James Nicoll Reviews

John Appel’s 2021 Assassin’s Orbit is a science fiction mystery novel. 

The planet Ileri is on the verge of joining the Commonwealth, a development not all of its citizens welcome. The last thing Ileri needs is a lurid mass murder. However, Ileri Station, high above the planet for which it is named, finds itself the scene of its first mass killing in seventeen years. Among the victims is Saed Tahir, grandson of private investigator Noo Okereke’s business partner. This makes the murders very personal for Noo.

The discovery of the Commonwealth Consul’s corpse amidst the other victims means that the mass murder is also an interstellar incident.

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2009’s Rin-ne, Volume One is the first tankōbon of Rumiko Takahashi’s contemporary fantasy manga series Rin-ne. Rin-ne debuted in April 2009 in Weekly Shōnen Sunday. The 398^thand final chapter appeared December 13, 2017.

When she was a young girl, Sakura Mamiya gained the ability to see ghosts. This is a gift of surprisingly little utility to a modern Japanese schoolgirl. However, when she discovers she can see her classmate Rinne Rokudo when nobody else in the class can, her gift offers her a clue as to Rinne’s nature. Clearly, the red-haired boy wearing the unusual robes is just another ghost.

This conclusion is clear, simple, and wrong.

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Victoria Goddard’s 2018 The Hands of the Emperor is a secondary universe fantasy set in Goddard’s Nine Worlds.

Cliopher Mdang — Kip to his extended family — is the personal secretary to a semi-divine figure who is known by titles such as the Lord of Rising Stars, the Lord Magus of Zunidh, and the Sun-on-Earth. The title most relevant to this narrative is Last Emperor of Astandalas. 

Spanning five of the Nine Worlds, the Empire of Astandalas is a vast, awe-inspiring state, ruled by a succession of emperors, each of whom is a god in human flesh. Or rather, the Empire was. Prior to the books’ beginning, various unpleasant events culminated in the fall of the Empire. Now the emperor (and by right of his humble-sounding office, Cliopher) governs what cohered after the fall. 

Aware that his underling works devotedly and hard, the emperor is gracious enough to grant Cliopher periodic holidays, which he uses to visit his family far across the Wide Seas. During one such holiday, Cliopher is inspired to make a proposition to his boss that will change their world.

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