James Nicoll Reviews

November 2021

21 works reviewed. 11 by women (52%), 10 by men (48%), 0 by a non-binary author (0%), 0 by authors whose genders are unknown (0%), and 8 by POC (38%).

Year to Date

237 works reviewed. 128.5 by women (54%), 100.5 by men (42%), 5 by non-binary authors (2%), 3 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), and 95 by POC (40%)

Grand Total to Date

1985 works reviewed. 1,111 by women (56%), 830 by men (42%), 26 by non-binary authors (1%), 18 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), 574.75 by POC (29%).

This means I am on track to post my 2000^th review here on or about December 21. 

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Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak by Charlie Jane Anders

From the international bestselling author of All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders, comes Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, the sequel to Victories Greater Than Death in the thrilling adventure Unstoppable series, set against an intergalactic war.They’ll do anything to be the people they were meant to be — even journey into the heart of evil.Rachael Townsend is the first artist ever to leave Earth and journey out into the galaxy — but after an encounter with an alien artifact, she can’t make art at all. Elza Monteiro is determined to be the first human to venture inside the Palace of Scented Tears and compete for the chance to become a princess — except that inside the palace, she finds the last person she ever wanted to see again. Tina Mains is studying at the Royal Space Academy with her friends, but she’s not the badass space hero everyone was expecting. Soon Rachael is journeying into a dark void, Elza is on a deadly spy mission, and Tina is facing an impossible choice that could change all her friends lives forever. 

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Book of Night by Holly Black

#1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black makes her stunning adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies in the vein of Ninth House and The Night Circus.Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make. She’s spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie.Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but going straight isn’t easy. Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister Posey is desperate for magic, and that her shadowless and possibly soulless boyfriend has been keeping secrets from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends back into a maelstrom of murder and lies. Determined to survive, she’s up against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world — all trying to steal a secret that will allow them control of the shadow world and more.

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Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham

From New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author Daniel Abraham, co-author of The Expanse, comes a monumental epic fantasy trilogy that unfolds within the walls of a single great city, over the course of one tumultuous year, where every story matters, and the fate of the city is woven from them all.Kithamar is a center of trade and wealth, an ancient city with a long, bloody history where countless thousands live and their stories unfold. This is Alys’s. 

When her brother is murdered, a petty thief from the slums of Longhill sets out to discover who killed him and why. But the more she discovers about him, the more she learns about herself, and the truths she finds are more dangerous than knives. Swept up in an intrigue as deep as the roots of Kithamar, where the secrets of the lowest born can sometimes topple thrones, the story Alys chooses will have the power to change everything.

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Rosebud by Paul Cornell

A multilayered, locked-room science fiction novella from Paul Cornell in which five digital beings unravel their existences to discover the truth of their humanity.“The crew of the Rosebud are, currently, and by force of law, a balloon, a goth with a swagger stick, some sort of science aristocrat possibly, a ball of hands, and a swarm of insects.”When five sentient digital beings — condemned for over three hundred years to crew the small survey ship by the all-powerful Company — encounter a mysterious black sphere, their course of action is clear: obtain the object, inform the Company, earn lots of praise.But the ship malfunctions, and the crew has no choice but to approach the sphere and survey it themselves. They have no idea that this object — and the transcendent truth hidden within — will change the fate of all existence, the Company, and themselves.

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