James Nicoll Reviews

It’s Eva Thorne’s 200^th birthday.

But it’s not a celebration, more like a funeral. Eva lives in a world where the cure for aging and illness has been discovered and administered to every person on Earth. Only, there’s one big hitch. It turns out that very few people can handle immortality. So on their two hundredth birthday, they have to take a test. If they pass, they get to live forever. But if they fail, they must be euthanized.

Eva’s not an optimist. She’s pretty sure she’s going to fail her Centurial Assessment Test. For starters, almost nobody passes anymore. She’s seen the news stories. But more than that, Eva can tell that she’s already starting to slip mentally. Ever since the Escorts took her husband Owen away for his test and he never came back, she’s been chainsmoking cigarettes (they can’t kill her after all), binge drinking, and waiting for the Escorts to get it over with already.

Who wants to live forever if you have to do it alone?

Here’s the truth―Owen was her husband for over 170 years. He was her soulmate. Her lover. Her goofball best friend. Her partner in crime. Her everything. But on the way to her testing room, Eva glimpses a staffer who resembles her husband. 

Suddenly, she has to find out the truth about what happened to him. Suddenly, she has a reason to live. Did he pass his test? Does he get to live forever? Can Eva join him for this next part of their lives? Or is she destined to fail her test and be euthanized?

Now Eva must escape from the testing facility and find out if her husband passed his test―and what he’s been doing for the past six months. With the Escorts hunting her down, she kidnaps the staffer and drags him to the roof, discovering that it’s Owen―only he can’t remember her because they wiped his memory. When you pass your CAT test, you must leave your old life behind. Eva must now find a way for him to remember their life together or lose him forever to his new immortal existence.

Discover the gripping story of a young boy struggling to find his place in a world where nature itself has turned against humanity in the unforgettable conclusion to the Rampart trilogy.What will the future hold for those who are left?Koli has come a long way since being exiled from his small village of Mythen Rood. In his search for the fabled tech of the Old Times, he knew he’d be battling shunned men, strange beasts and trees that move as fast as whips. But he has already encountered so much more than he bargained for.Now that Koli and his companions have found the source of the signal they’ve been following — the mysterious ​“Sword of Albion” — there is hope that their perilous journey will finally be worth something.They’re searching for a way to help humanity fight back against nature. But what they’ll find is an ancient war that never ended …The Rampart TrilogyThe Book of KoliThe Trials of KoliThe Fall of KoliFor more from M. R. Carey, check out:The Girl With All the GiftsFellsideThe Boy on the BridgeSomeone Like MeBy the same author, writing as Mike Carey:The Devil You KnowVicious CircleDead Men’s BootsThicker Than WaterThe Naming of the Beasts 

A young woman hunts for her wayward shadow at the school where she first learned magic — while another faces a test she never studied for as ice envelopes the world. The tasks assigned a bookish boy lead him to fateful encounters with lizards, owls, trolls and a feisty, sarcastic cat. A bear wedding is cause for celebration, the spinning wheel and the tower in the briar hedge get to tell their own stories, and a kitchenmaid finds out that a lost princess is more than she seems. The sea witch reveals what she hoped to gain when she took the mermaid’s voice. A wiser Snow White sets out to craft herself a new tale.
In these eight stories and twenty-three poems, World Fantasy Award winner Theodora Goss retells and recasts fairy tales by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Oscar Wilde. Sometimes harrowing, sometimes hilarious, always lyrical, the works gathered in Snow White Learns Witchcraft re-center and empower the women at the heart of these timeless narratives. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Jane Yolen, in her introduction, proclaims that Goss ​“transposes, transforms, and transcends times, eras, and old tales with ease. But also there is a core of tough magic that runs through all her pieces like a river through Faerie … I am ready to reread some of my new favorites.

From acclaimed fantasy author John Gwynne comes the first in the Bloodsworn trilogy, an epic of wild lands and wilder magic, where not all monsters fight with tooth and claw…and the treasures of the gods come at a price. This is the age of storm and murder.After the old gods warred and drove themselves to extinction, the cataclysm of their fall shattered the land of Vigrio.Now, power-hungry jarls carve out petty kingdoms, and monsters stalk the shadow-haunted woods and mountains. A world where the bones of the dead gods still hold great power, promising fame and fortune for those brave — or desperate — enough to seek them out. As whispers of war echo over the plains and across the fjords, fate follows the footsteps of three people: a huntress searching for her missing son, a jarl’s daughter who has rejected privilege in pursuit of battle fame, and a thrall who has cast off his chains and now fights alongside the famed mercenaries known as the Bloodsworn.All three will shape the fate of the world, as it once more teeters on the edge of chaos. 

The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field 

[STARRED REVIEW] ​“Liu’s mastery of so many different subgenres astounds, and her ear for language carries each story forward on gorgeously crafted sentences. This is a must-read” – Publishers Weekly [A Top-10 SF/F/H 2021 upcoming title] New York Times bestseller and Hugo, British Fantasy, Romantic Times, and Eisner award-winning author of the graphic novel Monstress, Marjorie Liu leads you deep into the heart of the tangled woods. In her long-awaited debut collection of dark, lush, and spellbinding short fiction, you will find unexpected detours, dangerous magic, and even more dangerous women. Briar, bodyguard for a body-stealing sorceress, discovers her love for Rose, whose true soul emerges only once a week. An apprentice witch seeks her freedom through betrayal, the bones of the innocent, and a meticulously plotted spell. In a world powered by crystal skulls, a warrior returns to save China from invasion by her jealous ex. A princess runs away from an arranged marriage, finding family in a strange troupe of traveling actors at the border of the kingdom’s deep, dark woods. Concluding with a gorgeous full-length novella, Marjorie Liu’s first short fiction collection is an unflinching sojourn into her thorny tales of love, revenge, and new beginnings. 

Despite its humble origins, there is no more challenging or physically dangerous teen sport in the world than cheerleading. Cheerleaders are seriously injured and even killed at a higher rate than other high school sports. Their stunts are performed in skimpy uniforms without the benefit of proper safety equipment…and yet they love them, glittery eyeshadow, spirit bows, and all.

And then there are the Fighting Pumpkins, who take that injury rate as a challenge. Students of Johnson’s Crossing High School, they answer to a higher calling than the pyramid and the basket toss, pursuing the pep rally that is rising up against mysteries and monsters, kicking gods with the pointed toes of professional athletes chasing a collegiate career.

Meet Jude, half-vampire squad leader; Laurie, who can compel anyone to do as she asks; Heather, occasionally recreationally dead; Marti, strong enough to provide a foundation for any stunt; Colleen, who knows the rule book so well she may as well have written it; and Steph, who may or may not be the goddess of the harvest. The rest of the squad is ready to support them, and braced for the chaos of the big game, which may have a big body count. Prepare to jump high, yell loud, and look pretty with the Fighting Pumpkins, those glorious girls in the orange and green, whose high kicks could still be enough to save the world.

From the author of A Witch in Time comes a magical story spanning from Jazz Age Paris to modern-day America of family secrets, sacrifice, and lost love set against the backdrop of a mysterious circus. Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder — a world where women weave illusions of magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family’s circus, it’s the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything. Virginia, 2004: Lara Barnes is on top of the world, but when her fiancé disappears on their wedding day every plan she has for the future comes crashing down. Desperate, Lara’s search for answers unexpectedly lead to her great-grandmother’s journals. Swept into a story of a dark circus and ill-fated love, secrets about Lara’s family history come to light and reveal a curse that has been claiming payment from the women in her family for generations. A curse that might be tied to her fiancé’s mysterious fate … Perfect for readers of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, Erika Swyler’s The Book of Speculation and Gwendolyn Womack’s The Fortune Teller. 

Three thousand years ago, the Deep appeared without warning. This alien life form was quickly put to service teleporting people and cargo across great distances, which allowed mass colonization throughout the galaxy. It has also allowed Lancaster, the organization which controls access to the Deep, to grow wealthy and powerful. Cross Lancaster, and you are forced to travel between planets using standard faster-than-light technologies. Nobody wants that!

Tembi Stoneskin is having a very bad day. A Witch in service to the Deep, she spends her days disarming bombs in shipping stations. On her way home to Lancaster, the Deep shows her the aftermath of a weapons test powerful enough to slice a moon in half. While the Deep is avast intelligence, it is a terrible communicator, and relies on its Witches to translate humanity’s requests into thoughts, moods, and impulses that it can understand. Tembi is a young Witch, but she is a skilled translator and she has learned how to speak with her powerful alien friend.As they set off to find the source of the weapons test, Tembi and the Deep are pulled into the ongoing war between Earth-normal humans and genetically modified humans. But all wars are founded on excuses, and the Blackwing army has much more to hide than a simple shattered moon. 

Tasha Suri’s The Jasmine Throne begins the powerful Burning Kingdoms trilogy, in which two women – a long-imprisoned princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic – come together to rewrite the fate of an empire. Exiled by her despotic brother when he claimed their father’s kingdom, Malini spends her days trapped in the Hirana: an ancient, cliffside temple that was once the source of the magical deathless waters, but is now little more than a decaying ruin. A servant in the regent’s household, Priya makes the treacherous climb to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to play the role of a drudge so long as it keeps anyone from discovering her ties to the temple and the dark secret of her past. One is a vengeful princess seeking to steal a throne. The other is a powerful priestess seeking to save her family. Their destinies will become irrevocably tangled. And together, they will set an empire ablaze. ​“An intimate, complex, magical study of empire and the people caught in its bloody teeth. It’s about resistance and power, histories both personal and political, and the heroes who must become monsters to survive. I loved it.” –Alix E. Harrow, Hugo award-winning author ofThe Once and Future Witches