James Nicoll Reviews

2018’s Son of a Liche is the second installment in J. Zachary Pike’s Dark Profit Saga.

Dwarf adventurer Gorm’s quest in Orconomics: A Satire was something of a mixed success. Well, more of a catastrophic failure: the orcs of Guz’Varda Tribe befriended by Gorm and his friends dropped their guard and were massacred by gold-hungry humans; two of Gorm’s friends died; and the party was unjustly branded as criminals by the government of the Freedlands. 

The only up-note was that Gorm and company dealt the Liche Detarr Ur’Mayan a resounding defeat.

Well, less a resounding defeat and more a minor set-back. Cue the undead legions carving their way across the continent. 

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Green Ronin’s 2019 Superteam Handbook is intended for use with their Mutants and Masterminds superhero roleplaying game. It’s a source book for game masters, with advice on how to run superhero teams in an SHRPG.

As is appropriate for a product of this nature, Superteam Handbook is a team effort:

• Writing & design: Jennifer DK, Crystal Frasier, Steve Kenson, Jack Norris, John Polojac, Lucien Soulban, Miranda Sparks, Fred Wan, and Jordan Wyn
• Development: Crystal Frasier Editing: Samantha Chapman
• Art direction: Hal Mangold Graphic Design: Crystal Frasier
• Cover art: Conceptopolis
• Interior art: Domenico Neziti, Alberto Foche, & Denis Medri
• Publisher: Chris Pramas

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1979’s Convergent Series is a collection of shorter pieces by Larry Niven. It’s either the final or second to last entry¹ in my informal, irregular ​“essential collections by Larry Niven” review series. 

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Sarah Kuhn’s 2020 Haunted Heroine is the fourth volume in her Heroine supernatural superhero series.

Pyrokinetic superhero Evie Tanaka already has enough on her plate, what with pregnancy, worries about motherhood, and problems with her hunky half-demon husband Nate.

But she adds more worrification when she returns to the site of a much regretted mistake. 

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Ryū Mizunagi’s contemporary fantasy manga Witchcraft Works (Witchikurafuto Wākusu ) has been serialized in Kodansha’s good! Afternoon magazine since March 2010. Volume one of the tankōbon series collects the first four installments.

Honoka Takamiya is an unremarkable high school student. His otherwise normal life is subject to ongoing disruption thanks to … propinquity [1]. The statuesque Ayaka Kagari not only has the desk next to Honoka, she takes the same route to school. Her legion of adoring fans sees Honoka’s uninvited (and unwilling) proximity to their idol as an affront to be punished whenever possible.

One day the school’s clock tower is dropped onto Honoka and his life changes forever.

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Lois McMaster Bujold’s 2020 The Physicians of Vilnoc is the eighth installment in the Penric & Desdemona series.

Penric has finally settled down. The sorcerer has a wife (Nikys), a child (Florina), a home, and no reason to go haring off on dangerous missions.

One day, a dangerous mission comes to Penric.

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Laura Lam’s 2020 Goldilocks is a standalone science fiction novel.

Good news, bad news: Cavendish (an Earth-like, life-bearing world) is just ten and a half light years away and, thanks to the Alcubierre Drive, it is within humanity’s reach. Due to generations of poor choices, humanity needs Cavendish if it is to survive. The Earth is racing towards its final greenhouse doom.

Dr. Valerie Black, CEO of Hawthorne, believes that the Earth is doomed and that humanity must be saved. She has convinced the US government to construct the ship and the infrastructure needed for a voyage to Cavendish. At the last moment, however, a misogynistic administration has removed her from the project and replaced her handpicked crew with astronauts who were less trained but more acceptably male.

No worries! Black has vast cunning and even greater resources. The men stole the starship Atalanta from her. Black simply steals it back.

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Gordon R. Dickson’s 1967 Soldier, Ask Not is an expansion of his 1964 Hugo-winning novella of the same title. It is part of his Childe Cycle, a series also known as the Dorsai books. 

Tam Olyn and his sister Eileen were orphaned as children, which left them in the dubious care of their abusive uncle Mathias. Tam grows up ambitious and lacking in empathy. His emotional damage is a flaw that will have some nasty consequences.

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S. Qiouyi Lu’s 2020 Inhalations is a collection of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction pieces. It assembles all of S. Qiouyi Lu’s work published between 2015 and 2019.

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Aaron Allston’s 1988 Strike Force was a campaign source book for the third edition of Hero Games’ superhero roleplaying game Champions . The book is based on the author’s long experience (close to a decade) of running games based on various editions of Champions .

The sourcebook was an unintended consequence:

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