James Nicoll Reviews

Ferdia Lennon’s 2024 Glorious Exploits is a stand-alone historical novel.

The Athens-led Delian League’s invasion of Sicily could only result in historic victory. It did! For the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League, which crushed Nicias’ Athenian forces in 413 BC.

The victory presented Peloponnesian League ally Syracuse with a challenge. What to do with seven thousand enemy prisoners of war? The Athenians were crowded into handy unused quarries, where they were free to die of exposure, starvation, or brutal attacks from vengeful Syracusans.

What was an annoyance for Syracuse is a marvelous opportunity for unemployed potters Lampo and Gelon.

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Alexis Hall’s 2026 Hell’s Heart is an upcoming (in a few weeks) space opera.

In another time, a melancholic like Ish might have tried to escape their doldrums by signing on to a doomed quest, such as a pursuit of a nigh-legendary whale. God took whales from humans when they spurned his gracious gift by refusing to harvest them, so that is no longer an option¹.

Not to worry! The Solar System may no longer have whales. It very much does have leviathans of the deep… in Jupiter.

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Tsubana’s Babel no Toshokan (The Library of Babel if there were an authorized English translation, which there does not seem to be) is a standalone fantasy manga. It was published 2012 – 2013 in Manga Erotics F (whose title is somewhat misleading).

Watase and Aiba are soundly rebuked by a teacher. The pair have turned in identical essays. It seems unlikely that one copied from the other, since their desks are too far apart. Probably this is some stupid kid prank committed for some stupid kid reason. In any case, the pair have to redo their work.

There is a reasonable explanation or at least an explanation. Watase does not care to share it. This reluctance will have a profound effect on his life.

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Walter Jon Williams’ 1999 The Rift is a stand-alone disaster novel. In more senses than one.

Dramatis personae:

Omar Bradley Paxton, newly elected sheriff of Spottswood Parish, Louisiana is a busy man. The people of Spottswood knew Paxton was the King Kleagle of Louisiana when they elected him. Now, Paxton has to ride herd on the more excitable Klan members so that the voters don’t have cause to regret their decision.

Jason Adams has been dragged by his crystal-waving mother to dreary Cabells Mound, Missouri.

Divorced Nick struggles to maintain a relationship with his young daughter.

The US president finds himself without a grand crisis, seemingly doomed to be a mere placeholder.

Many more characters, most of them soon to die.

None of the characters take an interest in geology. They will.

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Marge Piercy’s 1970 Dance the Eagle to Sleep is a stand-alone near-future SF novel.

All America asks of its citizens is that they cram themselves into whatever little box best serves the economic needs of the ruling oligarch class. Well, less ​“asks” and more ​“requires on pain of prison or death.”

The government demands that at age nineteen, all teens — boys and girls alike — do two years of military service. Surely, this will bring those unruly kids into line!

Cue low-grade civil war.

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Zen Cho’s 2024’s The Friend Zone Experiment is a stand-alone romance novel.

Successful businesswoman Renee Goh set aside two weeks to spend with her hot pop-star boyfriend Jason Tsai. It’s an unfortunate misallocation of resources, as it takes far less than two weeks for Jason to dump Renee.

This is not the ideal time for Renee’s father, Goh Kheng Tat, to drop a bombshell on Renee. Nevertheless, he does.

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Claire North’s 2025 Slow Gods is a stand-alone space opera.

The United Social Venture, AKA the Shine, promises its people prosperity in return for hard work. What the masses get is mounting debt and ruthless exploitation at the hands of entrenched oligarchs, who cheerfully lie while blatantly cheating.

Mawukana na Vdnaze (“Maw”) should have had an unremarkable if unpleasant life. Maw did not. Thank the apocalypse.

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2025’s Ichi the Witch, Volume 1 is the first tankōbon for Osamu NIchi and Shiro Usazaki’s Ichi the Witch secondary-universe fantasy manga. Ichi has been serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine since September 2024. The 2026 English translation of Volume 1 is by Adrienne Beck.

The path to magic is as easy as falling off a log. First, one must be an ambitious woman or girl. Second, one must seek out Majiks, living embodiments of arcane power. Third, one must complete an arduous trial. Success confers the Majik’s particular knack on the witch.

Ichi is not a woman, is content with his lot, and has no particular interest in or knowledge of magic. Ichi lives to hunt.

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Poul Anderson’s 1956 short story, The Man Who Came Early, is a Morganade.

Other Icelanders might rebuke, drive away or even kill a visiting Christian missionary. Ospak Ulfsson of Hillstead has a more open mind. After all, Ospak has an idea how the next thousand years will play out.

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Alfred Bester’s 1953 The Demolished Man is a stand-alone science fiction police-procedural novel.

Monarch Utilities & Resources is an established but declining commercial concern. Owner Ben Reich knows who to blame: Craye D’Courtney, whose D’Courtney Cartel routinely eats Monarch’s lunch.

Determined to save Monarch, Reich proposes a merger with D’Courtney. To Reich’s fury, when he deciphers D’Courtney’s coded reply, he sees rejection. The only reasonable course of action is for Reich to murder D’Courtney.

Nobody has successfully gotten away with premeditated murder in the last seventy-nine years. That won’t stop Reich from trying.

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