James Nicoll Reviews

Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake (April 2025)

Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.

Or at least, so they like to think.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You’re welcome! If only her father’s fortune wasn’t her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.

Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he’s losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.

Eilidh, once the world’s most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth — by confirming she’d been his favorite all along. 

On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins — but which Wren will come out on top? 

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The Outcast Mage by Annabel Campbell (January 2025)

In this glittering debut fantasy, a mage bereft of her powers must find out if she is destined to save the world or destroy it. Perfect for fans of Andrea Stewart, James Islington, and Samantha Shannon.

In the glass city of Amoria, magic is everything. And Naila, student at the city’s legendary academy, is running out of time to prove she can control hers. If she fails, she’ll be forced into exile, relegated to a life of persecution with the other magicless hollows. Or worse, be consumed by her own power. 

When a tragic incident further threatens her place at the Academy, Naila is saved by Haelius Akana, the most powerful living mage. Finding Naila a kindred spirit, Haelius stakes his position at the Academy on teaching her to harness her abilities. But Haelius has many enemies, and they would love nothing more than to see Naila fail. Trapped in the deadly schemes of Amoria’s elite, Naila must dig deep to discover the truth of her powers or watch the city she loves descend into civil war.

For there is violence brewing on the wind, and greater powers at work. Ones who could use her powers for good… or destroy everything she’s ever known.

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Usurpation by Sue Burke (October 2024)

After her rollicking standalone Dual Memory, Sue Burke returns to her Semiosis series and the world of Pax in Usurpation, which combines the thrill of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening with the eco-empowerment of VanderMeer’s Dead Astronauts.

Stevland, the dominant sentient lifeform of Pax, has clandestinely sent some of its progeny to Earth. To explore, to spread, to report back.

Since their germination, Earth has been a powder keg. Human rebellion, robot uprisings, and global pandemics have created chaos, distrust, and deaths.

As more and more conflicts break out across Earth, Stevland’s children work in the background, in an attempt to control human behavior and perhaps, bring peace to the planet. Stevland took control of Pax. Earth shouldn’t be too difficult…

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James Nicoll Reviews is supported in part by Patreon subscribers, to whom I am very grateful. You can join my Patreon here. You too can have ongoing say in which books I review! 

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Fabula Ultima Core Rules 1.02 by Emanuele Galletto (October 2022)

This is your world,
this is your story.

Make a choice
and fight for what you believe in.

FABULA ULTIMA is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game inspired by Japanese-style console RPGs, or JRPGs. In Fabula Ultima, you and your friends will tell epic stories of would-be heroes and fearsome villains, set in fantasy worlds brimming with magic, wondrous locations, and uniquely bizarre monsters!

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September saw an uptick in works featuring representative democracies. Not sure why, as I didn’t seek them out in particular. I also added a new review category, History’s Actors, because if there’s one thing this site needs, it is another review category.

September 2024

21 works reviewed. 10 by women (48%), 9 by men (43%), 1 by non-binary authors (5%), 1 by authors whose gender is unknown (5%), and 9 by POC (43%).

2024 to Date

196 works reviewed. 108 by women (55%), 83 by men (42%), 3 by non-binary authors (2%), 2 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), and 79.5 by POC (41%).

Grand Total to Date

2725 works reviewed. 1520 by women (56%), 1138 by men (42%), 43 by non-binary authors (2%), 24 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), and 851.25 by POC (31%).

Government Types September 2024

Total 21, Not Applicable 2 (10%), Unclear 1 (5%), Anarchy 0 (0%), Pure democracy 0 (%), Representative democracy 10 (48%), Oligarchy 8 (38%), Autocracy 0 (0%).

Government Type 2024 TD

Total 196, Not Applicable 22 (11%), Unclear 13 (7%), Anarchy 6 (3%), Pure democracy 1 (0.5%), Representative democracy 66 (34%), Oligarchy 82 (42%), Autocracy 6 (3%).

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Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes (April 2025)

Cold Eternity, the newest space horror novel from the author of Dead Silence and Ghost Station, blends the dystopian dread of Severance with the catastrophic approach to AI from M3gan.

Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal that has put a huge target on her back. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: a gigantic space barge housing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth’s most wealthy citizens.

The ship and its cryo program are long defunct, but Halley starts to think she sees figures crawling in the hallways, and there’s a constant scraping, slithering, and rattling echoing in the vents.

It’s not long before Halley realizes she may have gotten herself trapped in an even more dangerous situation than the one she was running from…. 

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Among my many review categories, I have a category for SFF from the 1980s and one for SFF from the 1990s. It seems unfair I don’t have one for the 2000s. So here one is.

The category takes its name from a famous declaration from an unnamed official in the George W. Bush administration¹:

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The Devils by Joe Abercrombie (May 2025)

Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side. 

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The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison (March 2025)

In The Tomb of Dragons, Katherine Addison returns to the award-winning world of The Goblin Emperor, deftly wrapping up The Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy.

Thara Celehar has lost his ability to speak with the dead. When that title of Witness for the Dead is gone, what defines him?

While his title may be gone, his duties are not. Celehar contends with a municipal cemetery with fifty years of secrets, the damage of a revethavar he’s terrified to remember, and a group of miners who are more than willing to trade Celehar’s life for a chance at what they feel they’re owed.

Celehar does not have to face these impossible tasks alone. Joining him are his mentee Velhiro Tomasaran, still finding her footing with the investigative nature of their job; Iäna Pel-Thenhior, his beloved opera director friend and avid supporter; Anora Chanavar, his stalwart friend and fellow prelate of Ulis; and the valiant guard captain Hanu Olgarezh.

Amidst the backdrop of a murder and a brewing political uprising, Celehar must seek justice for those who cannot find it themselves under a tense political system. The repercussions of his quest are never as simple they seem, and Celehar’s own life and happiness hang in the balance. 

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