Jun 13 2019
Here’s a cure for excessively serious or positively ponderous. In Just One Damned Thing After Another, Jodi Taylor took a premise that’s been used numerous times before — history as a practical academic discipline, aided and abetted by time travel — and simply wrote the hell out of it. St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/06/13/just-one-damned-thing-after-another-by-jodi-taylor/
Apr 18 2019
The Underground Railroad is a hell of a book. Like Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters, Whitehead’s book was published in 2016 and takes a slightly science fictional look at slavery in the United States of America. Winters’ narrative brought slavery into the 21st century and imagined what the peculiar institution would be like in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/04/18/the-underground-railroad-by-colson-whitehead/
Jan 28 2019
I read a lot of novels and it is perishing rare for me to feel genuinely intimidated by the intellect of an author but here we are! Simon Ings’ terrifying intelligence is palpable throughout the pages of The Smoke, with my only quibble being why London is called such, as the text doesn’t seem to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/01/28/the-smoke-by-simon-ings/
Jan 24 2019
It’s interesting how quickly one’s sympathy for a young girl raised to cosset a psychopath plummets as she goes from teaching him social skills to actively enabling his monstrous tendencies. And in this political climate, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for a woman who knows that her man is a shit but feels she …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/01/24/the-dark-descent-of-elizabeth-frankenstein-by-kiersten-white/
Dec 09 2018
In the eight linked tales that comprise Lovecraft Country, Matt Ruff takes readers on mind-stretching journeys across time and space, far more frightening trips across the mid–twentieth century US, conjures ghosts in Chicago, banishes them in New England, and summons up a sparkling cast of friends and relatives who are doing their best to live …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/09/lovecraft-country-by-matt-ruff-2/
Oct 14 2018
You know what would be really scary? A novel written from the point of view of one of the women who believed wholeheartedly in the tenets of the Republic of Gilead, who rejoiced in the work they were doing, who revelled in her role as helpmeet, as implementer of God’s will on an earth that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/10/14/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/
Aug 30 2018
With his trilogy about a darkly magical California — California Bones, Pacific Fire, and Dragon Coast — Greg van Eekhout has created an interesting world that puts wizards and fantastic creatures into a roughly contemporary setting and spun exciting stories of adventure among the people who shape that world. Earth is home to many magical creatures, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/30/dragon-coast-by-greg-van-eekhout/
Aug 14 2018
Isn’t it great when the last in a set of books is the best of the bunch? Not only is Fiddlehead, the fifth of Cherie Priest‘s Clockwork Century novels, easily the best of the series, it’s terrific fun from start to finish, a page-turner in the best sense of the word. It races from tension-filled …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/14/fiddlehead-by-cherie-priest/
Aug 01 2018
Pacific Fire follows its predecessor, California Bones, as an adventure caper set in a darkly magical California that is both contemporary and off kilter. Transport within Los Angeles, for example, is all on boats in canals, the city a gargantuan Venice, and the head of the Department of Water and Power is a feared water …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/01/pacific-fire-by-greg-van-eekhout/
Jul 30 2018
I love love love Alix Nico and her hilariously idiosyncratic voice and the crazy alternate universe she lives in (well, I love the rampant violence less, but it’s a nice reminder that our own world could always be worse, so.) She’s witty and damaged and reckless and loyal, and she’s a great person to hang …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/30/talon-of-scorpio-shadowstorm-3-by-g-t-almasi/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire