatable.

THis book was a very good read and I liked the world it painted. It made me wonder if we will end up in a world like this or not. I did like the characters and how the backstory shaped Enid. I would like to read more!

Really great integration of murder-mystery and dystopian world-building.

Enid of Haven is an Investigator in the world created after the Fall. For a post-Apocalyptic story it is a gently book. While there is a murder most of the book in backstory and world building. As the story progresses we see what happened and how this group of people decided to change and survive. The Banner is the right to have a child and is at the heart of the murder. It looks like this might be a series and if so I want to read the next book to see what and where the characters go from here.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

There is an interesting world at play here in "Bannerless". A non-linear timeline also breaks up the story but does not detract from the plot. Ultimately I found the ending of the mystery to be satisfying but felt there was ample opportunity left on the table for further fleshing out of the setting based on the events of the "Fall". The ending was also a bit abrupt but I felt that it was representative of the main character so I did not have an issue with it. Overall, a worthwhile read.

Carrie Vaughn, author of the Kitty Norville series, takes on a new heroine in Enid, a young woman in a dystopian world who has become an Investigator, a feared although necessary enforcer and arbitrator of justice.

Like all of Vaughn’s heroines, Enid is strong with firm beliefs. Unlike the typical heroines, Enid is frequently angry, appalled by the behavior of some who are too selfish to consider others and the possible future they all share.

It took me awhile to warm up to Bannerless and I think that this was because Vaughn was trying to do a lot of world-building at the beginning instead of interspersing it. This made me wonder if Bannerless isn’t the beginning of a series, otherwise I couldn’t imagine why she would pace the novel so slowly at the beginning. The murder mystery, which I thought would be the concentration of the novel, was only a small part of a larger picture.

The dystopian world in Bannerless was created by a flu epidemic that killed much of the population and then devastating storms that still continue. This population is starting with practically nothing as much information has been lost because it was electronic.

As a reader of quite a bit of dystopian fiction, I found the world of Bannerless interesting. Told in sections of present time and past, the present dwells on the mystery while the past shows us the world beyond Enid’s town and the one where the murder occurred. Enid, Dak, a traveling bard, and Tomas, another investigator link the two periods.

While I would recommend Bannerless, I would recommend it for readers of dystopian fiction primarily rather than mystery readers. Although there is a good deal of action, much of Bannerless is character-driven, which some readers might find off-putting if they are expecting a lot of adventure drama.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn is a recommended murder mystery set in an agrarian post-apocalyptic society.

The world collapsed decades earlier and survivors of California have regressed into small towns along the Coast Road where enclaves of people are organized into households. The new society controls population growth and has strict guidelines that must be followed for farming the land. If a household proves that can take care of themselves they may be awarded a banner. The banner represents a child that the household can have because having children is a privilege in this society.

Bannerless follows two different stories set in two different timelines. Both feature Enid, either as a twenty-seven-year-old investigator or when she was a teen. In the present day Enid is an Investigator. She and Tomas, another Investigator, have to travel from their home in Haven to Pasadan in order to investigate the possible murder of a man named Sero. This is Enid's first murder case and she is determined to do a good job at discovering what really happened. In the end her investigation leads to even more questions about what happened and why it occurred. In the timeline from the past a teenage Enid travels with Dak, an itinerant musician who travels up and down the Coast Road, singing and playing his guitar.

The plot is set far enough in the future that details about the collapse aren't really well known. The narrative is interesting, but the world building feels like it is lacking. The focus is really more on small, limited aspects of this new society and the investigation. The Investigators carry notebooks, which seemed very odd and felt out of place to me. There are also some things from the past that they have carried into the future, like intradermal birth control implants and some solar powered cars around, that just felt like anomalies.

The travels of teenage Enid actually detract from the story rather than explain her current choices or aspects of her personality. It might have been better to just briefly explain how she knew Dak from the past rather than spend so much time on their travels. It didn't add to the story.

While I liked this novel, I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. This is a quick read, perfect for escapism or a beach read. You won't need to concentrate on the story in order to follow it.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/07/bannerless.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2066712879

Note: I received this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Bannerless is a post-apocalyptic novel about people living in an area of the US known as the Coast Road. The novel is set after the Fall, a time when plagues and global warming and unequal economic structures caused the collapse of society as we know it today. Our society has been replaced by settlements made up of households with varying numbers of adults in one house and each settlement is governed by a committee, which are in turn governed by regional committees. In order to have children, households must apply for banners, which are granted to households that prove they can sustain raising a child economically. Any woman in a household without a banner is implanted with a birth control device to prevent pregnancy and it is illegal to have children without a banner. In the midst of this collective society, the novel follows Enid, an investigator who travels around to various settlements to settle disputes and provide consequences when necessary. At the start of the novel, Enid is assigned to investigate a suspicious death in another settlement, where politics and secrets are obviously at play.

First, I did enjoy reading this novel. The mystery aspect was interesting, as I don't feel that I have read a lot of post-apocalyptic mysteries. Enid is an interesting protagonist, even if I didn't really care for her very much. She is a strong woman, which I admired, and is very much her own person. However, when it comes a society that seems dystopian, she is very much the enforcer of that society, which is a different viewpoint than the one I'm used to reading in such novels. Other characters were also interesting, though I found them to be a bit one-sided at times.

This novel was billed as a dystopian novel and the synopsis says that Enid's investigation will make her question everything about her society. However, I didn't really feel like that happened. Enid was an interesting character, but she didn't really seem to change over the course of the book as much as get more set in her ways and viewpoints. This was my major quibble with the book. I also felt like the world building could have been a little more in depth and made the world seem a little more dysfunctional. I mean, it wasn't an ideal society, but it all societies have their problems. I didn't feel like I got to see enough of the world to judge whether it was truly dystopian.

Overall, I liked this novel, but I didn't love it. I think a lot of that had to do with expectations I had from the synopsis that I didn't really feel were delivered on. However, I loved reading a mystery set in a post-apocalyptic world, and I really enjoyed that I finally had a protagonist I could occasionally feel negative things about. I don't seem to find a lot of books like that, and I think it makes for a very interesting reading experience.
Despite some of the drawbacks I had with this book, Goodreads is also identifying it as book #1 in a series, and I'll likely continue reading it. If you like mysteries and post-apocalyptic novels, I think you would probably like this book, too.

Half murder mystery and half dystopian coming of age story, Vaughn manages to write a compelling who-dun-it while sketching out an entire post-apocalyptic world. At the center of Bannerless is The Coast Road communities, a bucolic seeming utopia built after 'The Fall' of the modern world. This is a society where everyone works for their place and views themselves as caretakers of resources for the next generations. It isn't until protagonist Enid's story begins to unfold, both in the present and her wanderer past, that the unsettling foundations of this new society begin to poke through.

Enid of the present is a brown tunic'd investigator sent into a text book perfect town to investigate a possible murder. Despite claims that no one liked the deceased or talked to him, it's obvious the town is nervous about something and it just might shatter their future.

Enid of the past is a directionless young woman who seizes on an invitation to travel from a young troubadour she's fallen for. As they travel the coast road, it becomes clear that this utopian life isn't everything it seems to be.

Through alternating chapters, Vaughn uses Enid's past to inform her present, and helps to deepen the reader's understanding of the their world along the way without heaps of exposition. Bannerless is a great pick for a summer afternoon read - compelling, interesting, and surprisingly bright despite it's themes.