James Nicoll Reviews

2025’s Point of Hearts is the sixth volume in Melissa Scott’s Astreiant¹ secondary universe fantasy series.

With a royal marriage impending, maintaining public tranquility is paramount. The city of Astreiant being Astreiant, the city is anything but tranquil. This is a problem for both Adjunct Point Nicolas Rathe and his lover, City Guard Captain Philip Eslingen.

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Melissa Scott’s 2023 The Master of Samar is a thus far stand-alone secondary world fantasy.

Product of a marriage of which his grandfather disapproved, Gilmyssin Irichels di Samar turned his back on the family that rejected him. A skilled curse breaker, Irichels is perfectly able to make his own way in the world without any need for the resources of the grand Samar family.

Irichels did not expect to return to his native city, Bejanth. He most definitely did not expect to return as head of the Samar House. For that matter, Irichels did not expect to be the only known surviving member of the Samar House.

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Melissa Scott’s 2023 Fallen is the second book in her Firstborn, Lastborn space opera series. It shares no characters with the first book, Finders, and is set in a different period. More on that second detail later.

The invention of nigh-godlike AIs provided the Ancestors with everything they could have wanted… until they found themselves at war with the AIs. Civilization collapsed. Centuries later, civilization has recovered, although at a lower tech level than the Ancestors enjoyed.

Luckily for the revived civilization, space is littered with Ancestor relics. A few of these relics aren’t existential threats.

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Melissa Scott’s 1996 Night Sky Mine is a stand-alone post-cyberpunk space opera.

Fearing pirates, miners flee their facility. This presents an opportunity for investigators Rangsay and Tarasov. It’s a doorway into a mystery they might be better off not investigating.

But first! Background exposition I could not figure out how to gracefully infodump.

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Melissa Scott’s 2020 Storm Warning is a tie-in novel for the American animated web series Gen:Lock.

Following the Great Union of the Fourth Turning Republics AKA the Union AKA Team Evil’s attack on New York, the Polity AKA the Good Guys, the Good Guys have been hard pressed to hold the line at the 88^th Meridian. The core of the resistance is the Gen:LOCK program, which allows pilots to briefly imprint their minds into Holons, advanced mechas. Only a small fraction of the population is capable of taking advantage of Gen:LOCK technology, thus the job of keeping the free world free falls on a small number of people, not all of whom are the sort of people governments would ordinarily trust.

Seventeen-year-old Cammie MacCloud, for example, is a former criminal.

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Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett’s 1988 The Armor of Light is a standalone historical fantasy novel. 

Court astrologer John Dee approaches the aged Queen Elizabeth with disquieting news. If nothing is done, then at some time in the next century a British monarch will be put to the axe. The Virgin Queen is horrified by this monstrous reversal of the natural order.

The key to the affair is James VI, King of Scotland, who even now is the focus of a dire magical plot. In a normal state of affairs, the death of a Scotsman is no great matter (to the English). In the case of James VI, he is the man who will inherit Elizabeth’s crown when she dies. His fate is significant. 

Someone will have to travel to Scotland to deal with the matter. That someone is two people: Sir Philip Sidney and Christopher Marlowe.

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Melissa Scott’s 2014 Fair’s Point is the fourth volume in her on-going Astreiant series. 

When aristocrat Dandin de Calior went bankrupt, the debacle extended to his creditors. Protagonist Philip Eslingen lost a goodly sum and ended up with … a dog (his share of de Calior’s assets). 

Rather than sell the basket-terrier, Eslingen decides to enter it in the dog races. He hires a well-regarded dog trainer, Besetje Quentier, and hopes to recoup his losses. 

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Melissa Scott’s Point of Knives is set at a time between that of Point of Hopes and that of Point of Dreams, the first and second instalments of the Astreiant series. Since my site does not do fractions or decimals, numbering Point of Knives is a bit tricky. So I will not even try. 

Adjunct Point Nicolas Rathe is called from his bed to attend to a murder. Rathe soon discovers that there were two murders: both Grandad Steen and his son Old Steen were mortally injured, although by someone inept enough that dying Old Steen tried to run to safety. 

The motive for some murders is obscure. In Grandad Steen’s case, the motive seems clear: treasure. 

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2018’s Finders is the first volume in Melissa Scott’s Firstborn, Lastborn series. 

The Ancestors disappeared millennia ago, leaving behind some garbled myths and the scattered relics of their nigh-godlike technology. Cassilde Sam and her partner Dai Winter make their meagre living tracking down and salvaging Ancestor relics. It’s a hard life, but not one that Cassilde will have to endure much longer. Third-stage Lightman’s will soon end her life. There is no treatment for Lightman’s.

Cassilde is desperate to secure financial security for Dai before she dies. An opportunity presents itself, but it comes at a high price: accepting scholar Summerlad Ashe as a partner once more. 

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2001’s Point of Dreams: A Novel of Astreiant is the second volume in Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett’s Astreiant series. 

Pointsman (city guard) Nicolas Rathe and his lover (ex-soldier Philip Eslingen) face a truly terrifying challenge: 

Theatre folk. 

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