James Nicoll Reviews

Only days have passed since a freak accident granted four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her friends (who haven’t even picked out a name for their superhero team yet) get caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius’s misplaced super-weapon. But when Jools falls in with a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of super-powered Merry Men, she finds it hard to sort out the Good Guys from the Bad Guys―and to figure out which side she truly belong on. 

Especially since nobody knows exactly what the Gun does .… 

The third book in the smart, snarky, and action-packed Heroine series completes the ​“Heroic Trio” as Bea Tanaka joins her sister, Evie, and diva Aveda Jupiter in their quest to free San Francisco from its demon portal problem 

If there’s one thing Beatrice Tanaka never wanted to be, it’s normal. But somehow, her life has unfolded as a series of ​“should haves.” Her powers of emotional projection should have made her one of the most formidable superheroes of all time. And she should have been allowed to join her older sister Evie as a full-fledged protector of San Francisco, pulverizing the city’s plethora of demon threats. 

But Evie and her superheroing partner, Aveda Jupiter, insist on seeing Bea as the impulsive, tempestuous teenager she used to be – even though she’s now a responsible adult. And that means Bea is currently living a thoroughly normal life. She works as a bookstore lackey, hangs out with best friends Sam Fujikawa and Leah Kim, and calms her workplace’s more difficult customers. Sure, she’s not technically supposed to be playing with people’s mental states. But given the mundanity of her existence, who can blame her? 

When a mysterious being starts communicating with Bea, hinting at an evil that’s about to overtake the city, she seizes the opportunity, hoping to turn her ​“should haves” into the fabulous heroic life she’s always wanted. But gaining that life may mean sacrificing everything – and everyone – she holds dear… 

A collection of some of the best feature articles from Tor.com’s 10 year history as an online sci-fi/fantasy literature magazine. Read: 

• An intimate moment under the covers that bloomed into a lifetime lived through sci-fi/fantasy.
• A fierce defense of fan fiction. 
• The history of Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan, and the story of the reader who had her future rewritten in turn. 
• A deeply unwise thought experiment that explains how centaurs eat. 
• The story of one writer’s amazing day, starting out on her last dime and ending with her somehow hugging her idol, Terry Pratchett. 
• And much more! 

Rocket Fuel: Some of the Best From Tor.com Non-Fiction features essays from Seanan McGuire, Ursula Vernon, Jo Walton, Nisi Shawl, Kate Elliott, Becky Chambers, Kai Ashante Wilson, Sarah Gailey, Grady Hendrix, Judith Tarr, Lish McBride, Emily Asher-Perrin, Ryan Britt, Leah Schnelbach, Natalie Zutter, Molly Templeton, and more! 

Sarah Valentine is so over seeing drama about her city’s superheroes on every newspaper and TV broadcast. Besides, she has her own problems to worry about: her career isn’t going anywhere, she doesn’t have a boyfriend (or any prospects), and most of her weekends are spent escaping into video games that are way more thrilling than anything that will ever happen to her. 

And worst of all, her thirtieth birthday is right around the corner. 

But everything changes the day she runs into Nate — a chance encounter with a handsome stranger that turns her quiet life upside down and throws her into the middle of a world of heroes, villains, and adventure. 

In We Could Be Villains, Sarah learns that there’s a very hazy line between the good guys and the bad guys. With the help of an unexpected journey, a motley team of professionals, and some eye-opening backstory about the heroes she’s grown up watching, Sarah just might find the job, romance, and excitement she’s been waiting for. 

Sarah Valentine always hoped her life would change, but she never expected things to turn around quite this fast. A few months ago she was in a dead-end job, was hopelessly single, and she played video games just to inject a little bit of excitement into her life. That all changed the day she met Nathan Hart — not just a great romantic match, but also someone offering Sarah a job that included all the adventure she could possibly want. 

Of course, the fact that Nate’s job offer was with the infamous supervillain Doctor Oracle added to the thrill. 

Now a full-fledged member of Doctor Oracle’s team, Sarah’s added tons of new skills to her arsenal: from lock picking to hot-wiring a car to flying an airplane, she’s learned things over the last few months that would put her old résumé to shame. But now it’s time for her to step up and tackle the final hurdle to becoming a true equal in Oracle’s team: leading her own mission. 

Determined to do her best no matter what, Sarah will take on all the plotting and scheming for a job that gets more complicated at every turn, assisted by an unexpected new ally from the superhero side of the fence, Oracle’s team of skilled professionals, and a boyfriend whose constant threats to buy an engagement ring just might be serious. And somehow, that last part is the thing that makes her the most nervous. 

Christopher Bach was a policeman in one of the largest Lunar cities when the A.I. Lunar Central Computer had a breakdown. Known as the Big Glitch, the problem turned out to be a larger war than anyone expected. When order was restored, Chris’s life could never be the same. Now he’s a private detective, assisted by his genetically altered dog Sherlock, and emulates the tough guys in the noir books and movies that he loves. 

When Bach takes the case of a woman involuntarily infected with an engineered virus, he is on the hunt to track down the biohackers in the infamous district of Irontown. But if he wants to save humanity, he’ll have to confront his own demons. 

She killed the man who trained her. She killed the fleet that came for her. She killed the planet that caged her. Now she must confront her father. 

Mars Xi is on the run, a bounty on her head and a kill count on her conscience. All she has left are her mutant cat Ocho and her fellow human weapon Pale, a young boy wracked by seizures who can kill with a thought. She needs him treated, and she needs to escape, and the only thread left to pull is her frayed connection to her father, Marius Teo. That thread will take her to the outskirts of the galaxy, to grapple with witch-cults and privately-owned planets, and into the hands of the man who engineered her birth.