The terrorists of Irustan Book

I didn't think they wrote feminist SF like this anymore. Okay, I know this book is not particularly recent, but it feels like it should be from the 80s. Not that I am complaining. It's a Handmaid's Tale sort of dystopia, one that in this case is a fictional future far-right take on Islam. With, yes, veiled women. Our heroine, Zahra, is a "medicant" (please note, in case you have done the same thing, that I read this as "mendicant" about five times; no, that would be a different sort of book) who is, basically, a doctor -- but one less well-trained than the doctors they have on Earth. Because here on this colony planet Irustan they have basically: mines, and a nasty prion disease that comes from breathing in dust in the mines. Also health care is, in Irustan's culture, exclusively the province of women.

The novel devotes a lot of time to showing how much the culture hurts Zahra and her apprentice and her friends; it's slow-moving, but still a compelling read that kept me up past my bedtime. The women don't manage to completely break Irustani society by the end of the book, but they sure try; you can see it coming from a long way away, but this is the kind of book where it doesn't really matter. Also, I should point out that it ends about as happily as possible in a book where the theme is basically "the patriarchy crushes everyone, let's kill it" -- which is to say, not very. There are also some hints at queerness, which, given the resolution, is more poignant than anything, but I am always happy to see same-sex themes in my reading.

Overall, I really liked the author's style, and I can't believe that somehow I missed this entirely the last time I was reading my way through feminist SF. I will definitely have to read more of her books.