Dec 21 2021
Matt Kracht loves birds enough to be perfectly blunt about what jerks they can be, to massively entertaining effect. In this follow-up to his initial The Field Guide To Dumb Birds Of North America, he expands his reporting on birds to cover avians of the entire world, gaining a significantly wider range for his mockery. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/21/the-field-guide-to-dumb-birds-of-the-whole-stupid-world-by-matt-kracht/
Dec 20 2021
While I’m sure I would have understood more of the passing references here had I started with volume one, this was still a more than alright place to begin with the Carlton Crumple Creature Catcher series, as my 10 year-old will happily attest. As of this volume, Carlton Crumple is bored at home, on the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/20/carlton-crumple-creature-catcher-3-reptoids-from-space-by-david-fremont/
Dec 19 2021
I hope that Ursula Vernon wins a Hugo every year she is nominated (under her main name or in her T. Kingfisher guise) because she uses the time allotted for her speech wisely. The year I was able to attend Worldcon, she gave a disquisition about whalefall, i.e., what happens to a dead whale as …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/19/hugo-2021-and-me/
Dec 18 2021
The 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCon III in Washington, DC, is in full swing as I write. In fact, presentations of this year’s Hugo Awards are set to begin in 15 minutes an hour and fifteen minutes, and I plan to write about those in the morning when I wake up and find out …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/18/putting-the-world-into-worldcon/
Dec 17 2021
Hrm, well, if I’d known this was essentially a memoir by a woman in her 40s, I would have probably skipped it (as I do for memoirs by men in their 30s, and for roughly the same reasons.) I feel that the 40s are a bad age for a woman to try to do a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/17/spilexm-a-weaving-of-recovery-resilience-and-resurgence-by-nicola-i-campbell/
Dec 16 2021
First, a small pat on the back to myself for slowly but surely catching up on my reading backlog. Second, a huge pat on the back to everyone involved with Rick Riordan Presents, an imprint that showcases fantastic middle-grade fiction based on world mythologies. The representation is gloriously diverse and fascinatingly educational. I love mythology …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/16/the-cursed-carnival-and-other-calamities-new-stories-about-mythic-heroes-compiled-by-rick-riordan/
Dec 15 2021
It’s always so frustrating reading books like this and feeling the shock of recognition turn into a weariness, then a resentment at the fact that people don’t think this shit could happen to them, too. The Iranians certainly didn’t think they’d lose their freedom in the late 70s when a coalition of communists and Islamic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/15/iranian-love-stories-by-jane-deuxard-deloupy/
Dec 14 2021
This slight but amusing volume is perfect for dance enthusiasts anywhere and of any age! We catch up with Lucy, Alia and Julie as a new girl joins their classical ballet class. Maya’s real love is basketball, but she’s been forced by her mother to try ballet before it’s “too late”. Maya is a team …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/14/dance-class-vol-12-the-new-girl-by-beka-and-crip/
Dec 13 2021
Steven Max Russo sent this to me with a warning about graphic violence, but honestly? I’ve read enough horror novels and thrillers that, while this book is definitely on the violent side, it never descends into gratuitous gore, instead giving a visceral depiction of what really happens in war and bloodshed and refusing to look …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/13/the-dead-dont-sleep-by-steven-max-russo/
Dec 12 2021
I still struggle with a notion I first mentioned when writing about Heaney’s inaugural collection, Death of a Naturalist, the idea that with each collection of poetry I should take time to live with it, read through several times, maybe even commit bits to memory so as to have them always at the ready. I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/12/station-island-by-seamus-heaney/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire