James Nicoll Reviews

The Monster from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is one of the great iconic figures in Western fiction; the story in which it appears is also well known. Unsurprisingly, the idea that a woman was able to create a work of great significance is confounding to certain people. Some have reacted by claiming Shelley did not write the novel, others by claiming that a story that has remained in print for two centuries is mere trash, the kind of thing a woman would write. Mountains of nonsense have been written about Frankenstein over the centuries and now it is my privilege to add a stone to those mountains. 

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Neal Shusterman has been publishing for a quarter century, but 2007’s Unwind is the first novel of his I recall having read. I wish I liked it more.… 

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. None of the factions involved were able to win a complete victory. The compromise that emerged from peace talks was as counter-intuitive as it was inhumane. While the US legal system now considers life to begin at conception, from ages thirteen to eighteen, parents can opt to consign unsatisfactory children to the organ banks, a process called unwinding. As long as 99% of the teen is used for organ donations, they have not technically died, only become more dispersed. Everyone is happy! 

Except for the teens who are slated to be unwound. Eh, teenagers, always complaining. 

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1971’s Exiles of the Stars is the first sequel to Andre Norton’s Moon of Three Rings. It was followed by 1986’s Flight of Yiktor and 1990’s Dare to Go A‑Hunting, neither of which I will review (because they fall outside the boundaries of this review series¹). Exiles picks up where Moon left off, with star-trader Krip Vorlund and alien witch Maelen the Moon Singer ensconced in brand-new bodies — Krip in the body of a Thassa and Maelen in the body of a small animal called a glassia — and on their way to the stars on the Free Trader Lydis.

But they’re not out of trouble yet. From the start, Lydis’ contract on Thoth had a whiff of danger. Nervous theocrats, threatened by religious strife and civil disorder, have hired the Lydis to transport precious artefacts, relics of a lost Forerunner race, to safety. The destination: Ptah, one of the other worlds in the Amen-Re system. 

A temple insider leaks the news that the priests are sending holy artefacts off-world. Even as the precious cargo is loaded aboard Lydis, angry mobs converge on the starship. Only the customary prohibition against attacking Free Traders can defend the Lydis.

They manage to escape from the riot-torn world, but worse is yet to come. Getting to Ptah will prove more challenging than expected.

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2015’s The Dark Forest, originally published in 2008¹ as 黑暗森林, is the second volume of Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. It follows Liu’s 2006 (for the Chinese edition)/2014 (English edition) novel The Three-Body Problem.

Three-Body Problem won the 2014 Hugo, despite notable handicaps. Not only had a translated book never before won the Hugo, two bloc-voting schemes conspired (knowingly or not) to keep it off the ballot. Only the fact that Marko Kloos withdrew (for reasons explained here) allowed Three-Body Problem onto the Hugo best novel ballot. 

That is a nice story of triumph over great odds, which is rather suitable considering that Three-Body Problem is a story of humanity facing a seemingly insurmountable challenge: resisting extermination at the manipulating appendages of the technologically superior Trisolarians. It’s a bit of shame, therefore, that I was somewhat ambivalent about Three-Body Problem². Many of the same issues coloured my reading of the sequel.

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Appleseed Book Two: Prometheus Unbound picks up where The Promethean Challenge left off. While Briareos Hecatonchires recovers from the injuries he suffered in the previous volume, Deunan Knute is trying to fit into a police force made up of former cut-throats barely distinguishable from the criminals they oppose. She’s soon head-hunted by ESWAT (Extra-Special Weapons and Tactics), less for her remarkable skill set and more because the powers-that-be (or a faction thereof) want her somewhere where they can keep an eye on her. Deunan has, as she discovers, a closer connection to the founders of Olympus than she had ever suspected. 

The people running Olympus (the city) and Aegis (the world government it heads) have bigger problems than one survivor from badside. The world war was horrible, but it did allow Aegis time to consider and address the issues driving humans towards global suicide. Not enough time, it seems, which leads the Council, bioroids all ¹, to consider a bold strategy: apply bioroid discipline to all humans. The result may not be human as humans of the 22 ^nd Century define it, but at least it and the world it inhabits will be alive. 

Interestingly, it’s not the humans who object to this scheme. It’s Athena, Aegis’ senior politician and a bioroid herself. 

Athena finds it easy enough to deal with the council: detain them all. While they are in detention, Athena and her subordinates run the proposal through Gaea, the city’s supercomputer. Normally the council is plugged into Gaea while it cogitates, but obviously that won’t work in this case. The vast, cold intellect is free to consider the issue without human or bioroid moderation. 

