James Nicoll Reviews

Again, Dangerous Visions is the second installment in Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions original speculative fiction series.

Again, Dangerous Vision’s remit was to reprise Dangerous Visions’ remit: present readers with stories that could not be published in the staid magazines and anthologies of the era. ADV would do this on a vaster scale than Dangerous Visions.

Having not read Again, Dangerous Visions since 1979 or 1980¹, I had only the vaguest of memories of this work. The reread was a journey of rediscovery.

Read more ➤

2025’s Breath of the Dragon is the first of two volumes in Fonda Lee and Shannon Lee¹​’s secondary-universe fantasy Breathmarked duology.

When two warriors with special powers (warriors known as Aspects of Virtue) arrive to collect Jun’s twin brother Sai for training as an Aspect, six-year-old Jun is outraged. While Breathmarked Sai’s gift allows him to copy perfectly other people’s martial arts skills, mundane Jun has trained hard to be a skilled martial artist.

East Longhan forbids common folk from learning martial arts. The end result of proud Jun’s display of prowess is that Jun and his father are exiled to West Longhan for five years.

Ten years later, Jun and his father are still in West Longhan.

Read more ➤

Riley Black’s 2025 When the Earth Was Green is, as the subtitle proclaims, about plants, animals, and evolution’s greatest romance: the one between plants and animals.

Read more ➤

Izumi Suzuki’s 1983¹ Set My Heart on Fire is a mainstream semiautobiographical novel. First published as Hato ni hi wo tsukete! Dare ga kesuin [Ignite (one’s) heart! Who will extinguish (it)?], the 2024 English translation is by Helen O’Horan.

Twenty-three-year-old model Izumi fills her days and nights with music, sex, and drugs. What better way to spend the early 1970s?

Read more ➤

1976’s Brothers of Earth is the first novel in C. J. Cherryh’s Hanan Rebellion¹ series. Let’s call it a planetary romance.

Endymion pursued and overtook fleeing Hanan starships, obliterating the enemy Although unable to escape the loathsome Alliance craft, the Hanan starfarers in turn obliterated Endymion.

The sole survivor? Endymion​’s communications officer, Kurt Morgan.

Read more ➤

Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Spring 1977 was the debut issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. The editor was George H. Scithers, with Asimov providing the name of the magazine and editorial columns.

Asimov’s is still being published, five editors¹ and almost half-a-century later. What did that first issue look like?

Read more ➤

2023’s Inferno is the eighth tankōbon (or ​“volume,” in the quaint American vernacular) of Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s on-going Monstress graphic novel series. Liu is the writer while Takeda is the artist.

Mistakes were made, revelations were reveled, and Maika Halfwolf’s soul is no longer resident in her body. Fox girl Kippa, Master Ren, and others quest into astral space to locate and recover Maika’s soul. It’s probably for the best that they did not know where the quest would lead them.

Read more ➤

Alan Dean Foster’s 1983 The Man Who Used the Universe is a stand-alone science fiction novel.

Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, impoverished resident of industrial planet Evenwraith, joins a criminal gang because that seems to the coldly logical young man his best chance to survive long enough to pursue better goals. His boss. Lal, is suspicious of the new recruit, who doesn’t seem to have any personal vices. Anything Lal can’t understand could be a threat. Lal knows how to handle threats.

Lal orders Loo-Macklin to carry out a contract killing. The target has been previously attacked and has defeated all attackers. Loo-Macklin may be being sent to his death. But if he survives… Lal has arranged for a very special reward.

Read more ➤

Insomniacs After School, Volume 8 is the eighth tankōbon in Makoto Ojiro’s contemporary manga series. Serialized in Shogakukan’s seinen manga magazine Weekly Big Comic Spirits, Insomniacs After School has been ongoing since May 2019. The English translation of Volume 8 was released in 2024.

Grumpy insomniac Ganta Nakami and ebullient insomniac Isaki Magari bonded over their discovery that the only place either can sleep is their school’s observatory. Various consequences followed: to keep using the observatory, the pair had to restart the astronomy club. More significantly for Ganta and Isaki, they eventually realized that they were a couple.

Ganta cannot sleep because he fears what the next day will bring. It may be ominous that Volume 8 begins with a discussion of Isaki’s health.

Read more ➤

John Brunner’s 2013 The Man Who Was Secrett and Other Stories is a collection of short stories, most of which feature Mr. Secrett, librarian for Royal Society for Applied Linguistics. Except as otherwise noted, all contents are by John Brunner.

Read more ➤