James Nicoll Reviews

2025’s 2017’s M. F. K. Volume 1 is the first volume of Nilah Magruder’s M. F. K. secondary-universe middle-grade fantasy graphic novel.

(I don’t know why I thought this was a new release)

The Confederacy does not inflict heavy-handed nanny-stating on a minor desert town like Little Marigold. Little Marigold is free to eke out what meagre living it can, for as long as it can.

Strangers visiting Little Marigold are nothing new. However, few arrive, badly wounded, staggering out of a sandstorm with a dying moa.

Abbie is one of those strangers.

Read more ➤

M. Lucie Chin’s 1988 The Fairy of Ku-She is a stand-alone historical fantasy. It is set in Ming Dynasty China.

The Fairy of Ku-She (Ku-She for short) is the guardian of the Golden Chopsticks, which in concert with the Crystal Snow-vase apportion snowfall. Although she is but a minor fairy, her duty is an important one. Without snow, there can be no rain. Without rain, no crops.

Therefore, the theft of the Golden Chopsticks is a calamity.

Read more ➤

2024’s Touring After the Apocalypse, Volume Six is the sixth tankōbon in Sakae Saito’s post-apocalyptic iyashikei manga. Touring has been serialized in in ASCII Media Works’ seinen manga magazine Dengeki Maoh since September 2020. Amanda Haley’s English translation was published in 2025.

Having escaped an exploding volcano and a (sort-of) killer robot in Volume Five, Youko and Airi now ponder why they so relentlessly tour Japan’s ruins¹. What dreadful secret compels the pair?

Read more ➤

Walter Jon Williams’ 1991 Days of Atonement is a stand-alone, gothic-western, hard-science-fiction police procedural.

Atocha Chief of Police Loren Hawn has a lot on his plate. Atocha, New Mexico is small but diverse. Its people are pious, supporting forty-one different churches. Everyone knows their place or at least the sensible people do. Those who forget can expect a visit from Hawn.

What Atocha needs is a functional economy. What it has is a closed mine. That spells trouble for the town and for Hawn. Hawn could use a distraction.

Distraction comes in the form of a mortally-wounded man.

Read more ➤

Charles C. Ryan’s 1979 Starry Messenger is a collection of science fiction stories from Galileo Magazine.

What was Galileo Magazine, you ask?

Read more ➤

Mia P. Manansala’s 2025 Death in the Cards is a young-adult mystery novel.

High school student Danika Dizon gives her fellow students affordably-priced tarot-card readings. Danika’s card reading for Mary Elizabeth ​“Eli” Delgado provides would-be PI Danika with something novel: her very first detective case.

Eli paid Danika for a reading. Then, Eli vanished.

Read more ➤

Wendy N. Wagner’s 2025 Girl in the Creek is a stand-alone science fiction horror novel.

Bryan Harper vanished near Faraday, Oregon. After a perfunctory investigation, police concluded that Bryan committed suicide. But Bryan’s sister Erin cannot believe that Bryan killed himself. Furthermore, Erin knows something about Faraday that the police appear to have overlooked or willfully ignored.

Faraday has a missing persons problem.

Read more ➤

Cheon Seon-Ran’s 2020 A Thousand Blues is a stand-alone science fiction novel. Chi-Young Kim’s English translation came out in 2025.

In the Korea of the not-too-distant future, Coli muses contentedly about life while plummeting to certain destruction.

Read more ➤

Jim Theis’ 1970 The Eye of Argon [1] is a stand-alone sword and sorcery novelette. It was originally published in OSFAN 10.

The barbarian Grignr has many skills. Avoiding danger is not one of them.

Read more ➤

1976’s Man Plus is the first volume in Frederik Pohl’s Man Plus near-future science fiction series.

Astronaut Roger Torraway is just one member of the Man Plus program, which is tasked with establishing a colony on Mars. Since Mars is uninhabitable and transforming Mars is out of the question, Roger’s team has been ordered to transform a human into something that can survive on Mars.

A lot is riding on the project. A successful Mars colony might reverse the US’ declining fortunes. It might also save civilization.

Read more ➤