James Nicoll Reviews

An anthology of science fiction, written by women, exploring different visions of the future.

A new science fiction adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of the Three-Body Trilogy, Cixin Lu’s Ball Lightning is a fast-paced story of what happens when the beauty of scientific inquiry runs up against the drive to harness new discoveries with no consideration of their possible consequences.

When Chen’s parents are incinerated before his eyes by a blast of ball lightning, he devotes his life to cracking the secret of this mysterious natural phenomenon. His search takes him to stormy mountaintops, an experimental military weapons lab, and an old Soviet science station. 

The more he learns, the more he comes to realize that ball lightning is just the tip of an entirely new frontier. While Chen’s quest for answers gives purpose to his lonely life, it also pits him against soldiers and scientists with motives of their own: a beautiful army major with an obsession with dangerous weaponry, and a physicist who has no place for ethical considerations in his single-minded pursuit of knowledge. 

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters. 

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

It broke into their home and set up residence in their minds.

When the … thing first insinuated itself into the Lund family household, they were bemused. Vaguely human-shaped, its constantly-changing cravings seemed disturbing, at first, but time and pressure have a way of normalizing the extreme. Wasn’t it always part of their lives? 

As the family make more and greater sacrifices in service to the beast, the thrall that binds them begins to break down. Choices must be made. Prices must be paid. And the Lunds must pit their wits against a creature determined to never let them go. 

It’s psychological warfare. Sanity is optional. 

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world. 

Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot – if she’s willing to sow the seeds of civil war. 

Hope Blackwell, the world’s second-worst psychic, is tired of dealing with both the living and the dead. Between wrangling the ghosts of the Founding Fathers, medical school, and dodging the paparazzi, she’s got her own problems (and that last attempt on her life left her more shaken than she’ll admit!). So she packs up her friends and heads to Las Vegas for some high-octane escapism. 

Their vacation is cut short when paranormal investigators show up with a story about ghost ships in the nearby Sonoran Desert. A desert is a strange place to search for pirates, but Hope knows all too well that the dead are everywhere. She tags along to make sure nobody will run into trouble if they find a homicidal ghost or two. 

Hope wasn’t expecting the long-dead Spanish nun, or her pack of vengeful chupacabras. And they are just the beginning — this desert is full of ancient secrets, and psychics must beware.