James Nicoll Reviews

Hal Clements’ 1950 Needle is a science fiction mystery. 

In hot pursuit of a killer, the Hunter and his quarry crash land on Earth. The Hunter survives the landing. It must assume the criminal did as well. Determined to catch the criminal, the Hunter must turn to local allies for help. 

The catch? Earth has never been contacted by anything like the Hunter and its prey. The Hunter must manage not just detection, but first contact.

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Justina Ireland’s 2018 Dread Nation is a zombie apocalypse novel.

The American Civil War ground to a halt as soon as the dead began clambering from their graves. The cost of Grant’s march south against the undead was the South’s surrender and the freeing of the slaves. People once born in chains are now free.

There is, of course, one small catch, which is that entrenched white supremacy didn’t vanish when legal slavery did. As a consequence…

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2018’s Phosphorus takes place in Liz Williams’ Winterstrike space fantasy setting, as does Banner of Souls.

A terraformed Mars is divided between belligerent sisterhoods. Bombs are falling on young Canteley’s home city of Winterstrike. Canteley’s mother sends Canteley off to live with her aunt Sulie in distant Tharsis.

Was this to protect the girl? Or was it because her prophetic dreams suggest Canteley could be useful to Sulie?

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Tamifull’s How Do We Relationship? (Tsukiatte Agete mo Ii ka na) is a yuri manga.

Saeko, who has been pressured into attending a university mixer, drunkenly admits to Miwa that the boys at the mixer are out of luck. Saeko has eyes only for other women. Miwa admits she is in the exact same situation.

Why not date? After all, they know absolutely nothing about each other except both are women, gay, cute, and kinda drunk. What could possibly go wrong with being compromise girlfriends?

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Yoon Ha Lee’s 2020 Phoenix Extravagant is a (thus far) standalone fantasy. It’s also a mecha adventure. It’s genre-fluid.

Six years ago, the Empire of Razan invaded and conquered Hwaguk, which then became the drab Administrative Territory Fourteen, Artist Jebi is a survivor. They apply for a name change (a Razan-acceptable name) and a job as an artist for the new administration. Jebi’s sister, a Hwaguk nationalist, disapproves but hey … Jebi is a realist.

Jebi does not get the position for which they applied. They get a job offer they cannot refuse. 

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Ursula Le Guin’s 1972 The Word for World Is Forest takes place in her Hainish setting, during the League of Worlds period.

Three million years before the current era¹, the Hain scattered humans across a swath of near space. Now after a long hiatus, various worlds have rediscovered nearly-as-fast-as-light star travel. Earth promptly applies its new NAFAL technology to colonialist exploitation.

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Matthew Hughes’ 2019 What the Wind Brings is a standalone historical fantasy novel.

Dispatched by his master Don Alvaro to escort living cargo — slaves and farm animals — to Lima, Alonso Illescas instead finds himself marooned near the Rio Esmeraldas, in what is now northern Ecuador, in company with all the now-free slaves. 

Although Alonso is, like them, a dark-skinned servant to white masters, the Africans’ leader, Anton, would just as soon see Alonso dead; he’s a proxy for his despised master. Alonso’s greatest skill is being useful to those more powerful than he. It’s enough to buy his life, at least for the moment.

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Honda’s Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san (Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san) is a Japanese slice-of-life comedic manga, based on the author’s experiences selling books. It was serialized online on the pixiv comic website between August 2015 and March 2019. Volume 1 collects the first seven issues.

Imagine a world where people were free, even encouraged, to venture into stores seeking goods and services! Honda works in one such store, a busy manga outlet providing a wide variety of manga to an equally diverse clientele. Honda is certain that patrons expect a certain sort of bookseller and that they do not fit that image at all.

They do their best.

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Paul McAuley’s 2020 War of the Maps is a thus-far standalone science fiction novel.

Fearing the consequences should Remfrey He, the Free State’s greatest evil mastermind, be allowed to roam free unchecked, a retired lawman — the lucidor — sets out on an extremely unauthorized, one-man mission to track down his old enemy. 

The world the lucidor must traverse is one vaster and stranger than our familiar Earth.

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Emily Foster’s 2016 The Drowning Eyes is a standalone secondary-universe fantasy.

Town after town has been sacked by the Dragon Ships. Widespread paranoia is cutting into the good ship Giggling Goat​’s business; it’s much harder for Tazir to find passengers willing to book passage.

Still, no matter the danger, there is always someone anxious enough to pay well for transport across risky waters. It could be ​“runaway bride,” ​“person looking for a lost relative,” or ​“murderer who needs to get away from the scene of the crime.” Tazir’s recruiting efforts pay off in the form of a young girl named Shina. She seems naïve and harmless, needs to travel quickly, and is willing to pay an impressively large fee.

All is not quite as it seems.

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