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Six works new to me: two fantasy (one a roleplaying game), four science fiction. The roleplaying game is part of a series but otherwise, they all seem to be stand-alone.

Books Received, September 6 — September 12


Poll #33608 Books Received, September 6 — September 12
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent (October 2025)
5 (22.7%)

Outlaw Planet by M.R. Carey (November 2025)
11 (50.0%)

Champions of Chaos by Calum Colins, et al
1 (4.5%)

Slow Gods by Claire North (November 2025)
11 (50.0%)

The Divine Gardener’s Handbook: Or What to Do if Your Girlfriend Accidentally Turns Off the Sun by Eli Snow (August 2026)
11 (50.0%)

Death Engine Protocol: Better Dying Through Science by Margret A. Treiber (April 2025)
9 (40.9%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
17 (77.3%)

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I'd been posting reviews to LiveJournal since April of 2014 but on September 12, 2014, James Nicoll Reviews went live, with a review of Robert A. Heinlein's Between Planets.
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It's time for Bo to leave doomed San Francisco behind... just as soon as she completes one final task.

Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan
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11 sourcebooks that range across the shattered Earth of the Rifts tabletop roleplaying game from Palladium Books.

Bundle of Holding: Rifts Worlds 1




More World Books for the cross-dimensional tabletop roleplaying game

Bundle of Holding: Rifts Land and Sea (from 2022)
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A woodcarver's foster daughter sets out to free a maiden from a magical tower prison, just the sort of thing that always works out exactly according to plan, without unforeseen geopolitical complications.

SideQuested by K B Spangler & Ale Presser
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Otaku Hina is delighted that her Japanese neighbour Kyuta looks just like Hina's favourite anime character. Alas, Kyuta dislikes anime almost as much as vampires like Hina.

Otaku Vampire's Love Bite, volume 1 By Julietta Suzuki (Translated by Tomo Kimura)
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Doctor Catherine Coldbridge travels to darkest Texas in quest of her long-lost husband, Frank Humble... so she can kill the unkillable man.

The Unkillable Frank Lightning by Josh Rountree

Clarke Award Finalists 2013

Sep. 8th, 2025 10:28 am
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2013: The Tories masterfully tank the UK credit rating, a grateful nation celebrates Margaret Thatcher’s death, and Scotland inexplicably chooses to remain in the UK.


Poll #33586 Clarke Award Finalists 2013
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15


Which 2013 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
3 (20.0%)

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
9 (60.0%)

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
4 (26.7%)

Intrusion by Ken MacLeod
1 (6.7%)

Nod by Adrian Barnes
1 (6.7%)

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
1 (6.7%)



✓ for read, * for intend to read, ! for never heard of it. Or whatever amuses you.

Which 2013 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson ✓
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway ✓
Intrusion by Ken MacLeod
Nod by Adrian Barnes
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

I was bored

Sep. 6th, 2025 02:04 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
So I rolled up a bunch of Icons characters. Mostly boring, but this one is at least mildly amusing.

Doctor* Shawinigan**

Read more... )
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Five books new to me, at least four of which are fantasy (not sure about the El-Mohtar) and three instalments in series.

Books Received, August 30 — September 5


Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43


Books Received, August 30 — September 5

View Answers

Lies Weeping by Glen Cook (November 2025)
21 (48.8%)

Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar (March 2026)
27 (62.8%)

The River and the Star By Gabriela Romero Lacruz (October 2025)
7 (16.3%)

The Bookshop Below by Georgia Summers (November 2025)
16 (37.2%)

The Burning Queen by Aparna Verma (November 2025)
9 (20.9%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
29 (67.4%)

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The malevolent Hierarchs are dead. The only way to learn about them is archaeology. The only thing worse than archaeologists not finding the relics of evil sorcerers is finding relics of evil sorcerers.

Queen Demon (The Rising World, volume by Martha Wells

Good news

Sep. 3rd, 2025 10:23 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Both of Premee's cats have been found and returned.

Sunfall by C J Cherryh

Sep. 2nd, 2025 06:31 am
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The ancient sun is cooling but human drama persists.


Sunfall by C J Cherryh

Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E

Sep. 1st, 2025 02:09 pm
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The 2024 revised edition of Fragged Empire: fifteen thousand years in the future, humanity has gone extinct, but eight engineered species rule the wonders that remain.

Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E

September 2025 Patreon Boost

Sep. 1st, 2025 01:36 pm
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Like Sisyphus' rock, September has returned!

September 2025 Patreon Boost

Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
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[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

Clarke Award Finalists 2012

Aug. 31st, 2025 09:05 pm
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I will be too busy to post tomorrow.

2012: O2 offers free wifi to multitudes, which I only now realize may be have been referenced in Kingsman, researchers determine that despite a century having passed, the Titanic remains at the bottom of the Atlantic, and in a glorious celebration of the effectiveness of the modern British educational system, doctors warn Britons not to drink liquid nitrogen.

Poll #33559 Clarke Award Finalists 2012
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 48


Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
0 (0.0%)

Embassytown by China Miéville
22 (45.8%)

Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
6 (12.5%)

Rule 34 by Charles Stross
35 (72.9%)

The Postmortal by Drew Magary
1 (2.1%)

The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
7 (14.6%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.


Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
Embassytown by China Miéville
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
Rule 34 by Charles Stross

The Postmortal by Drew Magary
The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
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[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

August 2025 in Review

Aug. 31st, 2025 09:31 am
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I didn't win any awards in August but I did review 22 more works. James Nicoll Reviews is now 34 reviews away from its 3000th review.

August 2025 in Review
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Marooned on a backwater planet, a down-on-his-luck actor sets out to transform his new home. Will he survive success?

Always the Black Knight by Lee Hoffman

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