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.