Very strange book, in conclusion. Written by a German writer of Turkish descent, Akif Pirinçci. The premise is a virus that kills all men in the world within the space of a few years, while all women carry it (thus killing any male foetuses) but aren't affected by it themselves. However, most of the first four fifths of the book consists of flashbacks to flesh out the lives of the protagonists prior to that point - and then the last fifth is mostly a fairly bizarre dystopian story featuring a power-hungry psychopathic tyrant and a bunch of rebels struggling against her. As far as serious exploration of what a world without men might be like goes, it doesn't really lead anywhere interesting, despite some abortive attempts here and there. I'm strongly inclined to call the conclusions of the author, such as they seem to be, rather misogynistic, but it's not really clear whether there are supposed to be conclusions at all.

Nevertheless, there are definitely good passages in some of the flashbacks, and the author is pretty good in the action scenes of the main plot, with a few memorable moments that stand out, and what has to be the single most hilarious and revoltingly appropriate death for a villain ever. I don't regret reading the book, if the plot was often utterly absurd, it was at least mildly and occasionally very entertaining. But in all fairness I have to say the characters are seriously lacking, the pacing is a mess, the attempt at dystopia is weak, and interesting analysis of the idea of a purely female world is only occasionally to be found. And apart from the aforementioned brilliant death scene, most of the many other ultra-violent and/or sexually explicit scenes in the book seem to have little to justify them - character development, I suppose, but with the characters being as cardboard as they are, that rings rather hollow as justification.

In all, not to be recommended - but then, I don't even think this novel has been translated to English.