James Nicoll Reviews

2023’s Dragonfired is the third installment in J. Zachary Pike’s Dark Profit secondary-universe fantasy series.

Good has triumphed over evil and the universally acclaimed hero Johan is king! His beloved Marja is queen! All shall celebrate! The humans and other Lightling races because they’re on board with Johan’s glorious plans (or at least the version Johan is sharing). The gnolls, trolls, and other Darkling races pretend to celebrate because the price of open dissent is death.

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Alfred Hitchcock’s Alfred Hitchcock’s Ghostly Gallery is an anthology of ghost stories targeted at school-age readers. Ghostly Gallery was illustrated by Fred Banbery.

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2024’s Usurpation is the third volume in Sue Burke’s Semiosis science fiction series.

Starfarers returning from the distant planet Pax brought with them the so-called Rainbow Bamboo. The unsuspecting Terrestrial humans didn’t know that Rainbow Bamboo is intelligent.

Another big win for the humans messing up Earth’s ecology.

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2023’s Infinity Gate is the first volume in M. R. Carey’s Pandominion paratime series.

The universe-spanning Pandominion is vast, wealthy, and powerful. The Pandominion’s power rests in part on control of Stepping, controlled travel between timelines. Unsanctioned Stepping is investigated.

Hadiz Tambuwal, formerly of Lagos’ Campus Cross, discovered Stepping too late to save her Earth. Stepping allows Hadiz to relocate to a nearby but less doomed Lagos, where her research continues. Consequences ensue.

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Robin Sloan’s 2024 Moonbound is a stand-alone science fiction novel. 

In a land far, far away, a long time from now, young Ariel de la Sauvage lives in a magical kingdom ruled by the Wizard Mallory. Mallory has plans for Ariel.

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2010’s A Most Improper Magick is the first volume in Stephanie Burgis’ middle-grade Kat, Incorrigible historical fantasy series. The 2011 US printing retitled the novel with the series name: Kat, Incorrigible.

Hoping to save her oldest sister Elisse from an unfortunate marriage, fourteen-year-old Kat Stephenson embarks on a bold venture to find her fortune as a boy. She makes it almost to the end of the family garden before being foiled by observant Elisse.

How, then, to save Elisse?

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2015’s The Just City is the first volume in Jo Walton’s Thessaly trilogy.

Astonished to discover that some of the women who flee from him flee because they most sincerely do not want to have sex with him, the god Apollo partakes in a social experiment with his wiser sister Athene. They will set up Plato’s Just City and see how it plays out.

Athene prudently remains a god. Apollo, wanting to better understand the human condition, willingly becomes a mortal for the duration of a lifetime.

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2013’s The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic is the first volume in Emily Croy Barker’s Real Magic series.

Facing abject failure in both personal and academic life, Nora seeks distraction. Setting off on a walk in the woods, Nora becomes disoriented and hopelessly lost.

Ilissa is happy to offer Nora hospitality. Nora would have been better off in the earthly wilderness.

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2023’s Menewood: A Novel is the second volume in Nicola Griffith’s historical sequence, Light of the World¹.

Centuries after the Roman exit, Britain is a violent, chaotic land, overrun by waves of continental invaders, beset by ambitious petty kings. Some might dream of a heroic king to unite the land. Certainly some dream of being that king.

Hild on the other hand is a realist who accepts and understands the world around her as it is. War will come. It is Hild’s task to make sure that those about whom she cares will survive it. She cannot expect total success, but she will do her best.

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Jennifer Stevenson’s 2004 Trash, Sex, Magic is a stand-alone modern fantasy novel.

Atlas Properties executive John Fowier has a simple dream: sell every unit in the Berne, Illinois, Foxe Parke Townhouses. To sell the townhouses, the townhouses need to be built. To build the townhouses, the land bordering the Fox River has to be cleared. To clear the land, Atlas needs unquestioned title to the land.

The only impediment is a small ramshackle trailer community located next to the river. Still, how hard could it be to convince no-account poor people to sell out, or if they refuse, find a legal pretext to drive them out?

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