James Nicoll Reviews

23 books read. 12 by women (52%). 10 by men (43%). 1 by non-binary authors (4%). Ah, my old foe, rounding error. This month has an atypically high fraction of men because last month I convinced myself that December 31 fell on the Sunday and did a double review of books by men, counting them against December’s stats. There were days I knew December 31 was on the Saturday. Truly, the ability of the brain to believe two mutually exclusive facts is impressive. 

POC 6 (26%). It’s just dumb luck it was that high. 

I wonder, should I be comparing these to 2016? 

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The Waterloo region (and neighboring areas) are not generally known as hotbeds of spec-fic writing. If you’ve heard of us at all, it’s most likely thanks to the University of Waterloo or the annual Oktoberfest. Why, Kitchener’s Public Library does not even bother to keep track of which SF authors come from the surrounding region ¹.

But I do.

Spec-fic authors who either live in or near Waterloo region or did live here in the past include the following. 

R. J. Anderson
Orin Bishop
Evelyn Barber
Marie Bilodeau
W. Patrick Bradley
Erin Bow
James Bow
Patricia Bow
Melanie Card
Robert Card
Suzanne Church
M. L. Clark
Kristen Ciccarelli
Ange Clayfield
John Robert Columbo
Ryan Consell
Julie Czerneda
Karen Dales
James Roy Daley
Kit Daven
A. K. Dewdney
Cory Doctorow
Chris Evans
Jon Evans
Pat Forde
Ed Greenwood
B. C. Holmes
Matthew Hughes
E. K. Johnston
Edward Llewellyn
Jen Frankel
J. M. Frey
James Alan Gardner
Sephera Giron
Viktor Haag
Chris Hadfield
Kate Heartfield
Josh Hoey
Matthew Douglas Ingraham
Dean Italiano
Becka Kinzie
Armon Kishen Kohli
Ash Kreider
Alisse Lee-Goldenberg
Violette Malan
Lyn McGinnis
Jane Ann McLachlan
John McMullen
David Morrell
Amber O’Brien
Dave Okum
Neil Randall
Sarah Raughley
Vanessa Ricci-Thode
Stephen B. Pearl
Yuy Ren
Thomas J. Ryan
Graydon Saunders
Robert J. Sawyer
Emily Schooley
John Settle
Dylan Siebert
Ray Slay
Richard H. Stephens
Craig Stewart
Glynn Stewart
Ruth Stuart
Dave Switzer
Sarah Totton
An Tran
Sarah Tolmie
Jessica Vitalis

Non-Fiction Authors

Andrea Austin
Andrew Deman

Restaurants

The Watchtower



Over the next year I will be reviewing fifty-two works ² of speculative fiction by as broad a cross-section of the names above as I can manage. Please join me. 

1: Or local authors of any kind. 

2: Not necessarily prose works: spec-fic comes in other forms as well. 

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Alphabetical by author. 

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