James Nicoll Reviews

2016’s Cold-Forged Flame is the first story in Marie Brennan’s Varekai series.

Called up out of shadows, without memory or even a remembered name, the swordswoman is magically bound to carry out a quest using methods that are unclear, for a purpose that is not explained. All she knows is that she must somehow collect blood from the cauldron of the Lhian. Whoever or whatever the Lhian might be. 

One final detail she learns: most of the people who try to win a prize from the Lhian never return.

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2008’s The Young City is the third and last volume in James Bow’s The Unwritten Books trilogy.

For Rosemary Watson, helping her brother Theo move into his Toronto apartment was meant to be a prelude to her own foray into adult life. She and her boyfriend Peter McAllister were soon to start uni in Waterloo and London, Ontario¹ respectively. 

Adult life intervenes unexpectedly. The floor of Theo’s basement apartment collapses and drops Rosemary and Peter into the long-buried Taddle Creek. Emerging from a storm drain, the couple find themselves in a very unfamiliar Toronto. The problem wasn’t the floor; it was the structure of space-time itself².

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