James Nicoll Reviews

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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