James Nicoll Reviews

Some people are born boring. Some live boring. Some even die boring. Fred managed to do all three, and when he woke up as a vampire, he did so as a boring one. Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort. 

One fateful night – different from the night he died, which was more inconvenient than fateful – Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos that is the parahuman world, a world with chipper zombies, truck driver wereponies, maniacal necromancers, ancient dragons, and now one undead accountant trying his best to ​“survive.” Because even after it’s over, life can still be a downright bloody mess. 

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Marie Brennan’s Turning Darkness Into Light is a delightful fantasy of manners, the heir to the award-winning Natural History of Dragons series, a perfect stepping stone into an alternate Victorian-esque fantasy landscape. ​“Overwhelmingly fun.”― io9 on The Tropic of Serpents
**

As the renowned granddaughter of Isabella Camherst (Lady Trent, of the riveting and daring Draconic adventure memoirs) Audrey Camherst has always known she, too, would want to make her scholarly mark upon a chosen field of study. When Lord Gleinheigh recruits Audrey to decipher a series of ancient tablets holding the secrets of the ancient Draconean civilization, she has no idea that her research will plunge her into an intricate conspiracy, one meant to incite rebellion and invoke war. Alongside dearest childhood friend and fellow archeologist Kudshayn, must find proof of the conspiracy before it’s too late. 

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What would happen if the Federation in Star Trek was broke?

That’s the basis for two new M‑SPACE titles written by Mike Larrimore (author of last years excellent Agony & Ecstasy for Mythras). Instead of a prosperous mega-government, as in Star Trek, the focus in Elevation is a tiny NGO — aptly named Elevation — running solely on the devotion of its members. Its goal is to find new life and new civilisations. 

The problem is, it only succeeded once and now funds are running out. They are in desperate need of new heroic recruits.

But competition from greedy corporations, pirates, aggressive aliens and convoluted bureacracy is literally deadly. The race for new discoveries is on.

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June

21 books read. 12 by women (57%), 9 by men (43%)

Works by POC: 8 (38%)

Year to Date

124 books read. 69.75 by women (56%). 52.25 by men (42%). 2 by an author whose gender is unknown (2%).

Works by POC: 50.75 (41%)

And now for the meaningless, outdated chart.

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Magic is the only weapon against the gods in the powerful final novel of this epic fantasy trilogy about battlemages and sorcerers in a world that fears their powers. 

A plague rages in the streets of Perizzi. City guards rally to deal with riots while the young magicians of the Tower pool their healing powers to find a cure. 

Elsewhere, new alliances are formed to stem the rising darkness strengthening a deity who feeds on pestilence and decay. Gods, Sorcerers and Battlemages must set aside the past and their vendettas to work together or risk unleashing greater suffering than they can possibly imagine… 

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Augh. Why can’t I finish these on time? And why am I producing fewer reviews in a year when I am a Hugo finalist. Work harder, Nicoll.

May

21 books read. 12.5 by women (60%), 8.5 by men (40%)

Works by POC: 9 (43%)

Year to Date

103 books read. 57.75 by women (56%). 43.25 by men (42%). 2 by an author whose gender is unknown (2%).

Works by POC: 42.75 (42%)

And now the meaningless chart. 

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This new installment in the smart, snarky, and action-packed Heroine series follows personal superhero trainer Lucy Valdez and friends Aveda Jupiter and Bea and Evie Tanaka as they combat a new supernatural threat.

Lucy Valdez is many things: fight trainer/bodyguard to superheroines, fabulous vintage fashion plate, undisputed karaoke queen at local joint, The Gutter. She is also one of the toughest fighters in all of San Francisco without superpowers. So why can’t she seem to confess her feelings to her longtime crush Rose Rorick, head of the San Francisco Police Department’s Demon Unit? 

Well.… actually, she knows why. She’s afraid Rose won’t like the real Lucy, the Lucy underneath all the fabulous bravado. (She is still fabulous underneath that bravado – just in a different way.) 

When a mysterious new karaoke star rises up at The Gutter and eclipses her, Lucy finds her confidence further shaken – and when strange, seemingly supernatural happenings threaten both this new star and The Gutter’s very existence, she must rise to the challenge and investigate alongside Rose. Will Lucy be able to vanquish the demonic threat to her beloved karaoke haven, confess her true feelings to Rose, and reclaim her karaoke throne? 

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H. G. Wells played a central role in defining the intellectual, political, and literary character of the twentieth century. A prolific literary innovator, he coined such concepts as ​“time machine,” ​“war of the worlds,” and ​“atomic bomb,” exerting vast influence on popular ideas of time and futurity, progress and decline, and humanity’s place in the universe. Wells was a public intellectual with a worldwide readership. He met with world leaders, including Roosevelt, Lenin, Stalin, and Churchill, and his books were international best-sellers. Yet critics and scholars have largely forgotten his accomplishments or relegated them to genre fiction, overlooking their breadth and diversity. In Inventing Tomorrow, Sarah Cole provides a definitive account of Wells’s work and ideas. She contends that Wells casts new light on modernism and its values: on topics from warfare to science to time, his work resonates both thematically and aesthetically with some of the most ambitious modernists. At the same time, unlike many modernists, Wells believed that literature had a pressing place in public life, and his works reached a wide range of readers. While recognizing Wells’s limitations, Cole offers a new account of his distinctive style as well as his interventions into social and political thought. She illuminates how Wells embodies twentieth-century literature at its most expansive and engaged. An ambitious rethinking of Wells as both writer and thinker, Inventing Tomorrow suggests that he offers a timely model for literature’s moral responsibility to imagine a better global future.

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People lived because she killed. People died because he lived. Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the sultan. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. Both Zafira and Nasir are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya―but neither wants to be. War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the sultan on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds―and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine. 

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The Compton Crook award – winning author of The Prey of Gods and Temper returns with a dazzling stand-alone novel, set in deep space, in which the fate of humanity rests on the slender shoulders of an idealistic and untested young woman — a blend of science fiction, dark humor, and magical realism that will appeal to fans of Lauren Beukes, Ian McDonald, and Nnedi Okorafor. 

Earth is a distant memory. Habitable extrasolar planets are still out of reach. For generations, humanity has been clinging to survival by establishing colonies within enormous vacuum-breathing space beasts and mining their resources to the point of depletion. Rash, dreamy, and unconventional, Seske Kaleigh should be preparing for her future role as clan leader, but her people have just culled their latest beast, and she’s eager to find the cause of the violent tremors plaguing their new home. Defying social barriers, Seske teams up with her best friend, a beast worker, and ventures into restricted areas for answers to end the mounting fear and rumors. Instead, they discover grim truths about the price of life in the void. Then, Seske is unexpectedly thrust into the role of clan matriarch, responsible for thousands of lives in a harsh universe where a single mistake can be fatal. Her claim to the throne is challenged by a rival determined to overthrow her and take control — her intelligent, cunning, and confident sister. Seske may not be a born leader like her sister, yet her unorthodox outlook and incorruptible idealism may be what the clan needs to save themselves and their world. ** 

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