James Nicoll Reviews

Bethany C. Morrow’s 2020 A Song Below Water: A Novel is a standalone contemporary fantasy novel.

Sisters-by-choice Tavia and Effie are African American teens (in uber-white Portland, Oregon), perpetually aware of the potential for casual abuse or worse from police. As stressful as this is, it could be far worse. Tavia has a secret: she is a siren. 

Sirens are feared for two reasons. Firstly, they can control people with the power of their voice. Secondly, all sirens are African American. Powerful African American women are to be feared and hated. Whatever the strict letter of the law might say about killing sirens, the practice is winked at, even lauded.

Take the case of the late Rhoda Taylor.

Read more ➤

Mike Chen’s 2019 Here and Now and Then is a standalone time-travel thriller.

The Temporal Corruption Bureau protects history from malicious tampering. Kin Stewart used to be a TCB field agent but, his beacon disabled in a fight with a perp, he can’t return to 2142. Marooned in the 1990s, he has no choice but to make a new life for himself. 

Eighteen years later in 2014….

Read more ➤

2020’s Forest of Souls is the first volume in Lori M. Lee’s Shamanborn series.

Foundling Sirscha Ashwyn seems destined to spend an unremarkable life as servant to her betters. But Sirscha is too ambitious for that. She apprentices herself to Kendara the Shadow, master spy/assassin for the kingdom of Evewyn. 

Part of her training has consisted of service in the army. While there, she makes a friend, fellow soldier Saengo. She is dispatched on an errand by Kendara; Saengo accompanies her. It’s a trap; a shaman attacks with fire. Sirscha survives but Saengo does not. 

What happens next is unexpected and quite disquieting.

Read more ➤

Ted Chiang’s 2019 Exhalation is a collection of speculative fiction short works.

Read more ➤

JY Neon Yang’s 2018 Between the Firmaments is a standalone fantasy novella.

Armed with sunmetal, the invading Blasphemers descended on Bariegh’s magic-rich world. The world was enslaved; its gods and enchanted creatures were bound and treated as expendable power sources. 

Bariegh of the Jungle is a god, but he takes great pains to conceal this from the Blasphemers. Life as a construction worker is one of brutal exploitation, but it’s better than being used as a battery, to be drained and discarded. Existing under cover also means that he can keep an eye on his great-great-grandniece, Sisu, who has no idea that divine blood flows through her veins.

Caution is for naught when Sunyol arrives.

Read more ➤

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2020 Mexican Gothic is a standalone Mexican Gothic novel. As you might expect.

Young socialite Noemí Taboada is yanked out of her comfortable school and party-going life by her father. He has recently received an astonishing letter from Noemí’s cousin Catalina, married some months previously to Virgil Doyle. Concerned for Catalina’s well-being, Noemí’s father has been unable to convince Virgil to bring Catalina to Mexico City for a psychiatric assessment. Having no better alternative, Mr. Taboada dispatches Noemí to visit her cousin.

If he knew more about the Doyles, he most certainly would not have done this, but of course the Doyles have gone to great lengths to avoid publicity.

Read more ➤

Alexis Henderson’s 2020 The Year of the Witching is a standalone fantasy novel.

The town of Bethel shuns the outside world, hewing to the narrow path of righteousness taught by their prophets. But one resident, Immanuelle Moore, proves that the shunning wasn’t complete: the colour of her skin makes it clear that her father was an Outsider. Her father is executed; her mother dies in childbirth; only Immanuelle is left as evidence of their crime. 

Between her lover’s execution and her own death, Immanuelle’s mother vanished into the Darkwood, reappearing shortly before she died. What precisely the woman got up to in the Darkwood is a matter of superstitious conjecture. Immanuelle finds out … to her regret.

Read more ➤

2020’s Hunted by the Sky is the first volume in Tanaz Bhathena’s Wrath of Ambar series.

Alarmed by a prophecy that an unnamed girl with a star-shaped birthmark would be his downfall, Ambar’s King Lohar did what so many rulers of myth and legend have done: command his Sky Warriors to find and kill every girl with such a birthmark.

Gul is a star-marked girl; she survives because her parents sacrificed their lives to protect her. The murderous assault that was intended to save the king’s life has left Gul determined to kill both the ruler and his right hand man, homicidal sadist Major Shayla.

That said, she’s a fourteen-year-old home-schooled orphan with no access to the king and no real training in combat or magic. Killing Lohar will be a challenge.

Read more ➤

C. L. Polk’s 2017 Witchmark is the first volume in their Kingston Cycle. 

Having survived a lamentable childhood and a bloody war, Doctor Singer would like to put his past behind him and focus on healing people. His good Samaritan instincts betray him when he tries to assist Nick Elliott. The dying journalist refers to the doctor as ​“starred one” in the hearing of Tristan Hunter. Elliott might as well have called Singer a witch. 

If Hunter were to report Singer to the authorities, it would be disastrous for the doctor. The nation of Aeland has a firm policy where witches are concerned: dispatch them to asylums as soon as they are discovered. But Hunter, a foreigner, isn’t interested in exposing Singer. Hunter simply wants the doctor’s help in learning who murdered Elliott — and why.

Read more ➤

Nicky Drayden’s 2020 The Hero of Numbani is an Overwatch tie-in novel. Overwatchis a popular video game I have not played. More details here.

The Omnic Crisis (an AI uprising) is thirty years in the past. This matters to protagonist Efi Oladele mainly because living through the crisis left Efi’s mother with PTSD. What also matters to Efi is finding a way to use her exceptional intellect that will not cost her her best friends.

Read more ➤