James Nicoll Reviews

2021’s The Cannonball Tree Mystery is the fifth installment in Ovidia Yu’s Crown Colony mystery series.

1944: The triumphant Japanese Empire has crushed all opposition. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere will surely be eternal. Alarming military setbacks are impossible.

Or so Singapore’s Japanese occupiers would assert. Despite best efforts to censor news, rumors persist that the Pacific War is not going well for Japan. The occupiers focus on local affairs and ignore wider developments.

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2020’s Masquerade in Lodi is the ninth entry in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric and Desdemona series.

Seconded to the city of Lodi to provide translation services, Penric and his demon Desdemona are fortuitously available to assist in a local mystery involving a babbling madman found washed ashore. Penric, being both a physician and a sorcerer, is able to diagnose the unfortunate’s problem.

Demonic possession.

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Penric and the Bandit is the thirteenth volume¹ in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric & Desdemona secondary universe fantasy series, set in her Five Gods milieu.

Rozak’s life has been a long sequence of misfortunes and poor life choices. With Penric’s help, he may be able to turn that around.

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Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2024 The Seventh Veil of Salome is a stand-alone historical novel about Golden Age Hollywood.

Pacific Picture’s wants its production of The Seventh Veil of Salome in the can ASAP. For that to happen, director Max Neiman needs start filming. For Max to start, he needs his Salome. Alas for Pacific, Max is a perfectionist, and in over a year of screen tests, he has not found his Salome.

Nancy Hartley is certain that the role should be hers. Instead, Max selects an unknown: Francisca Severa Larios Gavaldón, whom the public will know as Vera Larios.

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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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Alex Eisenstein and Phyllis Eisenstein’s 2003 Night Lives: Nine Stories of the Dark Fantastic is a speculative fiction collection.

To my knowledge, Night Lives is the only non-fix-up collection of Eisenstein short works.

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2015’s Harriet the Invincible is the first volume in Ursula Vernon’s Hamster Princess secondary-universe fantasy middle-grade series.

Harriet is a hamster who is also a princess. Her parents, in particular her mother, have Expectations regarding proper behavior for Harriet, Expectations that are at odds with Harriet’s preferences.

When Harriet is ten, Harriet’s parents reveal delightful news: Harriet is cursed and most certainly doomed.

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2020’s The Mimosa Tree Mystery is the fourth volume in Ovidia Yu’s Crown Colony series.

1943: having survived the Fall of Singapore and the brutal massacres that followed, Su Lin and her family keep a low profile. The Sook Ching may be over, but the Japanese are still committing atrocities against anyone foolish enough to catch their attention.

Events transpire to focus the occupiers’ attention on Su Lin’s neighborhood and on her family.

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Premee Mohamed’s 2024 The Siege of Burning Grass is a stand-alone (thus far) military speculative fiction novel. Or perhaps anti-military is a more accurate term…

The war between the Empire of Varkal and Med’ariz rages on. The Meddon, the people of Med’ariz, have superior technology; Varkal has elan, human wave tactics, and a willingness to redirect as much of the economy to the war effort as it takes to win, regardless of the consequences. Varkal is not winning and is growing increasingly impoverished.

Alefret was a founding member of a pacifist pact. His principled pacifism has greatly displeased the Varkal government.

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2024’s Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea is the first volume in Rebecca Thorne’s Tomes & Tea cozy fantasy series.

When cruel Queen Tilane off-handedly puts Reyna’s life at risk, the bodyguard decides she has had enough of Tilane’s ways. Reyna packs her meagre belongings and flees the castle. No more guarding an evil, vindictive tyrant. Instead, Reyna and her powerful magical girlfriend Kianthe will open a combination book and tea shop.

As far as the queen is concerned, leaving her employ is treason. The penalty for treason is death.

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