James Davis Nicoll
@jdnicoll.bsky.social
📤 2965
📥 2350
📝 11279
Reviewer, Essayist, Hugo, Aurora, and Darwin Award finalist.
If there's one relationship rule that is absolutely reliable, it is that you should definitely date popular singer-songwriters with no concern at all for how your eventual breakup will figure into their next chart-topper.
about 5 hours ago
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Jólabókaflóðið 2025!
jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/j%C3%B3...
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Jólabókaflóðið 2025!
Katabasis by R. F. Kuang (August 2025)Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek: The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in th...
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/j%C3%B3lab%C3%B3kafl%C3%B3%C3%B0i%C3%B0
about 7 hours ago
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Culturally appropriate seasonal wishes or lack thereof, according to your chosen norms!
jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/seasona...
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Culturally appropriate seasonal wishes or lack thereof, according to your chosen norms!
May your solstice experiences harmoniously conform to your preferences!I think Roger Zelazny spoke for everyone when he said: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I sa...
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/seasonal-wishes
about 11 hours ago
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Ah, memories of very carefully catching and removing bats from the hospital. I was very concerned about not accidentally breaking their little bones. No thought at all about rabies. Wonder how many timelines I eliminated?
add a skeleton here at some point
1 day ago
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This is not ideal.
1 day ago
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Tabletop RPGs I played in 2025: Brindlewood Bay Fabula Ultima Warhammer: The Old World I feel like I missed one...
#ttrpg
1 day ago
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Galactic empires must offer tremendous scope for pretentious food critics.
1 day ago
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I just remembered a series I used to beg the SFWA not to buy, where the business model was a disgraced writer who exploited naive MFAs to do the writing. Being non-specific because I'd like not to be sued. I bet that guy is using LLMs to replace the MFAs.
1 day ago
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Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (Lost Souls, volume 1) by Mizuki Tsujimura What would you do if you could meet a dead loved one one last time? Ayumi Shibuya can make that happen.
jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/swimm...
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Swimming in a Fishbowl
2010’s Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon is the first of Mizuki Tsujimura’s Lost Souls contemporary fantasy novels1. The 2025 English translation is by Yuki Tejima. What would you do if you could meet...
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/swimming-in-a-fishbowl
1 day ago
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This is a job for Polymorph, right? Bard gets turned into a gelatinous cube, keeps their Int, Wis, and Cha?
add a skeleton here at some point
2 days ago
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I don't know why the Atlantic feels Canadians make an effort to make Americans look silly.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHUW...
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Rick Mercer Talking to Americans
YouTube video by Cedarbush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHUWas-yQSw
2 days ago
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A runaway down which two very surprised and increasingly alarmed kids were biking when the plane touched down behind them. The weird thing is, that happened a second time to one of the kids.
add a skeleton here at some point
2 days ago
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I thought of a really stupid pun I was going to inflict on you all but then I realized I could get paid for it.
2 days ago
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I managed to source acceptable wicker in time for the holidays but where does one find naive British coppers for an affordable price?
2 days ago
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Bundle of Holding: Old Gods of Appalachia An all-new Bundle featuring the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, the tabletop game of eldritch horror from Monte Cook Games based on Steve Shell and Cam Collins' Old Gods of Appalachia anthology podcast.
bundleofholding.com/presents/App...
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Old Gods of Appalachia Bundle
Welcome, Family, to this all-new Old Gods of Appalachia RPG Bundle featuring the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, the tabletop game of eldritch horror from Monte Cook Games based on the captiv...
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Appalachia
2 days ago
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Is there a way to read Order of the Stick so that each comic is centred? This is what I see when I click to the next strip.
2 days ago
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Next: is eating babies bad now? Please answer our poll because we're not sure.
add a skeleton here at some point
2 days ago
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Is the Guardian still relentlessly transphobic?
2 days ago
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A Torrent of Faces by James Blish & Norman L. Knight In honour of Blish's Prometheus nomination, Blish and Knight's classic fascist utopia!
jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/baby
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Baby, Baby, Baby
Blish’s The Star Dwellers is up for a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. As I have already reviewed The Star Dwellers, I cannot, alas, review it now. However, there’s another work that exemplifies Blish’s...
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/baby
2 days ago
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But surely if there was some sort of issue their reply wouldn't have been a quiet "fine"?
3 days ago
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Given Benford's Law, isn't it wasteful to teach American kids about numerals 8 and 9?
3 days ago
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Bundle of Holding: DIE the RPG The DIE roleplaying game designed by the Image comic's creators, Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, plus three volumes of adventures for an unbeatable bargain price!
bundleofholding.com/presents/DIE...
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DIE RPG Bundle
Adventurer! This new DIE RPG Bundle presents DIE, the tabletop roleplaying game from Rowan, Rook, & Decard based on – rather, created in parallel with – the DIE Image Comics series (20 issues, 2018-21...
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DIEtheRPG
3 days ago
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Watched about 10 minutes of 2023's The Abyss and huh, I guess drunk Swedish teens aren't any better at judging risk than their North American counterparts.
4 days ago
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I would be comfortable if Carney promised to consider a white paper on the possibility of at some point dialing back the boycott on yank booze should circumstances allow after the US concedes the Alaska panhandle & New England.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHbU...
