James Nicoll Reviews

Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes (April 2025)

Cold Eternity, the newest space horror novel from the author of Dead Silence and Ghost Station, blends the dystopian dread of Severance with the catastrophic approach to AI from M3gan.

Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal that has put a huge target on her back. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: a gigantic space barge housing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth’s most wealthy citizens.

The ship and its cryo program are long defunct, but Halley starts to think she sees figures crawling in the hallways, and there’s a constant scraping, slithering, and rattling echoing in the vents.

It’s not long before Halley realizes she may have gotten herself trapped in an even more dangerous situation than the one she was running from…. 

Firebird by Juliette Cross (April 2024)

House of the Dragon meets From Blood and Ash in this epic, scorching dark romantasy.

A conqueror captivated…

A witch prophesied to save them all…

A world where dragons rule Rome.

From the moment Roman general and nephew to the emperor Julianus Dakkia laid eyes on Malina, he was enthralled by the Dacian dancer. Years later, the fierce beauty stands before him on a scarred battlefield, her life in danger. He instinctively shifts into his fierce dragon form to save her, an action that may mean his head on the imperial gate. But he and his dragon know one thing: she belongs to them.

Malina can’t believe that the centurion who had once bestowed a secret talisman on her is the Roman general of legendary brutality. His warrior prowess cannot be denied, yet they don’t reveal the secret he hides. All Malina knows is his protection and gentle touch. And she cannot deny how her soul has always seemed to answer his.

As they navigate a world where flying deathriders conquer and burn, their love will ignite a firestorm that can only end in heartbreak or death. Or both. 

Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow (February 2025)

New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow returns to the world of Red Team Blues to bring us the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new tool for crime ever invented: the personal computer.

The year is 1986. The city is San Francisco. Here, Martin Hench will invent the forensic accountant – what a bounty hunter is to people, he is to money – but for now he’s an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his way around a city still reeling from the invention of a revolutionary new technology that will change everything about crime forever, one we now take completely for granted.

When Marty finds himself hired by Silicon Valley PC startup Fidelity Computing to investigate a group of disgruntled ex-employees who’ve founded a competitor startup, he quickly realizes he’s on the wrong side. Marty ditches the greasy old guys running Fidelity Computing without a second thought, utterly infatuated with the electric atmosphere of Computing Freedom. Located in the heart of the Mission, this group of brilliant young women found themselves exhausted by the predatory business practices of Fidelity Computing and set out to beat them at their own game, making better computers and driving Fidelity Computing out of business. But this optimistic startup, fueled by young love and California-style burritos, has no idea the depth of the evil they’re seeking to unroot or the risks they run.

In this company-eat-company city, Martin and his friends will be lucky to escape with their lives. 

Chaos by Constance Fay (March 2025)

Lore Olympus meets Winter’s Orbit in this pulse-pounding romance between a space mercenary and a super soldier whose mind-control breaks when she touches him.

Desperate to prove herself to her crew of space mercenaries, engineer Caro Ogunyemi takes on a solo mission to infiltrate the top secret human experimentation laboratory run in a secret prison by the deadly Pierce family that rules her corner of the galaxy.

Caro realizes she really messed up right about the time Carmichael Pierce injects a bomb into her neck to control her. If that wasn’t enough, all her engineering skills seem to be backfiring as a residual alien infection crashes the machinery in everything she touches.

As she works her way deeper into the laboratory, Caro meets their star subject: Leviathan, a super soldier turned mindless killing machine by a chip in his head…until Caro touches him. The same alien infection jamming her datapad and ruining her life also breaks the control chip turning Leviathan into Pierce’s puppet.

In the heart of enemy territory, Caro and Leviathan must figure out how to escape and recover his agency before Caro’s alien infection heals and Leviathan is lost to her forever. 

The Electric State by Nils Hintze & Tomas Härenstam (September 2024)

A road trip on the verge of reality in visual artist and author Simon Stålenhag’s vision of an apocalyptic alternate 1990s.

The Night Is Defying by Chloe C. Peñaranda (January 2025)

Vicious Nightmares Need Peaceful Dreams.

Shaken from the aftermath of the Libertatem, the newly found star-maiden Astraea is determined to keep her freedom, even at the cost of betraying her heart. But time is running out to recover her memories with the hope it will unveil her killer. 

Embarking on a journey to discover her past, Astraea’s awakening power spins the hourglass on a history threatening to repeat itself. While Nyte tries to regain control of the vampires hungry for bloodshed, a sinister plan by his brother to overthrow him sparks a dangerous feud. But are they willing to wear the blood of their kin to see it through?

For nothing in the past ever stays buried. Friends have turned into foes, brothers have turned into enemies, and what was written in the stars long ago ignites again in two hearts that were never meant to be. Letting Astraea go would save the world from darkness, but Nyte is no hero. It seems no monster is heartless, and no angel is without sin. 

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite (March 2025)

A Memory Called Empire meets Miss Marple in this sci-fi ode to the cozy mystery, helmed by a no-nonsense formidable auntie of a detective

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers — just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor — and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting — knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work — and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…

Told through Dorothy’s delightfully shrewd POV, this novella is an ode to the cozy mystery taken to the stars with a fresh new sci-fi take. Perfect for fans of the plot-twisty narratives of Dorothy Sayers and Ann Leckie, this well-paced story will leave readers captivated and hungry for the series’ next installment.