December 2018 archive

Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3) by Brandon Sanderson

I mean… I knew this was going to be insane but I didn’t know how much. I cried at least twice, over several different characters, and I laughed out loud so many more times. On its own, it’s just a rip-roaring good time, well-written, great action sequences, terrific plot twists, incredibly well-thought out universe (and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/31/oathbringer-the-stormlight-archive-3-by-brandon-sanderson/

Hey Ladies!: The Story of 8 Best Friends, 1 Year, and Way, Way Too Many Emails by Michelle Markowitz, Caroline Moss & Carolyn Bahar

Hey Ladies!: A Cautionary Tale Let me begin by admitting that I was lucky enough to spend ages 8-21 being an Upper Middle Class Asian in Asia, thereby escaping completely the clutches of the American bridal-industrial complex. However, having lived over half my life here now, I can’t claim to be completely unscathed as a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/27/hey-ladies-the-story-of-8-best-friends-1-year-and-way-way-too-many-emails-by-michelle-markowitz-caroline-moss-carolyn-bahar/

This Dreaming Isle edited by Dan Coxon

I love the idea of this, and I love the way it’s been edited, dividing the book into three distinct parts that reflect very much the most vital areas of England: Country, City and Coast. The seventeen stories in this collection cover a host of supernatural occurrences, embracing the diversity of the English experience. Most …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/26/this-dreaming-isle-edited-by-dan-coxon/

2018 Reading Roundup

I’ve now read 100 books in 2018. I won’t stop between now and the end of the year, but this seemed like a good point to pause and take stock. Here’s a list of my top 10 SFF, fabulist, or otherwise wackadoodle books from the last year, presented in the order that I read them …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/24/2018-reading-roundup/

Don Karlos by Friedrich Schiller

The first thing to note about Don Karlos is that I noped right out of it somewhere in the middle of the second act. My disbelief had wavered early on when Don Karlos, the crown prince of Spain, unburdens his soul to his childhood friend the Marquis of Posa. Karlos (Carl in English) says he …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/24/don-karlos-by-friedrich-schiller/

Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton

Shamefully, I have never read The Talented Mr Ripley, electing instead to read the Wiki page to see how much symmetry there is between that classic and this novel that does not pretend not to be very much inspired by that earlier book (in my defense, there are only so many hours in the day, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/23/social-creature-by-tara-isabella-burton/

The Willow By Your Side by Peter Haynes

A few years ago, I bought a boxed set of Susan Cooper’s The Darkness Rising series, eager for the nostalgia of English children fighting evil, mythical forces in semi-allegory for real world conflicts. It was, sadly, a disappointing experience because, as an adult, the stories are frightfully simplistic in a way that they weren’t to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/21/the-willow-by-your-side-by-peter-haynes/

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Two years and some-odd weeks ago, Donald Fucking Trump — aided by the Russian government along with its witting and unwitting stooges, boosted by an FBI director he soon fired, slavered over by a national press that apparently couldn’t help itself any more than it could help spending more time on his opponent’s e-mail practices …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/20/what-happened-by-hillary-rodham-clinton-2/

The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine

The first half of The House of Government located the Bolshevik party within a specifically Russian tradition of millennarianism. Revolutionary socialism would redeem the world, starting with Russia, and usher in a new era, a time of plenty, a time of the perfectibility of humanity. The second half of the book details what life is …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/17/the-house-of-government-by-yuri-slezkine-2/

The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll

I don’t think it’s possible to review The Favorite Sister without bringing up Jessica Knoll’s searing debut Luckiest Girl Alive. That book centered a female protagonist who was done being “nice”, to the consternation of a large number of readers. To the rest of us, TifAni FaNelli was a source of cathartic glee. TFS expands …

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