James Nicoll Reviews

Perpetua Collins works for a real troll. Well, technically a goblin, and it’s not as bad as it sounds. As the administrative assistant, she provides a ​“human” face for an employment agency specializing in placements for goblins and trolls. It’s probably the most unusual job she could find in Toronto, but she’s grateful for it, having come to the city with $500 in her pocket and no support. Without it, she’d have no choice but to go back to the boring small town and overbearing mother she worked so hard to leave. But as Perpetua settles into her new job, disturbing questions arise. And no, they’re not about the fact that goblins and trolls exist. She’s fine with that part. The agency has no visible means of support. How does her boss manage to keep his ​“clients” out of the public eye? They’ve been part of the city far longer than anyone thinks, and are growing restless under the burden of forced invisibility and financial poverty. What will happen if the veil drops, and humans see?

The captain of a family-owned starship arranges a marriage for her son in hopes of achieving faster-than-light travel and maybe, just maybe, marital bliss.

Before Hisako Saski is even born, her parents make a deal on her behalf. In exchange for a first-class education and a boost out of poverty, Hisako will marry Adem Sadiq, a maintenance engineer and self-styled musician who works the trade lanes aboard his family’s sub-light starship, the Hajj.

Hisako is not happy when she finds out about the plan. She has little interest in the broken branch of physics the deal requires her to study, and is not keen on the idea of giving up her home and everything she knows to marry a stranger. 

Sparks fly when Adem and Hisako meet, but their personal issues are overshadowed by the discovery of long-held secrets and a chance at faster-than-light travel. 

A diverse cross-section of Japan passes through the bar Lui, and the bartender tends to them all, with all their hopes and their fears. Underneath the black suits — whether crumpled or designer — and the cosmetics, they’re all people on the way to somewhere else in Tokyo’s glittering boom era. The bartenders and Mama-sans who keep everything running smoothly rely on their own camaraderie, night after night.
Winner of the 1975 Naoki Prize.

Amayadori (雨やどり) originally appeared as a series of short stories in various magazines from 1973 – 74, later compiled into this book as Amayadori, with the subtitle ​“Shinjuku baka monogatari,” which could be roughly translated as ​“Tales of Shinjuku naifs.” Written while Japan was close to the peak of the post-War economic boom, Hanmura captures the ​“economic animals” of Japan, and the countless men and women in their periphery who kept the bars and cabarets running all night long to let them blow off steam.
Japan of the 21^st century is vastly different, and Hanmura’s depiction of a very different era is still popular among those who fondly remember ​“the way it used to be.” While the settings have changed and smartphones provide new modes of interaction, the same archetypical salesmen, bartenders, and bargirls still haunt the night spots of Tokyo, searching for something better.

Renowned author Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s first thriller, UNTAMED SHORE, is a coming-of-age story set in Mexico which quickly turns dark when a young woman meets three enigmatic tourists. 

Baja California, 1979. Viridiana spends her days watching the dead sharks piled beside the seashore, as the fishermen pull their nets. There is nothing else to do, nothing else to watch, under the harsh sun. She’s bored. Terribly bored. Yet her head is filled with dreams of Hollywood films, of romance, of a future beyond the drab town where her only option is to marry and have children. 

Three wealthy American tourists arrive for the summer, and Viridiana is magnetized. She immediately becomes entwined in the glamorous foreigners’ lives. They offer excitement, and perhaps an escape from the promise of a humdrum future. 

When one of them dies, Viridiana lies to protect her friends. Soon enough, someone’s asking questions, and Viridiana has some of her own about the identity of her new acquaintances. Sharks may be dangerous, but there are worse predators nearby, ready to devour a naïve young woman who is quickly being tangled in a web of deceit. 

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of the most exciting voices in fiction, and with her first crime novel, UNTAMED SHORE, she crafts a blazing novel of suspense with an eerie seaside setting and a literary edge that proves her a master of the genre. 

A Bond Undone is the second book in Jin Yong’s epic Chinese classic and phenomenon Legends of Condor Heroes series, published in the US for the first time! In the Jin capital of Zhongdu, Guo Jing learns the truth of his father’s death and finds he is now betrothed, against his will, to two women. Neither of them is his sweetheart Lotus Huang.

Torn between following his heart and fulfilling his filial duty, Guo Jing journeys through the country of his parents with Lotus, encountering mysterious martial heroes and becoming drawn into the struggle for the supreme martial text, the Nine Yin Manual. But his past is catching up with him. The widow of an evil man he accidentally killed as a child has tracked him down, intent on revenge. Meanwhile, his true parentage at last revealed, Yang Kang, the young prince Guo Jing must face in the Garden of the Eight Drunken Immortals, is forced to choose his destiny. Will he continue to enjoy the life of wealth and privilege afforded to him by the invader of his homeland, or give up all he has known to avenge his parents?