James Nicoll Reviews

William C. Heine’s 1974 The Last Canadian is a post-apocalyptic thriller.

Having cannily predicted business opportunities for an American versed in Canadian ways, Eugene ​“Gene” Arnprior transformed himself into the ideal candidate for his company’s expansion into Canada. A naturalized citizen resident in Montreal, Gene and his family can reasonably expect to enjoy a pleasant, if Canadian, life. 

Pity about the end of the world.

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Malka Older’s 2022 The Mimicking of Known Successes is a stand-alone science fiction mystery, one of the Holmes and Watson variety. 

Thanks to humanity’s communal quest for profit, Earth is uninhabitable. Indeed, such was human diligence in this matter that even Mars was somehow made even less habitable. Only on a single giant planet¹ do the remnants of humanity survive. They have finally embraced more responsible behavior; the alternative is total extinction.

It’s no utopia. Thus, police. Thus, missing persons cases — possibly murder cases — for said police to investigate. 

A stranger vanished from a remote railcar station. No railcar had arrived to bear him away, suggesting he plummeted from the station into the giant world’s depths. Did he commit suicide? Was he murdered? In either case, why? Investigator Mossa is determined to find answers.

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2014’s Mars Evacuees is the first of two volumes in Sophia McDougall’s Mars Evacuees young-adult military SF series.

The Morrors appeared from deepest space to save humanity from unchecked global warming, in return for which they asked only minor territorial concessions. Merely in the coldest regions of Earth. Well, they demanded rather than asked and their territorial demands were major rather than minor. Since the Morrors required more arctic territory than existed at their arrival, they set about cooling the entire Earth to better suit their needs. 

For the last fifteen years, longer than Alice Dare’s entire life, humanity has been fighting a losing battle against the aliens. 

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2018’s A Bride’s Story, Vol. 11 is the eleventh tankōbon in Kaoru Mori’s historical manga, which is titled Otoyomegatari in the original Japanese. The English translation of this volume appeared in 2019.

When last we saw English researcher Henry Smith, he was in Ankara and surprised to encounter someone he had last seen in Central Asia. 

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1987’s Bimbos of the Death Sun is the first of two Jay Omega mysteries by Sharyn McCrumb.

Engineering professor Dr. James ​“Jay Omega” Mega turned his research into a novel. Fellow academic Dr. Marion Farley transformed Jay’s novel into a readable novel and Jay himself into a boyfriend. Jay’s publisher renamed the hard SF novel Bimbos of the Death Sun, slapped a lurid cover on it, and sent it out to bookstores. Now comes the most grueling part of writing SF: publicity. Specifically, interacting with fans at Rubicon, a science fiction convention. 

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Douglas Terman’s 1980 Free Flight is a post-apocalyptic thriller. 

Believing that political and economic trends favored the US, Soviet Politburo extremists decided to take advantage of the Soviet’s existing superiority before it vanished. One bold first strike and they would unify the world under Soviet rule for the comparatively small cost of a few tens of millions dead. Mistakes were made. Billions died. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union prevailed. 

Air Force Officer Gregory Mallen picked the perfect time to holiday at his isolated Vermont cabin with doomed girlfriend Anne. Makeshift counter-measures protected Mallen¹ from the fallout. In the two years since 1985’s Seven Hour War, Mallen has lived in his cabin, occasionally bartering for necessities. Until now, America’s new government has ignored him. 

That respite is now over.

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2022’s Holiday Heroine is the sixth novel in Sarah Kuhn’s Heroine Complex series. 

Bea Tanaka’s brand-new life in Hawai‘i is almost perfect. Newly hired by the Demon Research Group¹, she is establishing a life independent of her doting, domineering older sister Evie. Hunky friend-with-benefits Sam Fujikawa has the potential to become something more. Bea 2.0 will be in all ways superior to the old Bea 1.0 back on the mainland. Or so she hopes. 

If only Bea didn’t have a niggling doubt: she might still be a little evil.

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Rebecca Roanhorse’s 2022 Tread of Angels is an upcoming fantasy novel. 

Eons ago, the demons lost their war and the survivors fled to Hell. Abaddon was not a survivor. Struck down by Azrael, the demon-leader’s massive corpse became the foundation of Abaddon’s Mountain. 

Humans being humans, they view the demon’s remains not as the relic of a world-shaping war but rather as a resource. The town of Goetia’s economy depends on mining and selling Abaddon’s remains. Upon this basis, a thriving community lives, a community divided, as human societies generally are, into the favoured (the Elect, descended from the victors) and the disfavoured (the Fallen, descended from the losers). 

Celeste Semyaza is Fallen. She makes her living dealing cards at the Eden. Circumstances will force her into a new and unwanted role: one part lawyer and one part private investigator. 

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The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman: The Arabic Epic of Dhat Al-Himma was edited and translated by Melanie Magidow. It offers a selection of the many, many adventures of pious, ferocious Bani Kilab warrior-woman Princess Fatima, also known as Dhat Al-Himma (She of Ambition). 

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1989’s Eldrie the Healer is the first and only volume in Claudia J. Edwards’ Bastard Princess secondary-world fantasy series. 

Eldrie left her native Maritiene, where she was an unhappy, bullied bastard (but of royal stock, so would have been a princess if legitimate), to become a wandering healer. Eager to find work, Eldrie journeyed to the strife-torn Republic. She soon discovered two flaws in her plan. First, a decade of civil war meant nobody could afford to pay her. Second, rather than being seen as a neutral in the conflict between Theocrat and Monarchist, Eldrie was seen by both sides as the ally of the other side and therefore a legitimate target.

Searching for a way past clashing Theocrat/Monarchist forces, Eldrie finds herself face to face with a rampaging barbarian.

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