I keep seeing the word 'dystopian' in connection to these books; maybe it's the reproductive controls? I don't think they're dystopian. The society in them is culturally alien in places, but it seems to function fairly well, although there are still in-groups, pettiness, prejudices, people who are routinely treated unfairly, and very occasionally murder. This, like the last one, is a gentle, melancholy mystery story about doing one's best to live kindly and sustainably in the new world after the apocalypse. The prose lingers on landscapes, and things happen at the pace of people who mostly walk to get where they're going, but it never feels slow or padded. I like this series a lot.