Writer, editor, translator, project manager, reformed bookseller. Currently based in Berlin, following stints in Moscow, Tbilisi, Munich, Washington, Warsaw, Budapest and Atlanta. Also blogs at A Fistful of Euros, though less frequently than here these days.
Most commented posts
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison — 9 comments
- White Eagle, Red Star by Norman Davies — 7 comments
- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch — 7 comments
- Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire — 6 comments
- The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin — 6 comments
Author's posts
Vasily Grossman is one of the great writers of the twentieth century, and The Road is a very good place to start reading his work. Born in the Ukrainian city of Berdychiv when it was part of the Russian Empire, Grossman experienced the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing civil war as a teen. He began …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/02/11/the-road-by-vasily-grossman/
Before Lucius Shepard had published stories, he had the idea of a dragon who was 6,000 feet long, immobilized but not killed by a wizard’s spell ages ago, now more or less a part of the landscape with towns and villages on and around his body, which was difficult to distinguish from the other hills …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/02/10/the-dragon-griaule-by-lucius-shepard/
Or, more properly and to give the book its full era-appropriate title, The Chemical Wedding by Christian Rosencreutz, A Romance in Eight Days, by Johann Valentin Andreae in a new version by John Crowley Cheekily claimed as a special 400th anniversary edition, The Chemical Wedding is a new version of one of the founding Rosicrucian …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/01/19/the-chemical-wedding-by-john-crowley/
The more my eyes went up and down the list of books I read in 2023, the more they came to rest on We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter S. Beagle. The call from Stockholm doesn’t come for people who publish books with titles like Lila the Werewolf or The Innkeeper’s Song, but …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/01/03/taking-stock-of-2023/
Introducing her translation of The Iliad, Emily Wilson gets right to the heart of the matter. “The beautiful word minunthadios, ‘short-lived,’ is used of both Achilles and Hector, and applies to all of us. We die too soon, and there is no adequate recompense for the terrible, inevitable loss of life. Yet through poetry, the …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/31/the-iliad-translated-by-emily-wilson/
Samantha Power was a writer before she went into public service. And even though she’s been America’s ambassador to the United Nations, and is now serving as the chief of the US Agency for International Development, it’s possible — maybe even probable — that she’s a better writer than anything else. Which means that even after …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/30/the-education-of-an-idealist-by-samantha-power/
Peter Grant, one of two official wizards of the London police force, owes his life to Lady Tyburn, one of the genius loci of the city’s numerous rivers. So when she wakes him with a pre-dawn phone call to say that one of her daughter’s friends has had an accident — the “fatal” is unstated …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/29/the-hanging-tree-by-ben-aaronovitch/
System Collapse has a great ending, possibly the best yet in Martha Wells’ wonderfully engaging Murderbot series. I emphasize that because I was a little lost at the beginning of the short novel, though that was mostly my fault. The story in System Collapse picks up immediately after the end of Network Effect, which was …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/28/system-collapse-by-martha-wells/
The last time there was a new book by Patrick Rothfuss to write about, The Frumious Consortium was a new project,and Laura reviewed The Slow Regard of Silent Things faster than the rest of the crew. She had strong ideas and took issue with common views coming out of fandom. She set the naysayers straight: …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/26/the-narrow-road-between-desires-by-patrick-rothfuss/
Luke 2:1-14, Old English: Soþlice on þam dagum wæs geworden gebod fram þam casere Augusto, þæt eall ymbehwyrft wære tomearcod. Þeos tomearcodnes wæs æryst geworden fram þam deman Syrige Cirino. And ealle hig eodon, and syndrige ferdon on hyra ceastre. Ða ferde Iosep fram Galilea of þære ceastre Nazareth on Iudeisce ceastre Dauides, seo is …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/25/merry-christmas-3/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire