James Nicoll Reviews

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

Hugo, Locus, and Nebula-Award winner Mary Robinette Kowal blends her no-nonsense approach to life in space with her talent for creating glittering high-society in this stylish SF mystery, The Spare Man.Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling — And keep the real killer from striking again. 

Cascade by Rachel A. Rosen

What does magic want? When Vasai Singh resurrected drowned Mumbai and raised it into the clouds, the world reacted with awe and wonder — and no small amount of fear. As with the climate crisis believed to have caused the Cascade, resurgent magic proved lucky for some, a disaster for many others, and a source of hope and dread for everyone else. A generation has passed since the Cascade transformed the world, smashing the tectonic plates of the political landscape and infesting the wilderness with demons and shriekgrass. In Ottawa, a scandal-plagued government clings to power, kept afloat by the manipulations of its precognitive political rainman, Ian Mallory. But when his predictions signal only catastrophe ahead, the magic-loathing photojournalist Tobias Fletcher, land rights activist Jonah Augustine, his ex-wife, climate scientist Blythe Augustine, and emoji-spell wielding intern Sujay Krishnamurthy must overcome ideology and bureaucracy to save a future from a present whose agenda spells only doom. Rachel A. Rosen’s debut novel, Cascade, has been variously described as magic realism, climate fantasy and, as its publisher prefers, fantasy that feels like science fiction. Set in a terrifying but all-too believable near future and leavened with a dry wit, Cascade features a cast of fully-realized characters drawn into conflict with each other as they each strive to do the right thing. But who can know what the right thing is, when every choice leads to disaster? 

Kalicalypse edited by Francesco Verso

Kalicalypse brings together recent stories of talented SF writers from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, widening the scope of the previous Future Fiction volume Avatar.

The stories deal with crucial issues for understanding the development of the subcontinent and therefore of a large slice of the world population: fascinating and disturbing visions at the same time, such as the ethics of mind-uploading in an aging population, the exploitation of mythic archetypes in VR by the powerful Shiva corporation, the biopolitics of fertility for which a daughter that bleeds becomes a valuable asset in The

Fertile Market, the migration of climate change refugees to Edge-of-Space platforms and the consequences of prosthetics memory, and terraforming by nanobots for the amelioration of the Earth, and the challenges facing those who are operating junk-ships in space.

“Speculative thinking underlies all gestures of critical thought. What lies at the other side of the Kalicalypse? Many new worlds? Kalicalypse is the plurality we inhabit.” – Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay

The Fifth Head of Cerberus: Three Novellas by Gene Wolfe

Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.

Far from Earth, two sister planets, Saint Anne and Saint Croix, circle each other in an eternal dance. It is said a race of shapeshifters once lived here, only to perish when men came. But one man believes they can still be found, somewhere in back of the beyond.

In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe skillfully interweaves three bizarre tales to create a mesmerizing pattern: the harrowing account of the son of a mad genius who discovers his hideous heritage; a young man’s mythic dreamquest for his darker half; and the bizarre chronicle of a scientist’s nightmarish imprisonment. Like an intricate, braided knot, the pattern at last unfolds to reveal astonishing truths about this strange and savage alien landscape.

With a new introduction by O. Henry Award winning author Brian Evenson