James Nicoll Reviews

Yalum by Matthew Hughes (September 2025)

YALUM ERKATCHIAN is captain and part owner of the space yacht Peregrinator when a distant relative lures him into returning to the planet he fled twenty-five years ago to escape a matriarchal cult. But it’s a trap and Yalum is forced into a quest to recover a sacred relic that pitches him into a desperate struggle for survival.

And then it gets worse, because he discovers that the entire universe is about to be upended by a sudden switch of its operating system from cause-and-effect rationalism to will-powered magic. Yalum and his friends try to prepare to survive, but a new threat emerges: someone has long been planning to ride the new reality into a tyranny of spellslinging, aided by a bored demon from the Seventh Plane. 

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Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent (October 2025)

A life in slavery taught Tisaanah how to survive with nothing but a sharp eye, a quick mind, and a touch of magic. But the night she tried to buy her freedom, she nearly paid with her life. Instead, she murdered the most powerful man in Threll. Forced to flee, she has only one chance at saving those she left behind: pledging herself to the Orders, an organization of magic Wielders strong enough to destroy her former masters. 

To earn her place, Tisaanah is forced into an apprenticeship with Maxantarius Farlione, a handsome and reclusive fire Wielder who despises the Orders. He has no interest in helping her. But as the Orders’ grip tightens around them both, his bloody past may be the key to her future… or their downfall. Under looming war, Tisaanah must master her magic and survive the Orders demands. And as her feelings for Maxantarius deepen, she is forced to decide how much she is willing to trade away for revenge. The Orders have bigger plans for Tisaanah. Darker plans. But Tisaanah will stop at nothing to save those she abandoned. Even if it means forfeiting her freedom and sacrificing her heart. 

Even if it means wielding death itself. 

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Lies Weeping by Glen Cook (November 2025)

From Glen Cook, the godfather of Grimdark himself, Lies Weeping is the first book in a brand new arc of his groundbreaking Chronicles of the Black Company — an epic fantasy series, with millions of copies in print.

The Black Company has retreated across the plain of glittering stone, toward a shadow gate that would let them trade the dangers of the plain for the questionable safety of the Company’s one-time haven in Hsien, a region in the world called the Land of Unknown Shadows.

In Hsien, the company returns to their former base, An Abode of Ravens, where the Lady ages backwards in a return to force, shaking off the thrall, one breath at a time. Meanwhile, Croaker, ascended to godlike status as the Steadfast Guardian, has been left behind in the Nameless Fortress.

In their adopted father’s stead, Arkana and Shukrat have taken up the role of annalist for the Black Company. At first, life in Hsien appears quiet, even boring, but it is quickly apparent that strange goings on are more than what they seem, and it’s up to them to discover the truth hidden in the shadows of this strange land.

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Despite having left school decades ago, September is still for me the beginning of a new year. Old habits die hard, especially when one works at a university where 40,000 students will descend on campus after a long, hot, quiet summer. I consider academic new year superior to the conventional New Year: just as filled with potential for pleasant surprises, better weather, and an abundance delightfully gullible frosh.

If you’d like to distract me from informing frosh about the Glorious People’s Republic of the Campus Centre, that one of the pedestrian tunnels leads to Narnia, and that the top five stories of the library are put in storage every summer

• Send money via Paypal for the pure joy of giving me money. 
• Commission a specific review^..
• Join my Patreon here.

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I did not win an Aurora this year. I did come closer than I have in previous years, so go me. On the plus side, the Aurora ceremony was a gleaming engine of efficiency, which is not always the case with SF award ceremonies.

I also did not win a Hugo, which as I was not a finalist was not a great surprise. How close I came to being a finalist is unknown, because as far as I know the full stats for the 2025 Hugo Award are still a closely-held secret. My guess would be ​“not very close at all.”

August 2025

22 works reviewed. 13 by women (59%), 9 by men (41%), 0 by non-binary authors (0%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 8.5 by POC (39%).

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Victoriana by Alex Cahill, Walt Ciechanowski, Zak Dale-Clutterbuck, Dominic McDowall, Emmet Byrne, Christopher Colston, Chant Evans, Runesael Flynn, Dániel Kovács, Sam Manley, ClaraMarie Morin, JG O’Donoghue, Andrew Peregrine, Jacob Rodgers, and Chris Walz (Q1 2026)

Navigate the tempestuous aetheric smog of industrial London as technology, magic, and social class clash.

