James Nicoll Reviews

Cassandra Khaw’s 2025 The Library at Hellebore is a just-barely-upcoming (July 22, 2025) horror novel.

Magic has reappeared¹. Across the world, very special people manifest very special abilities. Not all of the very special people choose to use their powers in a socially acceptable way.

Take Alessa Li, for example, who when we meet her has just murdered her adorable roommate, Joanna.

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2017’s Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth is the second volume in Cassandra Khaw’s Gods and Monsters Trilogy.

Cannibal chef¹ Rupert Wong may make his living doing appalling things in service to reprehensible monsters, but at least he has some excuse: massive debts. He also has distractions: mounting trans-pantheon theological and legal problems.

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2015’s Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef is the first volume in Cassandra Khaw’s Gods and Monsters comic horror series.

Having blotted his copybook egregiously, Rupert Wong can look forward an unpleasant afterlife if he does not somehow earn enough karmic credit before dying to forestall his justly earned damnation. Thus, his current occupations as chef and liaison.

His clientele as a chef: Kuala Lumpur’s ghouls. Best not to ask what’s in the meals. As liaison, he assists Kuala Lumpur’s damned souls. Expect untoward complications, such as an offer he can neither refuse nor survive.

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Cassandra Khaw’s 2023 The Salt Grows Heavy is an upcoming secondary-universe horror fantasy novella.

A nameless ruler had a simple dream: capture and enslave what some might call a mermaid after murdering all of her sisters. The plan worked well enough, until the mermaid gave birth to her ravenous children.

Localized apocalypse ensues. The mermaid joins forces with a plague doctor, one of the few survivors of the domain. The two set out to find new lands to explore. 

Note to readers: author Khaw frequently uses descriptors rather than names. Thus mermaid and doctor.

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Cassandra Khaw’s 2021 The All-Consuming World is a stand-alone science fiction heist novel.

At their peak, the Dirty Dozen were a criminal force to be reckoned with. Decades later, however, their surviving members have been scattered, their days of team work long behind them. 

Any sensible career criminal would know that getting the gang back together for one last heist is always a bad idea. But Maya specializes in doling out violence (or in standing up to it). Being sensible is someone else’s job. A sensible criminal wouldn’t take on the heist job … but she agrees to it. 

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Cassandra Khaw’s Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a standalone ghost story.

Phillip has money, lots and lots of money. When he decides to treat his friends to a lavish getaway, he doesn’t just book them into a five-star holiday resort. Instead, he pulls strings to get access to Heian-era mansion. 

Because Phillip has more money than he knows what to do with, the mansion he selects is, of course, haunted. Because what could go wrong with a quiet weekend out in the woods in a haunted mansion?

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2017’s A Song for Quiet is the second volume in Cassandra Khaw’s Persons Non Grata series. 

Blues musician Deacon James leaves his father’s funeral and discovers that he is being stalked by a persistent madman. Life in Jim-Crow-era America is already hard enough for a black musician; there’s no room for complications. Whatever the lunatic wants, Deacon wants no part of it.

What John Persons would like to do is save Deacon, but Persons’ communication skills could use some work. 

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2016’s Hammers on Bone is the first work in Cassandra Khaw​’s Persons Non Grata series.

The sign on his door says ​“John Persons, PI”. It doesn’t say ​“John Persons, Killer for Hire.” Abel, the kid currently on the other side of Persons desk, wants a killer, someone who will deal with his stepdad McKinsey before the stepdad can kill Abel and his brother James.

Persons has killed, but only in self-defence. Just like any other completely normal person. Persons is trying very hard to be a normal person. Abel is convinced that there’s more to Persons than meets the eye and he’s a very persuasive kid. Persons agrees to take a look at the stepdad and proceed as seems … ethical.

A faint mewling voice in the back of Persons’ head thinks that this is the right choice.

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