James Nicoll Reviews

In a small religious community rocked by a spree of shocking murders, Detectives Salvi Brentt and Mitch Grenville find themselves surrounded by suspects. The Children of Christ have a tight grip on their people, and the Solme Complex neurally edit violent criminals – Subjugates – into placid servants called Serenes. In a town where purity and sin, temptation and repression live side by side, everyone has a motive. But as the bodies mount up, the frustrated detectives begin to crack under the pressure: their demons are coming to light, and who knows where that blurred line between man and monster truly lies.

The transdimensional empire, the Unity, has dissolved, its ruling powers forced into exile — but empires don’t die easily. The living planarship Ways and Means has come to medieval Earth and ended the Black Death, but it keeps its intentions to itself. Someone is trying to kill its agent Osia, who is suffering through her own exile. Spy-turned-anthropologist Meloku becomes a target, too, when she catches Ways and Means concealing the extent of its meddling. While they fight to survive, Fiametta — an Italian soldier, mercenary, and heretical preacher — raises an army and a religious revolt, aiming to split Europe in half.

Science Fiction Mystery in the 1920s 

Humanity has reached the stars

An alien plague without a cure threatens civilisation

Only a few tragic heroes can save mankind

Odd Soot is a roleplaying game of mystery and investigation set on an alternate Earth in the 1920s. Mankind has travelled into space and found alien civilisations. But a disease called The Soot spreads, driving those infected into madness. And they follow a twisted logic, wreaking havoc around them. 

With Odd Soot you can tell stories you have never heard before. 

You play deep, personal characters with impressive talents and tragic backgrounds. The setting is strangely familiar – combining alien worlds with 1920s tropes – full of mysteries and unsolved enigmas. 

Odd Soot is a complete roleplaying game based on Mythras. No other books are needed to play. 

From Granny Weatherwax to Susan Death and beyond… Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is an epic, groundbreaking work of fantasy often hailed for its originality, humour and deep, layered intelligence. But what about the women? Award-winning author & pop culture critic Tansy Rayner Roberts looks at the portrayal of female characters in many of Pratchett’s best loved books, from the early years of fantasy satire and sexy lamps to the more complex, iconic characters of the witches, werewolves, dwarves and queens. Contains 10 essays about gender and the Discworld, including ​“Socks, Lies & the Monstrous Regiment” which is exclusive to this collection.

FIVE…dimensional planes, rent by a cosmic fissure.

FIVE…Lineages.

FIVE…hundred settled worlds

FIVE…thousand year pass.

Space opera adventure. Pirates. Judges. Weird physics. Desperate refugees. Struggling colonists. Missing persons and a mystery ship. A quest for human origins in a pocket universe.