James Nicoll Reviews

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How to Destroy Civilization and Not Be Boring/

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In the vein of Kevin Hearne, Burning Ashes is the third book in the Ben Garston series, a contemporary fantasy tale of dragons and ancient magic hidden within our own world.

The Lore is over. For Ben Garston, the fight is just beginning.

The uneasy truce between the human and the mythical world has shattered. Betrayed by his oldest friend, with a tragic death on his hands, there isn’t enough whiskey in England to wash away the taste of Ben’s guilt. But for a one-time guardian dragon, there’s no time to sit and sulk in the ruins. 

Because the Long Sleep has come undone. Slowly but surely, Remnants are stirring under the earth, unleashing chaos and terror on an unsuspecting modern world. Worse still, the Fay are returning, travelling across the gulfs of the nether to bring a final reckoning to Remnants and humans alike. 

A war is coming. A war to end all wars. And only Ben Garston stands in the way… 

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Thus the need for routine to keep me from getting as far behind with my tor dot com posts as I have.

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Glen Cook, the father of Grimdark, returns to the Chronicles of the Black Company with a military fantasy adventure in Port of Shadows.

The soldiers of the Black Company don’t ask questions, they get paid. But being ​“The Lady’s favored” is attracting the wrong kind of attention and has put a target on their backs – and the Company’s historian, Croaker, has the biggest target of all. 

The one person who was taken into The Lady’s Tower and returned unchanged has earned the special interest of the court of sorcerers known as The Ten Who Were Taken. Now, he and the company are being asked to seek the aid of their newest member, Mischievous Rain, to break a rebel army. However, Croaker doesn’t trust any of the Taken, especially not ones that look so much like The Lady and her sister… 

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Fatima lives in the city of Noor, a thriving stop along the Silk Road. There the music of myriad languages fills the air, and people of all faiths weave their lives together. However, the city bears scars of its recent past, when the chaotic tribe of Shayateen djinn slaughtered its entire population — except for Fatima and two other humans. Now ruled by a new maharajah, Noor is protected from the Shayateen by the Ifrit, djinn of order and reason, and by their commander, Zulfikar. 

But when one of the most potent of the Ifrit dies, Fatima is changed in ways she cannot fathom, ways that scare even those who love her. Oud in hand, Fatima is drawn into the intrigues of the maharajah and his sister, the affairs of Zulfikar and the djinn, and the dangers of a magical battlefield. 

Nafiza Azad weaves an immersive tale of magic and the importance of names; fiercely independent women; and, perhaps most importantly, the work for harmony within a city of a thousand cultures and cadences. 

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September

22 books read. 13 by women (59%), 9 by men (41%).

Works by POC: 7.5 (34%)

Year to Date

195 books read. 106.5 by women (55%), 81.5 by men (42%), 2 by NB (1%). 5 by persons whose gender is unknown (3%).

Works by POC: 66.5 (34%) And now, the meaningless table. Numbers drawn from the most recent Strange Horizons Count, which isn’t all that recent anymore. 

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Imprisoned by her mother, the Dictatress, in a tower for seventeen years, Cija is released and given the task of seducing Zerd, the half-man, half-serpent commander of an invading army.

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A thrilling, atmospheric debut with the intensive drive of The Martian and Gravity and the creeping dread of Annihilation, in which a caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival.When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck — enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother — meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane. Instead, she got Em. Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to ​“ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre’s falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash — and a lash. And Em has secrets, too … As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies — missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em’s motivations — drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, her control giving way to paranoia and anger, Gyre severs her connection with Em and the outside world. On her own in this mysterious, deadly place, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, Gyre must overcome more than just the dangerous terrain and the Tunneler which calls underground its home if she wants to make it out alive — she must confront the ghosts in her own head.But how come she can’t shake the feeling she’s being followed?

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S. A. Chakraborty continues the sweeping adventure begun in The City of Brass — ​“the best adult fantasy I’ve read since The Name of the Wind” (#1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir) — conjuring a world where djinn summon flames with the snap of a finger and waters run deep with old magic; where blood can be dangerous as any spell, and a clever con artist from Cairo will alter the fate of a kingdom.Nahri’s life changed forever the moment she accidentally summoned Dara, a formidable, mysterious djinn, during one of her schemes. Whisked from her home in Cairo, she was thrust into the dazzling royal court of Daevabad — and quickly discovered she would need all her grifter instincts to survive there. Now, with Daevabad entrenched in the dark aftermath of the battle that saw Dara slain at Prince Ali’s hand, Nahri must forge a new path for herself, without the protection of the guardian who stole her heart or the counsel of the prince she considered a friend. But even as she embraces her heritage and the power it holds, she knows she’s been trapped in a gilded cage, watched by a king who rules from the throne that once belonged to her family — and one misstep will doom her tribe.Meanwhile, Ali has been exiled for daring to defy his father. Hunted by assassins, adrift on the unforgiving copper sands of his ancestral land, he is forced to rely on the frightening abilities the marid — the unpredictable water spirits — have gifted him. But in doing so, he threatens to unearth a terrible secret his family has long kept buried.And as a new century approaches and the djinn gather within Daevabad’s towering brass walls for celebrations, a threat brews unseen in the desolate north. It’s a force that would bring a storm of fire straight to the city’s gates … and one that seeks the aid of a warrior trapped between worlds, torn between a violent duty he can never escape and a peace he fears he will never deserve.

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