James Nicoll Reviews

2025’s Blight is the second volume in Rachel A. Rosen’s The Sleep of Reason apocalyptic fantasy series.

In the wake of the cataclysmic Blight, Director of the Dominion¹ Quinn Atherton is determined to provide the Dominion with peace, order, good government… oh, and a lot of mass graves filled with the ethnically unfashionable, dissidents, and the unwisely frank. While progress in the matters of peace, order, and good government is mixed at best, the Dominion has excelled in the field of filling mass graves.

Of course, every ambitious government faces nattering nabobs of negativity. Take Lucy Fletcher, for example.

Read more ➤

2022’s Cascade is the first volume in Rachel A. Rosen’s The Sleep of Reason near-future fantasy apocalypse series.

Everyone with even a rudimentary education knew about climate change, ocean acidification, and sea level rise. However, the sudden outburst of actual magic twenty years ago (the Cascade) came as a total surprise. Reactions varied from country to country, region to region. Vasai Singh saved Indian cities by elevating them above the flood waters, while the US collapsed into a patchwork of smaller nations unpleasant in various ways. Canada? Canada continued on with business as normally as possible, under the circumstances.

At least for the moment.

Read more ➤