November 2020 archive

The Book of Malachi by T.C. Farren

I’m still thinking about this cleverly constructed fable set fifteen or so years in the future. Thirty year-old Malachi is hired to essentially be the groom for a stable of murderers whose bodies are being used as part of a top-secret organ-growing project run by Raizier Pharmaceuticals. The nutrients fed to the prisoners cause their …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/13/the-book-of-malachi-by-t-c-farren/

Mad, Bad & Dangerous To Know by Samira Ahmed

I am very grouchy about this book, even though I was very excited at first to finally get my hands on this YA novel featuring feminist Muslim heroines. Samira Ahmed’s Mad, Bad & Dangerous To Know marries an intriguing high concept with a narrative that prefers to tell instead of show and relentlessly strikes dramatic …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/12/mad-bad-dangerous-to-know-by-samira-ahmed/

She Lies Close by Sharon Doering

Y’aaaaall. I’ve read plenty of books with unsympathetic narrators but this is one of the perishing few where I could sympathize with our protagonist even as I lacked any empathy for her. Grace Wright is, in temperament, my exact opposite. She has a fixed idea of how things should be, and reacts poorly when things …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/10/she-lies-close-by-sharon-doering/

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

It is entirely possible that any reader of this review has in their pocket a computing device more powerful than the one whose design and initial construction are the story of The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. That machine, code named “Eagle” in the book, would eventually be sold by Data General …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/09/the-soul-of-a-new-machine-by-tracy-kidder/

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

In short: neurotic weirdo falls in love with a big ball of red flags. One of the main reasons it took me years to come back to reading contemporary romance novels is that it infuriates me when the central premise of the book is based on a woman lapping up clearly abusive behavior from some …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/06/the-hating-game-by-sally-thorne/

Invisible Planets edited and translated by Ken Liu

Invisible Planets, edited by Ken Liu

With his smashingly successful translation of Liu Cixin’s The Three–Body Problem, Ken Liu introduced modern Chinese science fiction to a large English-speaking audience. The reception of the rest of Three-Body‘s trilogy, one translated by Joel Martinsen and the other by Ken Liu, showed that it was not a one-book phenomenon, and that English-speaking science fiction …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/05/invisible-planets-edited-and-translated-by-ken-liu/

We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1) by Hafsah Faizal

I was so chuffed to learn about this Arabian-inspired fantasy YA novel by an American niqabi, which had been getting so many rave reviews! I had to keep putting off reading it for one reason or another, but was so pleased to finally have time to settle in with it over the weekend. I was …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/04/we-hunt-the-flame-sands-of-arawiya-1-by-hafsah-faizal/

Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber

Swords Against Death

The stories in Swords Against Death are among the first published adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, making them more than 70 years old at this writing. The bulk of them were published as stand-alone stories in pulp magazines in the 1940s and 1950s; nearly all of them predate The Lord of the Rings, …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/01/swords-against-death-by-fritz-leiber/