November 2024 archive

One-Shot Wonders by Sam Bartlett, Beth Davies & Destiny Howell

With the caveat that I’m reviewing the sample set handed out for Free RPG Day 2024, which I must say feels fairly representative of how the book must be as a whole! I’m actually finally coming around to writing a review of this because I got a chance to use a sample for one my …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/20/one-shot-wonders-by-sam-bartlett-beth-davies-destiny-howell/

Cold Snap by Lindy Ryan

I can see what Lindy Ryan was trying to do here, given my steeping in world mythology, but I think it needed a little more explaining so that the average reader can figure out what’s actually going on in this horror novella of guilt and grief. Just a few weeks ago, Derek Sinclaire died, falling …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/19/cold-snap-by-lindy-ryan/

The Weirn Books, Vol 1 and 2 by Svetlana Chmakova

I was so chuffed to receive a delightful box with the first two books in Svetlana Chmakova’s Weirn series just before Halloween! Deeply grateful to JY, an imprint of Yen Press, for sending not only the two volumes but also a cute selection of pens, bookmarks and posters, some of which found their ways into …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/18/the-weirn-books-vol-1-and-2-by-svetlana-chmakova/

Das Lied von der russischen Erde by Michael Thumann

Das Lied von der russischen Erde by Michael Thumann

Any book about current events eventually becomes a book about history, and a bit of a historical object itself. If it’s a good one, its insights will transcend the immediate period of its writing, illuminating its subject over a longer period, showing readers how the long term looked at a particular time. Michael Thumann’s Das …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/17/das-lied-von-der-russischen-erde-by-michael-thumann/

A Season of Knives by P.F. Chisholm

A Season of Knives by P.F. Chisholm

Sir Robert Carey is the very model of an Elizabethan courtier; he has skills equestrian, pedestrian and deductional. He’s met the Queen of England and he’s won the fights he chronicles, in England and in Scotland, and some in Lands Debatable. He’s well acquainted, too, with matters barely ethical; he understands corruption, both the venal …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/16/a-season-of-knives-by-p-f-chisholm/

Tantalizing Tales — November 2024 — Part Two

It has been one of those fortnights where time ceases to have meaning, dear readers. I can scarcely believe that it’s the middle of November already. And even at the rate of covering one book almost every work day, I’m still working my way through October, woof. It’s actually an October title that leads this …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/15/tantalizing-tales-november-2024-part-two/

Vintage Birds: A Guidebook And Matching Game by Roger J. Lederer

For someone who’s not terribly outdoorsy, I really enjoy birds. I love bird art and have somehow, over the years, amassed a shocking amount of knowledge for someone who’s never really studied birds outside of appreciating their artistic depictions. I mean, I recently made it to the Championships of the latest Birds Mini League on …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/14/vintage-birds-a-guidebook-and-matching-game-by-roger-j-lederer/

Detective Beans & The Case of the Missing Hat by Li Chen

I am all about the comfort reads this week, and I’ll be blessed if I read anything as charming as this graphic novel is anytime soon! Detective Beans is a young cat obsessed with being a detective, even if that usually just takes the form of acting out his favorite movies for his mom and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/13/detective-beans-the-case-of-the-missing-hat-by-li-chen/

Sticky Notes by Matthew Eicheldinger

subtitled Memorable Lessons from Ordinary Moments. I’ve been kind of a mess these past few weeks, even before the dismal US election results and definitely after, so this book was a wonderful antidote for despair. It isn’t entirely perfect — the vignette about Hiking Boots made me go “yeah, sure, he wound up going back …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/12/sticky-notes-by-matthew-eicheldinger/

A Christmas Ghost Story by Kim Newman

I don’t know if this is the perfect complement or counterprogramming to my eldest child and I watching and really enjoying Agatha All Along together. Probably a little of both — tho my kid will likely have little interest in this book, alas. That might be for the best tho, as it’s A Chilling Tale …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/08/a-christmas-ghost-story-by-kim-newman/