James Nicoll Reviews

Unwise deals. Blaster fights. High adventure among the stars.
Welcome to the world of Scum and Villainy.

Scum and Villainy is a Forged in the Dark game about a spaceship crew trying to make ends meet under the iron-fisted rule of the Galactic Hegemony.

Work with the members of your crew to thrive despite powerful criminal syndicates, warring noble families, dangerous aliens, and strange mystics. Explore the ruins of lost civilizations for fun and profit. Can your motley crew hold it together long enough to strike it big and insure your fame across the sector?

Scum and Villainy is a stand-alone RPG based on the Forged in the Dark game engine. In this book, you’ll find:

• A clear gameplay structure that puts the focus on the criminal undertakings of the crew. A session of play consists of a job followed by recovery, downtime projects, and advancement.
• Ship ​“character sheets” that allow for XP spends, upgrades, and leveling up alongside your characters.
• Crew advancement opportunities to reflect the change from a ragtag group barely flying in the black to a reputed crew that has built a name across the sector.
• Forged in the Dark tools to help keep the focus on the action of the job rather than the extensive planning needed to make it happen.
• Character and ship types to help create a unique and interesting crew at light speed.

May your ship fly true, and may your blasters never jam.

By the time they hit adolescence, most people have gotten over their fear of the dark. They spend their midnight hour on gushy phone calls, diary ramblings, and wet dreams. They fall asleep peacefully, assured that the shadows hold no monsters.

But the shadows do hold monsters. You know because you’re one of them. Wickedness dwells within your heart, hunger courses through your veins. High school weighs on you and teen drama puts you on edge, but you have power. What do you do next?

Monsterhearts 2 lets you and your friends create stories about sexy monsters, teenage angst, personal horror, and secret love triangles. When you play, you explore the terror and confusion of having a body that is changing without your permission.

This game is powered by the Apocalypse World engine. It draws inspiration from Twilight, Buffy, Ginger Snaps, The Vampire Diaries, and The Craft.

A reluctant medium discovers the ties that bind can unleash a dangerous power in this compelling Malaysian-set contemporary fantasy. When Jessamyn Teoh starts hearing a voice in her head, she chalks it up to stress. Closeted, broke and jobless, she’s moving back to Malaysia with her parents – a country she last saw when she was a toddler.She soon learns the new voice isn’t even hers, it’s the ghost of her estranged grandmother. In life, Ah Ma was a spirit medium, avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she’s determined to settle a score against a business magnate who has offended the god — and she’s decided Jess is going to help her do it, whether Jess wants to or not.Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business, but dealing with her grandmother is just as complicated. Especially when Ah Ma tries to spy on her personal life, threatens to spill her secrets to her family and uses her body to commit felonies. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she’ll also need to regain control of her body and destiny – or the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good. 

In April 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics becomes one of the world’s worst man-made catastrophes.

The year is 2068. The place, Fontainebleau forest, ancient home of some of France’s mightiest monarchs on the outskirts of what was once Paris. The post-apocalyptic society of Pan survives by growing rice and scavenging among the ruins of a destroyed civilization. Their precarious existence comes under threat when the powerful, technologically advanced Federation of Fortuna forces them into a dangerous choice – submit to Fortuna’s rule, or try to best them in a barbaric, ritualized game known as Celestial Mechanics. Pan’s only hope? A hot-headed outcast they’d rejected for being ​“un-Pan”: a girl named Aster. 

The highly anticipated sequel to Beneath the Rising , which was named one best science fiction and fantasy books of the year by The Washington Post.

“A wonderful adventure, rife with strange heart and weird horror.” Chuck Wendig 

It’s been a year and a half since the Anomaly, when They tried to force their way into the world from the shapeless void. 

Nick Prasad is piecing his life together, and has joined the secretive Ssarati Society to help monitor threats to humanity – including his former friend Johnny. 

Right on cue, the unveiling of Johnny’s latest experiment sees more portals opened to Them, leaving her protesting her innocence even as the two of them are thrown together to fight the darkness once more… 

“Every reveal is gasp-out-loud astonishing.” Charlie Jane Anders? 

“A galloping global adventure where lies and privilege are as villainous as the cthulonic forces our heroes must rush to stop.” Brooke Bolander 

“A perfect balance of thriller, horror and humour; reminded me of The Gone-Away World.” Adrian Tchaikovsky ** 

In a world which believes her to be a monster, a young striga fights to harness the power of her second heart, while her mother sacrifices everything to stop her… In an isolated mountain community, sometimes a child is born with two hearts. This child is called a striga and is considered a demon who must be abandoned on the edge of the forest. The child’s mother must then decide to leave with her infant, or stay and try to forget. Nineteen year-old striga, Salka, and her mother, Miriat, made the choice to leave and live a life of deprivation and squalor in an isolated village. The striga tribe share the human belief that to follow the impulses of their other hearts is dangerous, inviting unspoken horrors and bringing ruin onto them all. Salka, a headstrong and independent young woman, finds herself in a life threatening situation that forces her to explore the depths of her true nature and test the bonds between mother and child… 

An epic fantasy trilogy from Norway about thousand-year-old secrets, forbidden romance, and what happens to those who make a deal with the devil comes at last to the United States!

“Imagine lacking something that everyone else has. Something that proves you belong to this world. Something so vital, that without it, you are nothing. A plague. A myth. A human.”

Fifteen winters old, Hirka learns that she is an Odin’s child – a tailless rot from another world. Despised. Dreaded. And hunted. She no longer knows who she is, and someone wants to kill her to keep it a secret. But there are worse things than humans, and Hirka is not the only creature to have broken through the gates…

‘Odin’s Child’ is unique fantasy with Norse roots. An epic clash of xenophobia, blind faith and the right or will to lead.

The first in a trilogy, Odin’s Child is a thrilling modern fantasy

The Freedom Race, Lucinda Roy’s explosive first foray into speculative fiction, is a poignant blend of subjugation, resistance, and hope.In the aftermath of a cataclysmic civil war known as the Sequel, ideological divisions among the states have hardened. In the Homestead Territories, an alliance of plantation-inspired holdings, Black labor is imported from the Cradle, and Biracial ​“Muleseeds” are bred.Raised in captivity on Planting 437, kitchen-seed Jellybean ​“Ji-ji” Lottermule knows there is only one way to escape. She must enter the annual Freedom Race as a runner.Ji-ji and her friends must exhume a survival story rooted in the collective memory of a kidnapped people and conjure the voices of the dead to light their way home.