Victoriana is a world not unlike our own, but one that the emergence of magic and the supernatural has forever changed. Fantastical folk and strange creatures walk the streets, wyvern riders patrol the skies, and magic and science coalesce to create otherwise impossible technological advancements. It is a world of steampunk adventure in the aetheric smoke of industrial London.

Victoriana for 5^th Edition contains everything you need to bring a historical fantasy game to the world’s most popular roleplaying game.

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The Last Woman on Earth by Bex Benjamin (September 2025)

Nicky believes three things that aren’t true. She thinks the apocalypse was a horrible accident. She assumes her dream of being a journalist died with most of humanity. And she’s sure that she’s straight. She’s about to meet someone who’ll make her question all three – it’s a shame she’s the worst woman in what’s left of the world.

Three years ago, life as Nicky knew it ended when a mystery virus turned a tenth of humans into nocturnal, feral monsters, and everyone else into their prey. Now she’s found a new normal in a survivor community near York. That is until Meredith Hind appears, with her own private army, a terrible attitude and a challenge for investigate the real origin of the apocalypse.

Meredith’s the most dangerous person Nicky’s ever met – and the most infuriating. So why can’t Nicky stop thinking about her? And if Meredith’s right, what will the people who ended the world do to Nicky when they realise she’s onto them?

The Last Woman on Earth begins a new trilogy about post-apocalyptic monsters, deep platonic friendships and a very complicated romantic one. 

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Love Binds by Cynthia St. Aubin (December 2024)

Hannah Harvey returns in Love Binds, the fourth installment in the hilarious and steamy Tails from the Alpha Art Gallery series by USA Today bestselling author Cynthia St. Aubin!

For Hanna Harvey, happily ever is just the beginning…of a hot mess. Now mated to darkly dangerous but irresistibly seductive werewolf, Mark Abernathy, she’s finding that life isn’t the endless cheese and whisky fueled boinkfest she’d imagined it to be. Plagued by terrifying nightmares of a mysterious entity bent on her destruction and drowning in her new responsibilities as the alpha female of the werewolf world, she’s begun to doubt that she really is the heir. And she isn’t the only one. 

When certain werewolf factions refuse to acknowledge Hanna’s rule, what begins as a clan rivalry threatens to erupt into the first shifter war in centuries. Which is like, the worst. As is the return of Hanna’s former flame and neophyte vampire, Detective James Morrison. Bitter and out for blood (literally), he’s made it his business to exact his vengeance on all non-humans…Hanna included. 

Hoping to stave off the shifter Apocalypse, Hanna and Abernathy travel to The Gathering, where a mysterious figure from Abernathy’s past reveals a closely guarded secret with the power to break not only her heart, but their sworn bond as mates. With the fate of the werewolf world resting squarely on her bony shoulders, Hanna must now decide to trust the wildness within, or abandon the shifter world forever. 

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The Laundry Roleplaying Game: Operative’s Handbook by by David F Chapman, Calum Collins, Christopher Colston, Alister Davison, Michael Duxbury, Warren Frey, Gareth Hanrahan, and Elaine Lithgow et al (Q4, 2025)

New Edition — New System — New Management

Write code. Work magic. Save the world.

The world of Charles Stross’ book series, The Laundry Files, returns to the game table with this new edition of the popular The Laundry Roleplaying Game.

The Laundry Roleplaying Game — Operative’s Handbook provides players with all of the essentials to send their Laundry agents into the most deadly corners of the city and dangerous realities way above their pay grade. Facing mind-melting terror, high-tech espionage, occult mathematics, and plenty of paperwork, a Laundry agent’s work is never done — even death is no excuse for not clocking in. 

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Francisco de Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters seems to sway more people to join the Patreon than Fig and Ibid did. Perhaps the key here is a more nightmarish header image. I wonder how Hieronymus Bosch would go over?

If you’d like to monetarily support James Nicoll Reviews, universally acknowledged as the finest SFF review site written by anyone who is the source of the page quote for the TV Tropes entry on the Darwin Award, your options are as follows (in order of decreasing cost per review):

Send money via Paypal out of pure exuberance and excess funds.

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