James Nicoll Reviews

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

Just Like Home is a darkly gothic thriller from nationally bestselling author Sarah Gailey, perfect for fans of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House as well as HBO’s true crime masterpiece I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she’s come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he’d built for his family.Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be?There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes. 

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow

A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution―from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality―and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike―either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.

Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.

The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.

Includes Black-and-White Illustrations

The Wilderwomen by Ruth Emmie Lang

Ohioana Book Award finalist Ruth Emmie Lang returns with a new cast of ordinary characters with extraordinary abilities in The Wilderwomen.Five years ago, Nora Wilder disappeared. The older of her two daughters, Zadie, should have seen it coming, because she can literally see things coming. But not even her psychic abilities were able to prevent their mother from vanishing one morning.Zadie’s estranged younger sister, Finn, can’t see into the future, but she has an uncannily good memory, so good that she remembers not only her own memories, but the echoes of memories other people have left behind. On the afternoon of her graduation party, Finn is seized by an ​“echo” more powerful than anything she’s experienced before: a woman singing a song she recognizes, a song about a bird…When Finn wakes up alone in an aviary with no idea of how she got there, she realizes who the memory belongs to: Nora.Now, it’s up to Finn to convince her sister that not only is their mom still out there, but that she wants to be found. Against Zadie’s better judgement, she and Finn hit the highway, using Finn’s echoes to retrace Nora’s footsteps and uncover the answer to the question that has been haunting them for years: Why did she leave?But the more time Finn spends in their mother’s past, the harder it is for her to return to the present, to return to herself. As Zadie feels her sister start to slip away, she will have to decide what lengths she is willing to go to to find their mother, knowing that if she chooses wrong, she could lose them both for good. 

The Sleepless by Victor Manibo

A mysterious pandemic causes a quarter of the world’s population to permanently lose the ability to sleep — without any apparent health implications. The outbreak creates a new class of people who are both feared and ostracized, and most of whom optimize their extra hours to earn more money. Jamie Vega, a New York journalist at C+P Media, is one of the Sleepless. When his irascible boss dies in an apparent suicidal overdose, Jamie doesn’t buy this too-convenient explanation — especially given its suspicious timing in the middle of a corporate takeover — and begins to investigate. Things go awry quickly when Jamie discovers that he was the last person who saw Simon alive. Retracing his steps, he realizes he doesn’t remember that night. Not only do the police suspect him, Jamie can’t account for the lost time, and the memory loss may have something to do with the fact that he did not come by hyperinsomnia naturally: through a risky and illegal process, Jamie had biohacked himself to become Sleepless. As Jamie delves deeper into Simon’s final days, he is forced to confront past traumas, and the consequences of his decision to biohack himself. Along the way he uncovers a terrifying truth about what it means to be Sleepless that will imperil him — and all of humanity. 

In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan

From Brian McClellan, author of The Powder Mage, comes In the Shadow of Lightning, a brand-new epic fantasy where magic is a finite resource — and it’s running out.Demir Grappo is an outcast — he fled a life of wealth and power, abandoning his responsibilities as a general, a governor, and a son. Now he will live out his days as a grifter, rootless, and alone. But when his mother is brutally murdered, Demir must return from exile to claim his seat at the head of the family and uncover the truth that got her killed: the very power that keeps civilization turning, godglass, is running out.Now, Demir must find allies, old friends and rivals alike, confront the powerful guild-families who are only interested in making the most of the scraps left at the table and uncover the invisible hand that threatens the Empire. A war is coming, a war unlike any other. And Demir and his ragtag group of outcasts are the only thing that stands in the way of the end of life as the world knows it.

January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky

January Fifteenth — the day all Americans receive their annual Universal Basic Income payment.For Hannah, a middle-aged mother, today is the anniversary of the day she took her two children and fled her abusive ex-wife.For Janelle, a young, broke journalist, today is another mind-numbing day interviewing passersby about the very policy she once opposed.For Olivia, a wealthy college freshman, today is ​“Waste Day”, when rich kids across the country compete to see who can most obscenely squander the government’s money.For Sarah, a pregnant teen, today is the day she’ll journey alongside her sister-wives to pick up the payments that undergird their community — and perhaps embark on a new journey altogether.In this near-future science fiction novella by Nebula Award-winning author Rachel Swirsky, the fifteenth of January is another day of the status quo, and another chance at making lasting change. 

The First Binding by R. R. Virdi

All legends are borne of truths. And just as much lies. These are mine. Judge me for what you will. But you will hear my story first.I buried the village of Ampur under a mountain of ice and snow. Then I killed their god. I’ve stolen old magics and been cursed for it. I started a war with those that walked before mankind and lost the princess I loved, and wanted to save. I’ve called lightning and bound fire. I am legend. And I am a monster.My name is Ari.And this is the story of how I let loose the first evil.Thus begins the tale of a storyteller and a singer on the run and hoping to find obscurity in a tavern bar. But the sins of their past aren’t forgotten, and neither are their enemies. Their old lives are catching up swiftly and it could cost them the entire world. No one can escape their pasts and all stories must have an ending.