What could go wrong? 

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Ursula Le Guin’s 1994 novelette The Matter of Seggri won the 1994 Tiptree, an honour it shared with Nancy Springer’s Larque on the Wing. It was an interesting year for Le Guin and the Tiptree: her A Fisherman of the Inland Sea and ​“Forgiveness Day” both made the 1994 short list. For some reason ISFDB classifies inclusion in the short list as a nomination, probably because they don’t understand how the Tiptree process works. 

The Matter of Seggri takes place in Le Guin’s Hainish setting. Perhaps some background would help. As you know, about a million years ago 

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Diana Rowland’s 2015 White Trash Zombie Gone Wild picks up some months after How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back. Angel Crawford may be technically post-mortal (since she’s what normals call a brain-eating zombie), but otherwise her life existence is going pretty well. Work at the coroner’s office is fine, aside from hints of low-key hostility from her boss, Allen Prejean. She’s currently sans boyfriend, but she’s OK with that. Plus, thanks to a little drug she likes to call V12, she’s energetic, chipper, and has a handle on her dyslexia!

It’s true she has to steal the V12. But that’s totes easy; all she has to do is water down Philip Reinhardt’s experimental V12 medication. It’s not like anyone is going to notice! And it’s not like experimental medications ever have undocumented effects! And it’s true V12 greatly increases her need for human brains. But she can just steal those from work! It’s not like anyone would miss a brain or two or even all of them.

Except Allen does. 

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Clifford D. Simak’s City contains material written in the 1940s, material that wasn’t collected into book form until 1952. New interstitial material transformed it into something like a novel. 

City was popular and has been reprinted in many editions. The edition I own is the Ace mass market paperback, which means it does include Simak’s 1976 introduction (not included in earlier editions), but it does not include ​“Epilog,” which was written for the 1973 tribute collection for Astounding: John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology¹. (“Epilog” is included in later editions of City.)

While it didn’t win the Hugo², City did win the International Fantasy Award. My copy is well-worn; I still regard it fondly, despite the fact that it would seem to be exactly the sort of city-hating SF I loathe. And the book isn’t exactly keen on humans either. But it has the Dogs and the Cobbly worlds, and apparently that’s enough for me. And for many other readers as well. 

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Yes, this book should have been featured in my final Norton review. It’s not, because someone (and I am not naming names here) didn’t read the Waterloo Public Library entries for Dragon Magic and Exiles of the Stars carefully enough. That person overlooked the little McC notation indicating that the books were to be found at the McCormick branch (which is effectively inaccessible to me). It will take long enough to transfer the books to the central branch that waiting means missing the deadline for today’s review. And I prefer not to miss deadlines.

1973’s Forerunner Foray is third in the Forerunner series. It’s also the first one in which the Forerunners play a significant role, three books and thirteen years into the series. 

Ziantha’s promising psychic powers have caught the attention of Yasa and Ogan, two ambitious members of the Thieves Guild, and earned her a ticket out of the Dipple. It’s true that she is more of a valued possession than a valued employee, but even that is better than a life spent in the Dipple. It’s not like Yasa and Ogan don’t take care of her; not only have they honed Ziantha’s psychic powers, but they have trained her as a thief and a master of disguise.

All she has to do is follow orders to the letter, never screw up, and never step out of line and she will be secure until the moment she has outlived her usefulness.

In the opening chapter, Ziantha screws up by exceeding her instructions. She has been told to break into the home of a certain Jucundus. While there, she is strangely attracted to seemingly valueless curio. She cannot forget the curio and while brooding over it, discovers a new psychic power. She teleports the curio to her location. While she gains the curio, she also alerts the Patrol’s mentalists to the fact that there is a powerful unregistered psychic somewhere on Korwar. Oh yes, and she succeeds in alerting her master and mistress that she has stepped out of line.

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Labels matter. If I said ​“funny animal comic” you might think of Mickey Mouse, Captain Carrot, or Tom & Jerry. If I said ​“anthropomorphic comic,” you might remember somewhat less humorous graphic novels: Maus, Erma Felna EDF, and the subject of today’s review, Usagi Yojimbo. Or more specifically, Stan Sakai’s 1989 Usagi Yojimbo Book Three: Wanderer’s Road, which collects short pieces crafted between 1987 and 1989.

Miyamoto Usagi is a long-eared lagomorph ronin living in a fantasy version of Edo-era Japan. There, everyone is some form of anthropomorphic animal¹: rabbits, snakes, monkeys and so on. Lacking a master, Usagi moves from place to place, having adventures along the way. 

Here are seven of them.

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