James Nicoll Reviews

Books Received, August 4 to 10

Original Science Fiction Stories About Young People of the Future

What will life be like for the young people of the future? What will they inherit from today, and what strange new situations will they face?

Nine popular science fiction writers confront these questions in lively stories created especially for this collection. Their answers are intriguing and remarkably varied. Each author presents a possible world of the future. And each examines the lives of young people who are balancing their own dreams against the peculiar demands of their world.

Contents:

Come Sing the Moons of Moravenn — Leigh Brackett
Examination Day — Gordon Eklund
The Speeders — Arthur Tofte
Let My People Go! — Joseph Green
Night of the Millennium — Edward D. Hoch
A Bowl of Biskies Makes a Growing Boy — Raymond F. Jones
Final Exam — Thomas N. Scortia
The Others — J. Hunter Holly
Peace Love and Food for the Hungry — Gail Kimberly

Read more ➤

Books Received, July 28 — August 3

Jane Hawkins lives on a floating space port where she tries to help her mothers run a failing inn. Every day she watches starships land from far-off places, bound for exotic adventures.

But a new occupant under their roof is about to change everything. His name is Villem Osteonides. More machine than man, he’s crewed aboard ships that sail through the universe faster than light.

And he has a secret that will change Jane’s life forever.

Read more ➤

August Sale!

My venerable laptop has been displaying disturbing behavior of the sort that suggests it’s time to replace it. Accordingly, any reviews commissioned between now and August 15, 2018 are half off! Fifty dollars will buy you a book review by yours truly! Multiples of fifty will buy you multiple reviews!

(Because I don’t want my loyal patreon supporters to feel short-changed, any Patreon review credits claimed between now and the 15^th are also doubled.).

Read more ➤

July 2018 in Review

July

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

Works by POC: 4 (20%)

Year to Date

151 books read. 82.5 by women (55%), 61.5 by men (41%), 2 by NB (1%). 5 by persons whose gender is unknown (3%).

Works by POC: 52 (34%)

And now, the meaningless table.

Read more ➤

Books Received, July 21 — 27

Liv Burnham thinks nobody knows Morgan Frost like she does, but a terrible accident pushes her down the rabbit hole where Morgan’s secrets hide and she’ll be lucky to make it out alive.…

On a hot summer night, Liv, Morgan, Clay and Nathan are on the way home from a party in Clay’s convertible. Best friends dating brothers? It doesn’t get better than that. But the joyride ends in sudden impact, a screech of brakes, and shattering glass. On that lonely country road, four lives change forever.

Liv wakes in the hospital. At first she’s confused when they call her Morgan, but she assumes it’s a case of mistaken identity. Yet when the bandages come off, it’s not her face inthe mirror anymore. It’s Morgan’s.

Morgan always seemed to have the perfect life. But as Liv tries to fit herself into Morgan’s world, she discovers endlessly disturbing secrets of the criminal and murderous variety and a dark task to finish…if she doesn’t lose her mind first.

Forced to confront the disturbing truths that Morgan kept hidden in life, Liv must navigate a world of long-buried murder, a dangerous love affair―and a romance that feels like a betrayal.

Read more ➤

Books Received, July 14 — 20

Only days have passed since a freak accident granted four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her friends (who haven’t even picked out a name for their superhero team yet) get caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius’s misplaced super-weapon. But when Jools falls in with a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of super-powered Merry Men, she finds it hard to sort out the Good Guys from the Bad Guys―and to figure out which side she truly belong on.

Especially since nobody knows exactly what the Gun does .…

Read more ➤

Books Received, July 7 — 13

An eccentric noblewoman scientist’s journey into a hostile environment will change her world forever, in this enthralling fantasy novel.Rhia Harlyn is a noble in Shen, one of the dozens of shadowlands which separate the bright, alien skyland. She has a missing brother, an unwanted marriage proposal and an interest in science considered unbecoming in her gender. Her brother’s disappearance coincided with a violent unsolved murder, and Rhia impulsively joins the search party headed into the skyland — a place whose dangers and wonders have long fascinated her. The dangerous journey brings her into conflict with a young rebel stuck between the worlds of shadow and light, and a charismatic cult leader who believes he can defeat death itself.

Read more ➤