awesomelies | Reading

Technology Corner. ‘Lord Curryfin. Well, then, what say you to the electric telegraph, by which you converse at the distance of thousands of miles? Even across the Atlantic, as no doubt we shall yet do. [...] The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I have no wish to expedite communication with the Americans. If we could apply the power of electrical repulsion to preserve us from ever hearing anything more of them, I should think that we had for once derived a benefit from science.’ (Thomas Love Peacock, Gryll Grange, 1861) Who will commission James D. Nicoll to review this book?

james_davis_nicoll

James Nicoll Reviews is an Aurora and Hugo Award-adjacent random walk through l’anglospheric speculative fiction. You can be part of this by funding James Nicoll Reviews.

October 2026 Patreon Boost

james_davis_nicoll

A quick guide to the world prior to the Bronze Age Collapse and speculations as to what might have caused it.

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed: Revised and Updated by Eric H. Cline

james_davis_nicoll

The Mongols sacked Sitara's city, looted her home, and murdered her loved ones. Surely, her loyal service to the Mongols concealed no hidden agenda.

A Witch’s Life in Mongol, volume 1 by Tomato Soup

james_davis_nicoll

September seemed very, very long this year so why didn’t I get more done?

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 10 by POC (45%).

September 2026 In Review

james_davis_nicoll

Nanotech and a carefully curated singularity provided humans with utopia of a sort... and the means by which it could be overthrown.

Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams

james_davis_nicoll

The resurrected February 2024 KNOCK! Magazine Bundle featuring three digital .PDF issues of KNOCK!, the Merry Mushmen magazine for old-school tabletop fantasy roleplaying games.

Bundle of Holding: Knock! (From 2024)

ffutures

Starting in 45 minutes or so, another repeat bundle, three long magazines for the Old School Revival, RPGs that run in the style of D&D etc. - Knock! Magazine from 'The Merry Mushmen'

Dubbed "an Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac and a Compendium of Miscellanea for Old School RPGs," KNOCK! showcases breathtaking layouts, dazzling color, and a barrage of articles, essays, tables, rules, maps, monster stats, and adventures that range from weird to – well, no, they're all uniformly weird. Every overstuffed 200+-page issue features the most audacious designers in the Old School Revival.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Knock2026

Last the blurb compared this to the Mörk Borg games and I said:

Unfortunately this isn't my style of gaming at all, and to be honest it feels a bit expensive for what it is. One of my other problems with it is the layout; reading Mörk Borg actually gave me a headache, and to me at least Knock! is just as hard on the eyes. But if you like this sort of thing your opinion may differ.

While the description has changed, I'm not seeing any reason to change my opinion.

We're probably headed towards several weeks of horror games since October will soon be upon us. Watch this space...

james_davis_nicoll

A violent teen participates in cutting-edge research.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

ffutures

My old Plustek Optibook Scanner appears to have died, it powers up but keeps dropping in and out, replacing the cable hasn't helped. The last four or five attempts were incomplete, and give it's upteen years old I think I'd sooner buy a new one than carry on trying to get it to work. I basically need a no-frills A4 USB scanner (don't have room for anything bigger), doesn't need to do anything fancy but if it doesn't add hugely to the price the ability to scan 35mm slides and film would be useful.

Anyone got any recommendations? I'm seeing Canon LIDE scanners around the £50 mark but I don't think I've owned anything they've made since the eighties.

james_davis_nicoll

Why let the big cities have all the murder-y, post-apocalyptic fun?

Five Stories Set in Small-Town Canada

james_davis_nicoll

The lone survivor of a camp massacre is pressured by her abusive boyfriend into a camping trip. What could go wrong?

The Mean Ones by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne

james_davis_nicoll

All the players showed up, a first since October, so on no notice I ran Outgunned, the next part of an adventure set in 1978.

The players blew up a flat, left a trail of unconscious Mafia goons (who showed up expecting to beat on a single nerd), shot, pummelled, and kidnapped a made guy in front of a crowd of witnesses, and addressed each other by name. A lot of the violence was in self defence but the witnesses don't know that.

The group con man made a call to a pal who could provide them with a safe house, who is (entirely the decision of the con man player) an active member of the Rote Armee Fraktion. In fact, the safe house is specifically an RAF safe house. So that will be fun.

james_davis_nicoll

Counter-terrorist specialist Vycol Ferec is assigned the task of escorting scientist Alabeus. Ferec would have been better off dropping the researcher into the bay.

Wickhills by Premee Mohamed

james_davis_nicoll

In which it dawns on the teens that they will soon graduate high school. What then?

Insomniacs After School, volume 12 by Makoto Ojiro

james_davis_nicoll

Playboy wasn't all stereo advice, interviews, and cigarette ads. "Playboy" showcased some remarkable speculative writers.

Five Classic SF Stories First Published in Playboy

james_davis_nicoll

Anderson's foray into Unknown territory, 13 years after that magazine folded.

Operation Afreet (Operation Chaos, volume 1) by Poul Anderson

ffutures

A few days ago I was reminded of the "How David Weber Orders a Pizza" parody, In Ovens Baked by Roger M. Wilcox. Since it's now 25 years old I thought it might be fun to introduce it to anyone who has somehow missed it:

In Ovens Baked

Enjoy...

james_davis_nicoll

This all-new Heavy Gear 4E Bundle presents the current (2023) Fourth Edition of Heavy Gear, Dream Pod 9's tabletop roleplaying game of mecha combat in the 62nd Century.

Bundle of Holding: Heavy Gear RPG 4E

ffutures

This is a new bundle of material for Heavy Gear 4th Edition from Dream Pod 9, an RPG with a focus on mecha combat.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Heavy4E

I might as well be honest - I'm not a huge fan of combat-centred RPGs and I personally think that the whole mecha genre is a bit silly. While this is being marketed as an RPG, I think it's fair to say that it's basically a mecha wargame with some RPG elements grafted on - the recommended time frame for this appears to be 15 minutes per game session. I'd imagine that most players do put in a little effort into role-playing as mecha pilots etc. as well as fighting, by e.g. trash-talking the enemy or a heart-rending dying speech, but it's definitely not where the emphasis lies.

I'm not really sure how this differs from early versions, but if you like the genre it looks like you get a fair amount for your money, including more than fifty pages of background before the rules begin, and it's reasonably priced. It's not something that interests me much, but tastes differ.