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Trump admin lays out demands for Canada in CUSMA talks | Power & Politics
YouTube video by CBC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHbUAInYA5o
4 days ago
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Kicking a translated work down the road into 2026 because while it's dreadful in a way I can talk about, it would be the last review of 2025 and I don't want to end on that note.
4 days ago
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Inspired by I am waiting for OG supers, plus I read a volume of Momoko's X-Men: PCs are teens! With super-powers! No superheros or supervillains as such. It's just a slice of life high school story where for some reason some of the kids can fly, lift cars or melt steel with hard look. (con't)
4 days ago
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I was today years old when I discovered Olivia Newton-John's father took Rudolf Hess into custody during World War II.
4 days ago
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You know what hasn't gone away even more reliably than AI? Cocaine, the writers' helper! Owe your publisher the next four volumes in your secondary fantasy universe series by next Friday? Cocaine will make sure you deliver words in a row!
4 days ago
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The Compleat Enchanter (Incomplete Enchanter, volume 1) by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt Harold Shea seeks escape from mundane life in tales of myth and magic.
jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/lost-...
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Lost in a Good Book
1975’s The Compleat Enchanter collects the first three stories in L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt’s Incomplete Enchanter isekai series. I’d love to credit the magazine in which these stories app...
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/lost-in-a-good-book
4 days ago
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I had a very odd encounter with the author. I made a snarky comment about Alongside Night on LiveJournal (in the days when the top three Anglophone accounts were GRRM, Ursula Vernon, and me) and an angry Shulman showed up to shout at me. Except then (con't)
add a skeleton here at some point
5 days ago
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I actually have a long list of things I'd like for Christmas, being a greedy product of the 20th century, but up near the top is having another CPC MP cross the floor just before Poilievre's leadership review. (Doesn't even have to be to the Liberals. The NDP or Greens would be hilarious)
6 days ago
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Someone else's cat antics reminded me of that time Ibid, who I had just acquired, discovered tiny Nameless asleep in her closet cubby hole and "rescued" her by hauling her out of the closet by the scruff of her neck.
6 days ago
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I am going to run something set in the 1970s just so I can explain to my 20-something players that the reason their characters don't mind the clouds of cigarette smoke is because the miasma of tetra-ethyl lead killed their sense of smell.
add a skeleton here at some point
6 days ago
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Huh, have not got to use the term SFWAdenfreude in years.
6 days ago
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Isn't it time Martha Wayne's necklace had its own origin story?
6 days ago
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Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold (Abeni’s Song, volume 2) by P. Djèlí Clark In which history long forgotten is recovered.
jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/forgo...
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Long Forgotten
Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold is the second volume in P. Djèlí Clark’s Abeni’s Song young-adult secondary-universe fantasy series. Having rescued some but not all of her people from doleful servitude ...
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/forgotten
7 days ago
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The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman A determined artist faces potentially lethal criticism.
jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/learn...
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Learn the Art
Katie Waitman’s 1997 The Merro Tree is a stand-alone space-opera novel. Performance master Mikk of Vyzania’s commitment to his craft is relentless. Even the threat of legal sanctions cannot stop him. ...
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/learn-the-art
8 days ago
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Has any SF novel has ever given a Space Venice a Bridge of Psis?
8 days ago
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SPI's Universe was the first one I bought to run. I loved Traveller but Universe had a three dimensional map!
add a skeleton here at some point
8 days ago
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Bundle of Holding: Tales of the Valiant The tabletop fantasy roleplaying game from Kobold Press of high adventure in a Labyrinth of infinite worlds, and more.
bundleofholding.com/presents/Tal...
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Tales of the Valiant Bundle
Adventurer! This all-new Tales of the Valiant Bundle presents Tales of the Valiant, the tabletop fantasy roleplaying game from Kobold Press of high adventure in a Labyrinth of infinite worlds. Funded ...
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/TalesOfTheValiant
8 days ago
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I need to hire the Great Pyramid of Giza to construct a NO large enough.
add a skeleton here at some point
8 days ago
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Princess Jellyfish, volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura Can a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification? Should a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification?
jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/siste...
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Sisterhood
Princess Jellyfish, Volume One is the first tankōbon for Akiko Higashimura’s manga series. Kuragehime in the original Japanese, Princess Jellyfish was serialized in Kiss from October 2008 to August 20...
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/sisterhood
8 days ago
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Can Canadian provinces be trusted with, well, _anything_?
8 days ago
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My second last Fabula Ultima session got to the finale I wanted at the proper end of the session. So, in the final, the PCs get to deal with a leviathan.
add a skeleton here at some point
9 days ago
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Eh. I should look around for a AI-free browser.
add a skeleton here at some point
9 days ago
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Can I replace the dairy in recipes with other foods whose names contain the same letters?
9 days ago
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Is it time for online creators to pivot to oil paintings? We ask five art supply stores.
9 days ago
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I am grateful to other Ontario cities for making the Ion light rail look good by comparison.
9 days ago
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Five Books About Conversing With Animals How great would it be to talk with animals, through magic or technology or… whatever?
reactormag.com/five-books-a...
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Five Books About Conversing With Animals - Reactor
How great would it be to talk with animals, through magic or technology or… whatever?
https://reactormag.com/five-books-about-conversing-with-animals/
9 days ago
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I am the reason Waterloo Oxford DSS has a trebuchet policy.
add a skeleton here at some point
9 days ago
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