James Nicoll Reviews

A novice assassin is on the hunt for someone killing their own in K. A. Doore’s The Perfect Assassin , a breakout high fantasy beginning the Chronicles of Ghadid series. Divine justice is written in blood. Or so Amastan has been taught. As a new assassin in the Basbowen family, he’s already having second thoughts about taking a life. A scarcity of contracts ends up being just what he needs. Until, unexpectedly, Amastan finds the body of a very important drum chief. Until, impossibly, Basbowen’s finest start showing up dead, with their murderous jaan running wild in the dusty streets of Ghadid. Until, inevitably, Amastan is ordered to solve these murders, before the family gets blamed. Every life has its price, but when the tables are turned, Amastan must find this perfect assassin or be their next target.

Read more ➤

An ambitious young woman with the power to control minds seeks vengeance against the royals who murdered her family, in a Caribbean-inspired fantasy world embattled by colonial oppression.Sigourney Rose is the only surviving daughter of a noble lineage on the islands of Hans Lollik. When she was a child, her family was murdered by the islands’ colonizers, who have massacred and enslaved generations of her people — and now, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge.When the childless king of the islands declares that he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney uses her ability to read and control minds to manipulate her way onto the royal island and into the ranks of the ruling colonizers. But when she arrives, prepared to fight for control of all the islands, Sigourney finds herself the target of a dangerous, unknown magic.Someone is killing off the ruling families to clear a path to the throne. As the bodies pile up and all eyes regard her with suspicion, Sigourney must find allies among her prey and the murderer among her peers… lest she become the next victim.

Read more ➤

Japan has always had its own vampire tradition, and has eagerly naturalized Western vampires and vampire literature to produce exotic new hybrids and species of horror, of terror, and of sensual, exquisite beauty. Here are a few of their masterpieces.

Read more ➤

September

19 books read. 10.25 by women (54%), 8.75 by men (46%)

Works by POC: 8.5 (45%)

Year to Date

184 books read. 100.5 by women (55%). 80 by men (43%). 2 by non-binary authors (1%) and 1.5 by an author whose gender is unknown (1%).

Works by POC: 74.75 (41%).

And to compare to last year: 

Read more ➤

The avant-garde of science fiction have landed in this space-age sequel to the World Fantasy Award-winner, The New Voices of Fantasy. Here are the rising stars of the last five years of science fiction, including newcomers as well as already lauded authors: Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, Alice Sola Kim, Sam J. Miller, E. Lily Yu, Rich Larson, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Sarah Pinsker, Darcie Little Badger, S. Qiouyi Lu, Kelly Robson, and more. Their extraordinary stories have been hand-selected by cutting-edge author Hannu Rajaniemi ( The Quantum Thief ) and genre expert Jacob Weisman ( Invaders ).

Read more ➤

August

21 books read. 10.5 by women (50%), 10.5 by men (50%)

Works by POC: 8 (38%)

Year to Date

165 books read. 90.25 by women (55%). 71.25 by men (43%). 2 by non-binary authors (1%) and 1.5 by an author whose gender is unknown (1%).

Works by POC: 66.25 (40%).

And to compare to last year:

Read more ➤

July

20 books read. 10 by women (50%), 8.5 by men (43%), 1 by a non-binary author (5%) and 0.5 by an author whose gender is unknown 3%) 

Works by POC: 7.5 (38%)

Year to Date

144 books read. 79.75 by women (55%). 60.75 by men (42%). 2 by non-binary authors (1%) and 1.5 by an author whose gender is unknown (1%).

Works by POC: 58.25 (40%).

This compares somewhat dismally with where I was at this time last year.

Read more ➤

Magic has a price — if you’re willing to pay. The lush world building of * Children of Blood and Bone *meets the sweeping scale of * Strange the Dreamer *in this captivating epic YA fantasy debut. Born into a family of powerful witchdoctors, Arrah yearns for magic of her own. But each year she fails to call forth her ancestral powers, while her ambitious mother watches with growing disapproval. There’s only one thing Arrah hasn’t tried, a deadly last resort: trading years of her own life for scraps of magic. Until the Kingdom’s children begin to disappear, and Arrah is desperate to find the culprit. She uncovers something worse. The long-imprisoned Demon King is stirring. And if he rises, his hunger for souls will bring the world to its knees… unless Arrah pays the price for the magic to stop him.

Read more ➤

Sue Burke’s sweeping SF Semiosis epic continues in Interference as the colonists and a team from Earth confront a new and more implacable intelligence. Over two hundred years after the first colonists landed on Pax, a new set of explorers arrives from Earth on what they claim is a temporary scientific mission. But the Earthlings misunderstand the nature of the Pax settlement and its real leader. Even as Stevland attempts to protect his human tools, a more insidious enemy than the Earthlings makes itself known. Stevland is not the apex species on Pax. Semiosis duology
Semiosis
Interference **

Read more ➤

Egypt, 1912. In an alternate Cairo infused with the otherworldly, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine. What starts off as an odd suicide case for Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi leads her through the city’s underbelly as she encounters rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, clockwork angels, and plot that could unravel time itself, in P. Djèlí Clark’s Tor.Com Original, A Dead Djinn in Cairo.

Read more ➤