James Nicoll Reviews

When the Earth Was Green by Riley Black (February 2025)

Winner, A Friend of Darwin Award, 2024

A gorgeously composed look at the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth

Fossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from billions of years of evolutionary backstory. Each petrified leaf and root show us that dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and even humans would not exist without the evolutionary efforts of their leafy counterparts. It has been the constant growth of plants that have allowed so many of our favorite, fascinating prehistoric creatures to evolve, oxygenating the atmosphere, coaxing animals onto land, and forming the forests that shaped our ancestors’ anatomy. It is impossible to understand our history without them. Or, our future.

Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique that readers loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, in When the Earth Was Green, Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present. 

The Last Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison (October 2024)

An anthology more than half a century in the making, The Last Dangerous Visions is the third and final installment of the legendary science fiction anthology series.

In 1973 celebrated writer and editor Harlan Ellison announced the third and final volume of his unprecedented anthology series, which began with Dangerous Visions and continued with Again, Dangerous Visions. But for reasons undisclosed, The Last Dangerous Visions was never completed.

Now, six years after Ellison’s passing, science fiction’s most famous unpublished book is here. And with it, the heartbreaking true story of the troubled genius behind it.

Provocative and controversial, socially conscious and politically charged, wildly imaginative yet deeply grounded, the thirty-two never-before-published stories, essays, and poems in The Last Dangerous Visions stand as a testament to Ellison’s lifelong pursuit of art, uniting a diverse range of sci-fi writers both famous and newly minted, including: Max Brooks, Edward Bryant, Cecil Castellucci, James S. A. Corey, Howard Fast, Patricia Hodgell, Dan Simmons, Robert Sheckley, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mildred Downey Broxon, and Cory Doctorow, among others.

The historic publication of The Last Dangerous Visions completes the long-awaited final chapter in an incredible literary legacy. 

The Legacy of Arniston House by T. L. Huchu (November 2024)

A dangerous cult craves a dark power. The Legacy of Arniston House is the spellbinding fourth instalment of the USA Today bestselling Edinburgh Nights series by T. L. Huchu 

Ropa Moyo is a wannabe magician, can speak to the dead, and has officially given up being an intern. Leaving Scottish magic behind, she now works for the English Sorcerer Royal. But just as she adjusts to working for the English, an old enemy reveals a devastating secret about her Gran, and Ropa’s world falls apart.

Outraged, she rushes home, but finds her grandmother dead – murdered – with no killer in sight. What’s more, she’s the prime suspect. In her quest to find the true murderer, Ropa becomes caught in the dark tendrils of a cult, hell-bent on resurrecting an ancient power. Ropa must use her wits, her magic, and call in all favors to stop the ritual – and clear her name. 

Margolyam by Matthew Hughes (August 2024)

Orphaned at twelve, Margolyam leaves the port city of Golathreon to live with her aunt Oleadora, a sorceress and healer in the inland market town of Keddrick. But her new life brings out qualities in the girl that she never knew she possessed, and Margolyam begins a journey of self-discovery that will plunge her into the world of wizardry, with all it manifold wonders and dire perils. 

Red Sonja: Consumed by Gail Simone (November 2024)

Red Sonja, the iconic, fiery, she-devil with a sword, is reinvented for a new generation of readers in this action-packed epic fantasy by legendary comic book writer Gail Simone.

The gutsy, wild, tortured free spirit, forged in pain yet unafraid of life or death, Red Sonja, the famous, fiery She-Devil and barbarian of Hyrkania has never concerned herself with the consequences of her actions. She’s taken what she wanted, from treasure to drink to the companionship of bedfellows. She’s fought who deserved it (and sometimes those who didn’t). And she’s never looked back.

But when rumors start bubbling up from her homeland — rumors of unknown horrors emerging from the ground and pulling their unsuspecting victims to their deaths — and a strange voice begins whispering to her in her sleep, she realizes she may have to return to the country that abandoned her. And finally do the only thing that has ever scared her: confront her past.

Eleven Percent by Maren Uthaug (April 2025)

An inverse The Handmaid’s Tale that asks: What if women took over the world?

It is the New Time, a time not so different from ours except that the men are gone. All but eleven percent, that is, the minimum required to avoid inbreeding. But they are safely under lock and key in ​“spa” centers for women’s pleasure (trained by amazons to fulfill all desires) and procreation. A few women protest that the males should be treated better – more space, better food, but all agree that testosterone cannot be allowed to go free. The old patriarchal cities are crumbling, becoming overgrown (women don’t blow things up); people now live in round houses in round communities. But if you prefer the slum, that’s okay too. Religion has survived, sort of: women priestesses speak in tongues, inspired by snake venom, as apples are passed around to the congregation.

Four different lives intersect: Medea, a tiny, long-haired witch and snake whisperer; Wicca, a young priestess who excelled at the ​“self-pleasuring” curriculum in school and has lost her pregnant lover; Eva, a doctor working in a spa center, and Silence, who lives in an almost abandoned convent. Each has a secret and one is not what she seems.

This is the first novel to appear in English by celebrated Danish author Maren Uthaug. Provocative, irreverent, slightly squeamish-making and completely riveting, Eleven Percent makes you think. 

Revenant‑X by David Wellington (November 2024)

Revenant‑X is the terrifying second novel in a new trilogy of survival and exploration in deep space, from Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated author David Wellington.

FEAR THE DARK.

The crew of the Artemis — led by Firewatch agent Alexandra Petrova — have survived the furious onslaught of the Basilisk and broken through the space blockade around Paradise‑1. Now they can pursue their original mission and investigate why Earth’s first deep space colony has fallen silent. 

The answer seems obvious: the site is deserted.

Or so they think.

Some of the colonists remain … but they’re no longer human.

Petrova and her crew now face a desperate struggle to survive as they attempt to uncover the mystery of what has befallen the colony.

If they fail, the darkness that has fallen over Paradise‑1 will consume them.