James Nicoll Reviews

One woman will either save an entire continent or completely destroy it in a captivating epic fantasy bursting with intrigue and ambition, questioned loyalties and broken magic

“Guard the tower, ward the stone. Find your answers writ in bone.”

Deep within Gloamingard Castle lies a black tower. Sealed by magic, it guards a dangerous secret that has been contained for thousands of years. 

As Warden, Ryxander knows the warning passed down through generations: nothing must unreal the Door. But one impetuous decision will leave her with blood on her hands – and unleash a threat that could doom the world to fall to darkness.

“Keep your trust through wits or war– nothing must unseal the door.”

A bandit walks into a coffeehouse, and it all goes downhill from there. Guet Imm, a young votary of the Order of the Pure Moon, joins up with an eclectic group of thieves (whether they like it or not) in order to protect a sacred object, and finds herself in a far more complicated situation than she could have ever imagined.

In a near future Toronto, a naïve young scientist named Kel invents a device to produce the mysterious state of ​‘flow’ on demand, hoping to unleash humanity’s creative potential on our greatest problems. But the prototype she invents to record and then play back the neurological and physiological states associated with flow can be used to record other mind-body states. Her prototype is stolen, duplicated, and put to use for an astonishing range of causes, some good, and some very bad. 

As Kel struggles to regain control of her device, it threatens to destroy her legacy and upend the lives of several others, until all uses of the technology converge on the most unexpected and unintended consequence of all. 

Heroes shall rise and fall, the earth shall be stained red, and the fate of the Banished Lands will be decided once and for all in A Time of Courage , the final book in acclaimed fantasy author John Gwynne’s Of Blood and Bone trilogy.
The demon king Asroth has been freed from his iron prison. Now, alongside his dark bride Fritha, he plans to conquer the whole of the Banished Lands.
In the shadows of Forn Forest, Riv and the surviving Ben-Elim desperately search for a way to unite those who remain against Asroth’s vast army.
Far in the west, Drem is with the Order of the Bright Star, besieged by a demon horde. Their fragile defenses are on the brink of shattering, but they know that it is better to fight and die than to live without hope.
And across the Banished Lands, armies are heading south, to settle ancient grudges and decide the fate of humanity. 

Every great city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She’s got six.
But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs in the halls of power, threatening to destroy the city and her six newborn avatars unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.

The world’s nations have collapsed, and a handful of city states form the remains of civilization. Erstwhile Bangalore is now rebranded, ruled by the insidious Bell Corporation.

Welcome to Apex City. Here, technology is the key to survival, productivity is power, and the self must be engineered for the only noble goal in life: success.

With the right image, values and opinions, you can ascend to the ranks of the Virtual elite and have the new world at your feet. The price of failure is deportation: you are marked an Analog, with no access to electricity, running water or your humanity.

Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s extraordinary debut sinks its teeth into this dystopian future, offering a glimpse into a world we may be dangerously close to inheriting. Brilliant, searing and imaginative, the stories in Analog/Virtual will make us question our choices and rethink who we want to be.

Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This collection includes a selection of his science fiction and fantasy stories from the last five years — sixteen of his best — plus a new novelette. 

In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, The Veiled Throne. **

Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches and The Witch’s Kind, returns with another captivating tale of family, witchcraft and love that spans generations. Harriet Bishop is descended from a long line of witches and uses her magic to help women in need — not only ordinary women, but also those with powers of their own. Frances Allington has used her wiles and witchcraft to claw her way out of poverty and into a spectacular marriage with one of New York’s wealthiest new tycoons. She is determined to secure the family’s position among the city’s elite by any means necessary — including a scheme involving her headstrong stepdaughter, Annis. To save her from this dark magic, Harriet must help kindle Annis’s own nascent powers. If Annis can’t resist her stepmother’s agenda, she could lose her freedom, and possibly her life. 

1992 : After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, seventeen-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend’s abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too. 2022 : Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event. And just when Tess believes she’s found a way to make an edit that actually sticks, she encounters a group of dangerous travelers bent on stopping her at any cost. Tess and Beth’s lives intertwine as war breaks out across the timeline – a war that threatens to destroy time travel and leave only a small group of elites with the power to shape the past, present, and future. Against the vast and intricate forces of history and humanity, is it possible for a single person’s actions to echo throughout the timeline?

t is the Age of Enlightenment — of new and magical political movements, from the necromancer Robespierre calling for revolution in France to the weather mage Toussaint L’Ouverture leading the slaves of Haiti in their fight for freedom, to the bold new Prime Minister William Pitt weighing the legalization of magic amongst commoners in Britain and abolition throughout its colonies overseas.
But amidst all of the upheaval of the early modern world, there is an unknown force inciting all of human civilization into violent conflict. And it will require the combined efforts of revolutionaries, magicians, and abolitionists to unmask this hidden enemy before the whole world falls to darkness and chaos. 

The world is moving towards alternative energy. Two giant laboratories, one in France, one in Texas, are engaged in a contest to give mankind a limitless source of energy-fusion, the energy source of stars. In France, the European Union is constructing the colossal ITER project. At CFRC, the Controlled Fusion Research Center near Austin, a scientists have constructed a machine they call Prometheus to challenge ITER. When the director of the Austin lab attempts to achieve fusion on the day of Prometheus’ dedication, a near-fatal accident ensues, and in an instant the rivalry between ITER and CFRC becomes a race to change the future of the world. But was it an accident, or sabotage? 

Prominent physicist and writer Tony Rothman, PhD, uses his technical expertise to create a rare and timely novel based on genuine science. Not science fiction, the science of Firebird is as real as the collision between science and politics it portrays. 

Sura Neelin is on the run from her creditors, from her past, and her father’s murderers. She can’t get a job, she can’t get a place to live, she can’t even walk down the street: the total surveillance society that is mid-21^st century America means that every camera and every pair of smart glasses is her enemy. But Sura might have a chance in the alternate reality of the games. People can disappear in the LARP game worlds, into the alternate economy of Notchcoin and blockchains. The people who build the games also program the surveillance networks — she just needs an introduction, and the skills to play. Turns out, she has very valuable skills, and some very surprising friends.

aitlin of House Sans Merci is the young half-human pilot of a sentient mechanical dragon. Returning from her first soul-stealing raid, she discovers an unwanted hitchhiker. When Caitlin is framed for the murder of her brother, to save herself she must disappear into Industrialized Faerie, looking for the one person who can clear her. Unfortunately, the stakes are higher than she knows. Her deeds will change her world forever.