James Nicoll Reviews

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Books Received, March 14 — March 20

21 Mar, 2020

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Driftwood

In this first novel set in award-winning author Marie Brennan’s incomparable Driftwood fantasy universe, enter a post-apocalyptic realm where the apocalypse has not ended, where fragments of worlds cohere into shifting myths. Yet even as everything fades, Drifters gather to tell conflicting legends of Last, the guide – the one man who seemed immortal, but may have been a fraud. Who is Last? Fame is rare in Driftwood – it’s hard to get famous if you don’t stick around long enough for people to know you. But many know the guide, Last, a one-blooded survivor who has seen his world end many lifetimes ago. For Driftwood is a strange place of slow apocalypses, where continents eventually crumble into mere neighborhoods, pulled inexorably towards the center in the Crush. Cultures clash, countries fall, and everything eventually disintegrates. Within the Shreds, a rumor goes around that Last has died. Drifters come together to commemorate him. But who really was Last? Lying liar, or heroic savior? A mercenary, a charlatan, a legend? A man, an immortal – perhaps even a god? 

The Silvered Serpents

Returning to the dark and glamorous 19th century world of her New York Times instant bestseller, The Gilded Wolves , Roshani Chokshi dazzles us with another riveting tale as full of mystery and danger as ever in The Silvered Serpents. They are each other’s fiercest love, greatest danger, and only hope. Séverin and his team members might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but victory came at a terrible cost — one that still haunts all of them. Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long lost artifact rumored to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris, and into the icy heart of Russia where crystalline ice animals stalk forgotten mansions, broken goddesses carry deadly secrets, and a string of unsolved murders makes the crew question whether an ancient myth is a myth after all. As hidden secrets come to the light and the ghosts of the past catch up to them, the crew will discover new dimensions of themselves. But what they find out may lead them down paths they never imagined. A tale of love and betrayal as the crew risks their lives for one last job.

City Under the Stars

City Under the Stars completes a journey undertaken by Gardner Dozois and Michael Swanwick 25 years ago, when they published the novella The City of God. Over two decades later, the two realized there was more to the story, and began the work of expanding it. Now, after Gardner Dozois’ tragic passing, the story can be told in full. God was in his Heaven — which was fifteen miles away, due east. Far in Earth’s future, in a post-utopian hell-hole, Hanson works ten solid back-breaking hours a day, shoveling endless mountains of coal, within sight of the iridescent wall that separates what’s left of humanity from their gods. One day, after a tragedy of his own making, Hanson leaves York, not knowing what he will do, or how he will survive in the wilderness without work. He finds himself drawn to the wall, to the elusive promise of God. And when the impossible happens, he steps through, into the city beyond. The impossible was only the beginning. 

Night of the Mannequins

Award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones returns with Night of the Mannequins, a contemporary horror story where a teen prank goes very wrong and all hell breaks loose: is there a supernatural cause, a psychopath on the loose, or both?Praise for Night of the Mannequins“Reading Stephen Graham Jones is like sitting in the corner of a bar with an old friend, and everyone quiets down the moment they start telling a story. Night of the Mannequins is dark and twisted, funny, a little crazy, and unsettling as hell. The opening setup gets way under your skin, and then Jones takes the story somewhere much darker than you imagined. If there’s an heir apparent to the kind of no-rules, wild imagination, down home storytelling perfected by Joe R. Lansdale, it’s this guy right here. Read him.” — Christopher Golden“Sly, surprising psychic sleight-of-hand, in a tale of teenage madness where the next plastic face might be your own.” — John Skipp“Wicked and wry, this is a terrific story by one of my favorite writers, Stephen Graham Jones. Tip-top with a twist of dead. The narrator’s first person delivery is the most notable aspect of this surprising and creepy tale that nods to popular stalker-killer films of the past, but is so much better than the bulk of those films, and what an ending. You definitely need this.” — Joe R. Lansdale“Stephen Graham Jones’ has one of the most gripping, stream-of-consciousness voices in horror fiction. Night of the Mannequins is propulsive and poignant, capturing the mundane terror of adolescence, and adding that ever-so-essential dab of killer mannequin. You won’t put it down.” —Sarah Langan

Drowned Country

Drowned Country is the the stunning sequel to Silver in the Wood , Emily Tesh’s lush, folkloric debut. This second volume of the Greenhollow duology once again invites readers to lose themselves in the story of Henry and Tobias, and the magic of a myth they’ve always known.
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Even the Wild Man of Greenhollow can’t ignore a summons from his mother, when that mother is the indomitable Adela Silver, practical folklorist. Henry Silver does not relish what he’ll find in the grimy seaside town of Rothport, where once the ancient wood extended before it was drowned beneath the sea — a missing girl, a monster on the loose, or, worst of all, Tobias Finch, who loves him. 

Ashes of the Sun

Long ago, a magical war destroyed an empire, and a new one was built in its ashes. But still the old grudges simmer, and two siblings will fight on opposite sides to save their world in the start of Django Wexler’s new epic fantasy trilogy.

Gyre hasn’t seen his beloved sister since their parents sold her to the mysterious Twilight Order. Now, twelve years after her disappearance, Gyre’s sole focus is revenge, and he’s willing to risk anything and anyone to claim enough power to destroy the Order.
Chasing rumors of a fabled city protecting a powerful artifact, Gyre comes face-to-face with his lost sister. But she isn’t who she once was. Trained to be a warrior, Maya wields magic for the Twilight Order’s cause. Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, the two siblings will learn that not even the ties of blood will keep them from splitting the world in two

Comet Weather

A contemporary tale of four fey sisters. Bee: the practical one, the lynchpin; still living in the family home of Mooncote in Somerset, where she has met an unconventional boyfriend that not even her sisters are aware of. Stella: a DJ among other things. Currently hanging around the Med after completing a series of gigs in Ibiza, she has vowed never to return to Mooncote following a row with Bee, but that was then… Serena: a single mother and fashion designer living in Notting Hill, increasingly uncertain of her relationship with long-term boyfriend Ben, a Camden-based rock singer and the son of a family friend. Luna: the youngest, head-strong and free-spirited, a wanderer living out of a horse-drawn van while she follows the Gypsy Switch: the route of horse fairs that spans the length of the country. The Fallow sisters, scattered like the four winds but now drawn back together, with the comet due, united in their desire to find their mother, Alys — a former Vogue cover model who disappeared a year ago without warning or explanation. They have help, of course, from the star spirits and the no-longer-living, but such advice tends to be cryptic and is hardly the most dependable of guides. How is the comet connected to all this, and what of the huge cloaked intruder, stinking of blood and earth, who surprises Stella one night while she’s home alone? The sisters soon come to realise that their mother’s disappearance may be part of something far bigger and much darker than they had ever suspected…

Phosphorus A Winterstrike Story

Far across the sands of Mars, deep within the walls of a dead city, something stirs; an awakening that threatens to return a malice so ancient it is no longer remembered, except in darkest legend… Winterstrike is at war and the target of deadly bombardment. Even so, the last thing Canteley expects is for her mother to send her away, and in the company of her formidable aunt at that. Aunt Sulie is a member of the ruling Matriarchy, who wrap secrets around them as thick as winter snowfall. When Sulie takes her to the abandoned city of Tharsis, Cateley little imagines that the trip will unearth secrets long hidden and reveal the truth behind her own past. Recurring images of a blood red tower standing in the shadow of Olympus Mons have haunted her dreams. Now, at last, she has the chance to discover what they mean.