James Nicoll Reviews

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2024 Alien Clay is a stand-alone science fiction novel.

The Mandate, possessing as it does the correct views on every subject, discourages deviation from the one true path. Professor Arton Daghdev and his colleagues believed that science fell into a gray zone. In fact, the Mandate’s apparent tolerance for unsanctioned hypotheses was a ruse to get foolish academics to expose themselves… so they could be arrested.

Daghdev, no fool, worked out what the Mandate was up to as soon as he was purged, arrested, questioned, convicted, put into suspended animation, and dispatched on a one-way trip to Imno 27g, also known as Kiln. This is a death sentence, albeit a slow one.

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Jonathan Strahan’s 2024 New Adventures in Space Opera is an anthology of recent space opera stories.

SF has long had a bountiful supply of anthologists. How can any one of them stand out? Strahan’s surname is a variation on my mother’s maiden name. This is such an obvious way to ensure that I notice someone that I don’t know why more editors do not do it.

When I was editing for the Science Fiction Book Club, they sent me a number of Strahan anthologies. Never as many as I wanted. Strahan’s name on an anthology was a promising sign. I thought him equal to Groff Conklin¹.

In retrospect, there’s an important difference between Strahan and Conklin.

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Aliette de Bodard’s 2024 In the Shadow of the Ship is a stand-alone space opera set in de Bodard’s Xuya universe.

In the four years since Khuyên left the mindship The Nightjar, Thirsting for Water, Khuyên has risen to the rank of magistrate in the Đại Quang district on the Sixty-Fourth Planet. This lofty rank does not release her from the demands of filial piety. Thus, when the clan matriarch dies, Khuyên returns to the ruined starship from which she so prudently fled years earlier.

Nightjar​’s problems began with the war.

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2024’s The Mercy of Gods is the first volume of James S. A. Corey’s science fiction series, Captives’ War.

The novel biome of which humans are part first appeared on Anjiin three and a half millennia ago. Utterly unlike the lifeforms that existed for billions of years before, the new biome has been slowly spreading across Anjiin ever since. Too unlike each other to interact save indirectly, old and new biome exist alongside each other.

Tonner Freis and his team have worked out how to bridge the gap, to translate from one genetic system to another. This breakthrough makes them a target in a relentless academic struggle.

Another, equally relentless, far vaster, struggle is bearing down on Anjiin. 

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2021’s You Sexy Thing is the first volume in Cat Rambo’s Disco Space Opera Series.

Having deployed a regulatory loophole to exit her service to the Holy Hive Mind, Captain Nicolette ​“Niko” Larsen invested her back wages in the TwiceFar Station’s Last Chance restaurant. Aided by those of her subordinates fortunate enough to have survived certain events prior to the novel, Niko has enough funds to keep the Last Chance running for about three months¹. If the restaurant cannot be made profitable in that time, the crew will get to explore the exciting world of insolvency.

Salvation appears in the form of food critic Lolola Montaigne d’Arcy deBurgh.

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2023’s Furious Heaven is the second volume in Kate Elliott’s Sun Chronicles space-opera series.

Having prevailed in the most recent clash with the Phene Empire, it would be prudent for the Republic of Chaonia to consolidate its gains. The Phene Empire is vaster, wealthier, and enjoys a communications advantage that Chaonia cannot match. An experienced ruler like Chaonia’s Queen-Marshal Eirene would no doubt steer a careful path in the endless struggle with its imperialistic neighbor.

Eirene’s tempestuous daughter Sun would make other choices, but Eirene has considerable experience keeping Sun on a short leash. As long as Eirene is queen-marshal, Sun’s exuberance will be tempered. As long as Eirene is queen-marshal, the Republic’s enemies will have time to orchestrate Sun’s death and replacement as heir by the easily manipulated Prince Jiàn.

As long as Eirene is queen-marshal…

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Emily Tesh’s 2023 Some Desperate Glory is a stand-alone space opera.

Humanity struggles on, despite the total destruction of the Earth and the death of fourteen billion humans at the manipulators of aliens. Most of the remaining humans have made peace with the wider galactic civilization. But there is one small pocket of fanatical holdouts that has dedicated itself to unending war on the galactics. They live on Gaea Station, under the command of Commander Aulus Jole.

Protagonist Valkry — Kyr for short — thinks of the Commander as her uncle Jole. Having been indoctrinated from birth, Kyr believes fervently in the human cause. The day when she can take her place in the struggle cannot come soon enough.… 

Or so Kyr thinks.

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2014’s The Causal Angel is the third and thus far final book in Hannu Rajaniemi’s Jean le Flambeur post-singularity caper series.

Mistakes were made. The All-Defector is wreaking havoc. The Sobornost, the post-human civilization that dominates the Solar System, appears to have descended into civil war. Love interest and co-protagonist Mieli has been kidnapped! Being a significant contributor to the current chaos, it is up to Jean le Flambeur to save the day.

Who is Mieli? Who is Jean le Flambeur? If you have to ask, you have not read the previous two books. Do not attempt this one without having read both The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince.

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Ann Leckie’s 2023 Translation State is a stand-alone space opera novel. Translation State shares a setting with Leckie’s earlier Ancillary trilogy and with Provenance. It is Leckie’s first SF novel this decade.

Several plotlines eventually coalesce.

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Aliette de Bodard’s 2022 The Red Scholar’s Wake is a space opera set in de Bodard’s Xuya Universe.

Captured by Red Banner space pirates, scavenger Xích Si is painfully aware of a number of possible fates. She will probably have to choose between immediate death and involuntary indenture to the pirate fleet. Should she somehow survive capture without joining the fleet, she will forever be an outcast; her native An O Empire will assume that she bought her life with signing up as a pirate and will execute her for crimes against the state¹. If Xích Si were to contact her relatives, they could be arrested and executed for abetting piracy.

To Xích Si’s astonishment, the recently widowed mindship Rice Fish comes to Xích Si with a proposition. Or rather, a proposal.

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