James Nicoll Reviews

Tomiko Inui’s 1967 The Secret of the Blue Glass is a historical fantasy children’s book. First published in Japanese as Kokage No Ie No Kobitotachi (Yuri and the Little People), the 2017 English translation is by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

English teacher Miss MacLachlan returns to England having spent twenty years teaching Japanese children. Before she leaves, Miss MacLachlan bequeaths a very special responsibility to her young student Tatsuo Moriyama. Tatsuo and his family are now the guardians of two Little People, Balbo and Fern Ashe.

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Adopted Daughter of an Archduke Volume 2 is the second volume in the third series (the ninth volume overall) in Miya Kazuki’s Ascendance of a Bookworm secondary-universe bibliophile fantasy and Isekai light novel series. Adopted Daughter of an Archduke Volume 2 was illustrated by You Shiina and translated by Quof.

Demonstrating a superlative ability to fail upwards, various missteps have elevated Myne from an otherworldly spirit possessing the body of peasant’s daughter¹ to the adopted daughter of an Ehrenfest Duke to a newly appointed High Bishop. Myne is learning on the job.

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2021’s Magus of the Library, Volume Six is the sixth tankōbon in Mitsu Izumi’s secondary-universe fantasy manga series (Toshokan no Daimajutsushi in the original Japanese). Magus has been serialized in Good! Afternoon since November 2017. The English translation appeared in 2021.

Avid bookworm Theo is prodigiously strong and nigh-invulnerable to magical influences, as revealed in the previous volume. Unfortunately for Theo, his chosen vocation is as a librarian (kafna). He is enrolled at the Great Library, which offers many employment prospects to graduates. But first Theo has to graduate. So far he’s on track to fail. His previous schooling didn’t prepare him for this extremely competitive institution.

Theo isn’t the only student struggling.

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Sung-il Kim’s 2016 Blood of the Old Kings is a secondary universe fantasy. Originally published as Star of Mercia, the English translation is by Anton Hur.

The Empire brings order and conformity to lands previously disorganized and chaotic. The Empire eliminates superstition and guides potential sorcerers toward socially responsible activities. The Empire extracts all the wealth it can from the lands it has conquered with its necromantic arts; its new subjects face poverty and death.

Her husband and child were among the Empire’s victims. Loran is moved to seek out the great dragon that once defended her kingdom of Arland.

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1946’s Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist is the first of Astrid Lindgren’s Kalle Blomkvist juvenile mystery novels. In 2017, Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist was translated by Susan Beard and appeared under the title Master Detective.

Kalle Blomkvist¹ is a detective without compare… at least, he is the finest thirteen-year-old detective in the small town of Lillköping. True, Lillköping has yet to present Kalle with a mystery worthy of his talents. Until that day comes, he and his two best friends, Anders and Eva-Lotta, fill their days cheerfully battering their frenemies (Sixten, Benka, and Jonte) on the slightest of pretexts.

One day a stranger comes to Lillköping.

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2021’s The Apothecary Diaries: Volume 11 is the eleventh volume in Natsu Hyuuga’s Apothecary Diaries secondary universe mystery/political thriller series. Illustrations are by Touko Shino. The 2024 English translation is by Kevin Steinbach.

Having survived a plague of grasshoppers, the unfortunate people of I‑Sei province must now deal with an approaching famine. Under most circumstances this would be of only theoretical interest to capital-dwelling Maomao, except that in a previous volume, she and Jinshi (the emperor’s brother and Maomao’s boss/fiancé of sorts) were dispatched to I‑Sei province.

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Pan Tokunaga’s Twilight Star Sui and Neri (Tasogare-boshi no Sui to Neri) is a science fiction manga. Serialized in Comic Cune from May 27, 2020, to September 27, 2021, its fifteen chapters were compiled into two tankōbon.

Inexpensive faster-than-light travel combined with the existence of many pristine garden interstellar planets allowed the majority of the human population to flee Earth. By 2531, Earth is a quieter, much emptier world.

For young Sui and her talking sloth sibling Neri, Earth is home.

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Hiromi Kawakami’s 2016 Under the Eye of the Big Bird is a stand-alone science fiction novel. The 2024 translation is by Asa Yoneda.

Mother lives a perfectly conventional life, raising legions of animal-derived children created in the very factory where the latest of her short-lived husbands works. Mother sometimes has questions, but nothing truly upends her placid life. A life sometime in our future.

How did the world get to this state? Consider the first law of history: people are the problem.

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Insomniacs After School, Volume 7 is the seventh tankōbon in Makoto Ojiro’s contemporary manga series. Serialized in Shogakukan’s seinen manga magazine Weekly Big Comic Spirits, Insomniacs After School has been ongoing since May 2019. The English translation of Volume 7 was released in 2024.

In Volume 6, teens Ganta and Isaki extended their unchaperoned time together by absenting themselves from the country cottage where they were pursuing their stargazing interests. Alas, Isaki’s parents had discovered that their darling daughter was alone with a boy. They raced to the rescue. Consequences ensued.

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Masaoki Shindo’s RuriDragon (Japanese: ルリドラゴン, Hepburn: Ruridoragon) is a Japanese modern-day manga series. Originally a one-shot published in Shueisha’s Jump Giga magazine in December 2020, RuriDragon has been serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump starting in June 2022. Currently, installments appear on the Viz site.

In the previous volume, half-dragon Ruri Aoki was genteelly blackmailed into joining a school committee. Ruri was surprised and a bit alarmed to discover that she had been paired with the blonde girl who openly dislikes Ruri. What possible cause could the girl (whose name Ruri couldn’t be bothered to remember) have for disliking Ruri? More importantly, how will learning the girl’s name affect slacker Ruri’s future actions?

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