James Nicoll Reviews

The Ghost-Wrangler by Matthew Hughes (June 2023)

In a world of wizards and walled cities, Galabras Nachecko is a necromancer in the seaport metropolis of Golathreon, connecting the living with deceased relatives and associates to answer questions left unresolved at the time of death.

Then he is tasked by Duke Simisson’s conniving seneschal to capture the ghost of a notorious land pirate scheduled for execution. He snags the spirit but finds that the assignment has made him a man who knows too much.

Nachecko is propelled into a new career — secret agent segueing into diplomat — that leads him far from home, plunges him into perilous adventures, and brings him both true love and tragedy.

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Alone With You in the Ether: A Love Story by Olivie Blake (October 2023)

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes an intimate and contemporary study of time, space, and the nature of love. Alone with You in the Ether explores what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you’re not broken. 

CHICAGO, SOMETIME – Two people meet in the armory of the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. By the end of the story, these things will still be true. 

But this is not a story about endings. 

For Regan, life is a finish line of mutually assured disappointment. Her method of coping with the dreariness of existence is to project herself into imagined multipotency, spinning new threads of destiny with every impulsive decision she makes. For Aldo, life is a plague of constancy – a structure of rules and formulas that keep him going, without which the entire frame of his existence would collapse. 

For both of them, life is a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability, until six conversations with a stranger form the variable that glitches the entire simulation. 

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Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree (November 2023)

First loves. Second-hand books. Epic adventures. Viv’s career with the renowned mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens isn’t going as planned. Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she’s packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk — so far from the action that she worries she’ll never be able to return to it. What’s a thwarted soldier of fortune to do? Spending her hours at a struggling bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted. Even though it may be exactly what she needs. Still, adventure isn’t far away. A suspicious traveller in grey, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected. Sometimes, right things happen at the wrong time. Sometimes, what we need isn’t what we seek. And sometimes, we find ourselves in the stories we experience together. Set twenty years before the events of Legends & Lattes, Bookshops & Bonedust is a standalone cosy fantasy by BookTok sensation Travis Baldree about the power of good bookshops, great friends and the unexpected choices along the way. 

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Another month, another 22 reviews! All thanks to commissioned reviews and my legion of patrons, for whose continued support over the last nine or so years I am very grateful.

Brazen Head, my new Framework laptop, continues to function without issue. Granted, that is how new laptops are supposed to work but by this time in my previous laptop’s life, I’d exchanged it for a replacement twice. 

This months’ big news is that my related site, Young People Read Old SFF, is up for an Aurora Award for a third time! Third time lucky, I hope. I would have posted this news on the Young People site’s blog… if I’d had the foresight to have one.

If you’d like to join my patreon, the link is here. If you would prefer to commission an individual review, the link is here. If you’d just care to throw money at me¹, that link is here.

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May 2023

22 works reviewed. 14 by women (64%), 8 by men (36%), 0 by a non-binary author (0%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 10 by POC (45%)

2023 to Date

108 works reviewed. 62 by women (57%), 45 by men (42%), 0 by a non-binary author (0%), 1 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), and 44 by POC (41%).

Grand Total to Date

2376 works reviewed. 1329 by women (56%), 994 by men (42%), 34 by non-binary authors (1%), 19 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), and 720.75 by POC (30%).

Government Types May 2023

Total 22, Not Applicable 4 (18%), Unclear 1 (5%), Anarchy 0 (0%), Pure democracy 1 (5%), Representative democracy 7 (32%), Oligarchy 9 (41%), Autocracy 0 (0%).

Government Type 2023 TD

Total 108, Not Applicable 16 (16%), Unclear 5 (5%), Anarchy 0 (0%), Pure democracy 1 (1%), Representative democracy 38 (35%), Oligarchy 43 (40%), Autocracy 5 (5%).

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(Tor declined this Earth Day piece because it didn’t suit the mood they were aiming for)

Climate change! Most folks would prefer not to suffer through freaky weather, crop-collapse-driven famine, and the inexorable loss of coastal cities to sea level rise. On the other hand, reducing the amount of greenhouse gases humans release (by shifting to proven low-CO₂ emission energy sources) might involve transient inconvenience and could well cost some very wealthy people trifling sums they will never miss. Surely there are ways to tackle the issue that don’t require doing anything right now?

Long-time readers of these essays should know that I will not ask leading questions without providing answers.

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Calamity by Constance Fay (November 2023)

Bramble’s inaugural debut is equal parts steamy interstellar romance and sci-fi adventure, perfect for fans of Firefly and Ilona Andrews.

She’s got a ramshackle spaceship, a misfit crew, and a big problem with its sexy newest member…Temperance Reed, banished from the wealthy and dangerous Fifteen Families, just wants to keep her crew together after their feckless captain ran off with the intern. But she’s drowning in debt and revolutionary new engine technology is about to make her beloved ship obsolete. Enter Arcadio Escajeda. Second child of the terrifying Escajeda Family, he’s the thorn in Temper’s side as they’re sent off on a scouting mission on the backwater desert planet of Herschel 2. They throw sparks every time they meet but Temper’s suspicions of his ulterior motives only serve to fuel the flames between them. 

Despite volcanic eruptions, secret cultists, and deadly galactic fighters, the greatest threat on this mission may be to Temper’s heart. 

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A Stranger in the Citadel by Tobias Buckell (October 2023)

From the powerful storyteller Tobias Buckell (Crystal Rain, The Tangled Lands), a complex novel of humanity’s passion for the written word. At the revolutionary crossroads of magic, betrayal, and long-forgotten truths, a naïve, compassionate royal and a determined, hunted librarian discover a dangerous world of mortal and ancient menaces. Lilith has heard an oblique warning all of her life: ​“Thou shall not suffer a librarian to live. The life of the youngest musketress of Ninetha has been one of hard training. But Lilith’s days have also contained many pleasures, the royal privileges of her family’s guardianship of the Cornucopia, a mystical source of limitless bounty. Lilith has never seen a book, and she never expects to encounter one within in the safety of the citadel. When Ishmael, an outcast librarian, shows up outside the Afriq Gate, Lilith saves him from immediate execution by her father’s second-in-command, the zealot Kira. As Lilith’s curiosity draws her to the Ishmael, she lets slip her family’s most dangerous secret to Kira, sparking a deadly rebellion and an unexpected journey full of stunning revelations. 

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Fall of Ruin and Wrath by Jennifer L. Armentrout (September 2023)

Long ago, the world was destroyed by gods. Only nine cities were spared. Separated by vast wilderness teeming with monsters and unimaginable dangers, each city is now ruled by a guardian―royalty who feed on mortal pleasure. 

Born with an intuition that never fails, Calista knows her talents are of great value to the power-hungry of the world, so she lives hidden as a courtesan of the Baron of Archwood. In exchange for his protection, she grants him information. 

When her intuition leads her to save a traveling prince in dire trouble, the voice inside her blazes with warning―and promise. Today he’ll bring her joy. One day he’ll be her doom. 

When the Baron takes an interest in the traveling prince and the prince takes an interest in Calista, she becomes the prince’s temporary companion. But the city simmers with rebellion, and with knights and monsters at her city gates and a hungry prince in her bed, intuition may not be enough to keep her safe. 

Calista must choose: follow her intuition to safety or follow her heart to her downfall. 

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April 2023

21 works reviewed¹. 11 by women (52%), 10 by men (47%), 0 by a non-binary author (0%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 8 by POC (38%)

2023 to Date

86 works reviewed. 48 by women (57%), 37 by men (42%), 0 by a non-binary author (0%), 1 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), and 34 by POC (40%).

Grand Total to Date

2354 works reviewed. 1315 by women (56%), 986 by men (42%), 34 by non-binary authors (1%), 19 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), and 710.75 by POC (30%).

1: Not counting the April 1 spoof.

Government Types March 2023

Total 21, Not Applicable 3 (14%), Unclear 2 (10%), Anarchy 0 (0%), Pure democracy 0 (0%), Representative democracy 9 (43%), Oligarchy 7 (33%), Autocracy 0 (0%).

Government Type 2023 TD

Total 86, Not Applicable 17 (14%), Unclear 5 (3%), Anarchy 0 (0%), Pure democracy 0 (0%), Representative democracy 24 (37%), Oligarchy 27 (42%), Autocracy 5 (8%).

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