James Nicoll Reviews

2019’s A Bride’s Story, Vol. 12 is the twelfth tankōbon in Kaoru Mori’s historical manga, which is titled Otoyomegatari in the original Japanese. The English translation of this volume appeared in 2020.

Rather than a single storyline, this volume has a number of threads. However, a number of characters who previously never met before do encounter each other, thanks to the energetic Mr. Smith.

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Kit Whitfield’s 2022 In the Heart of Hidden Things is a stand-alone fantasy novel. 

Once upon a time, far far away, there was a village called Gyrford, a socially stratified community whose laws were draconian (but somehow not applicable to the well-to-do). 

Also, there are fairies.

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Alexei Panshin’s 1975 Farewell to Yesterday’s Tomorrow is a collection of science fiction short stories. Except as noted, all essays and stories are by Alexei Panshin. 

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Phong Nguyen’s 2022 Bronze Drum is a stand-alone historical fiction novel.

In the Red River Delta, Lady Man Thiện and Lord Trưng administer the territory of Cung Điện Mê Linh … but only so long as they keep their Han overlords satisfied. This is a difficult task, as the occupying Han are easily offended. As difficult as the Việt present is, the future may well be more difficult, as neither of the Lady and Lord’s daughters seem suited to rule. Trưng Trắc is not forceful while Trưng Nhị is woefully undisciplined.

Spoilers for the Trưng sisters’ rebellion.

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Jonathan Strahan’s 2022 Someone in Time: Tales of Time-Crossed Romance is, as the title suggests, an anthology of short pieces that feature transtemporal romance. Although most of the stories are original to this anthology, two are reprints.

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Volume 2¹ is the second collection of the ongoing Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Japanese: 葬送のフリーレ, Hepburn: Sōsō no Furīren) fantasy manga series. Written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, Frieren has been serialized in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shōnen Sundaysince April 2020. The English translation appeared in 2022. 

Accompanied by her young human apprentice Fern, elf mage Frieren journeys north, hoping to commune with the shade of a long-dead human friend, the hero Himmel. Between the pair and their goal lie thousands of miles, not to mention demon-infested northlands. Daunting? Frieren is an experienced demon fighter. She is a thousand years old … so what matters a few years of trekking?

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Written in the 1950s, Jacqueline Susann’s science fiction novel Yargo was published posthumously in 1979. 

Determined to have a perfect wedding day, Janet Cooper consults a psychiatrist. Having addressed every physical flaw within her power to correct, Janet now wishes to deal with a small mental flaw: that she is in love with an alien man far more attractive than poor dull David. This alien paragon may or may not exist. 

It all began with an alien abduction.

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Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s 2021 The House of Rust is a stand-alone fantasy novel. 

Mombasa-born Aisha lives with her beloved father, for certain values of ​“lives with.” The Hadhrami fisherman cheerfully mentors his daughter whenever he is in Mombasa, teaching her skills that women aren’t usually taught. However, he is often at sea, searching for fish in waters where others dare not venture. 

One day Aisha’s father does not return.

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Edward Bryant’s 1976 Cinnabar is a collection of American New Wave science fiction stories set in a far future city, the city from which the collection takes its name. 

Cinnabar lies between a forbidding desert and an inhospitable ocean. It may be the last city on its world; nobody is certain if fabled Els still exists. Cinnabar is enabled by inherited technology of which the modern day can only dream. It is composed of nearly autonomous neighborhoods that answer only to Terminex, a great supercomputer ensconced in the heart of the temporal anomaly that sits at the centre of the city. 

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1981’s X‑Men: Days of Future Past was a two-part story that first appeared in the comics X‑Men 141 and X‑Men 142. Chris Claremont was credited as writer, John Byrne as artist; the pair shared plotting credit. 

In the unimaginably distant year of 2013, New York’s Park Avenue is a vast slum, as is New York itself. Indeed, New York’s condition reflects the dismal state of America as a whole: an economically declining dictatorship whose population is regimented by the giant robot Sentinels along eugenic lines. Put simply, it’s mutant versus human!

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