Feb 03 2022
To the Land of Long Lost Friends begins with a wedding and moves quickly to a funereal subject. And it was on the way [to the catering tent] that Mma Ramotswe suddenly gripped Mr J.L.B. Matekon’s arm. “I have seen a ghost, Rra,” she said, her voice filled with alarm. He looked at her in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/02/03/to-the-land-of-long-lost-friends-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
Jan 30 2022
Terry Pratchett has neatly ruined Macbeth‘s opening for me — the eldritch screech of “When shall we three meet again?” answered by a nonplussed “Well, I can do next Tuesday” — but Kathryn Hunter’s contortions in her role as the witches and Joel Coen’s creepy direction do much to restore the story’s uncanny atmosphere. The Tragedy …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/30/from-page-to-screen-the-tragedy-of-macbeth/
Jan 28 2022
While skittling down a different Wikipedia rabbit hole, I came upon the name of Skip Spence. He is rather obviously the model for “the legendary Skip Shaw” in Say Goodbye, where Shaw is Laurie Moss’ love interest and one of her principal antagonists. (The other two, I would say, are Laurie herself and the structure …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/28/say-goodbye-by-lewis-shiner-encore/
Jan 24 2022
Fritz Leiber gave the name “swords and sorcery” to the genre that his heroes, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, did so much to define. Both elements are plentiful in the third collection of their tales Swords in the Mist, which was first published in 1968. Four stories comprise the bulk of the volume. “Adept’s Gambit,” …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/24/swords-in-the-mist-by-fritz-leiber/
Jan 21 2022
Twenty years before his magnum opus on life and music and bands and fame, Lewis Shiner published Say Goodbye a shorter novel on the same themes, set in the mid-1990s rather than the 1960s. The books share more than just themes: Laurie Moss, the central character of Say Goodbye is the daughter of Mike Moss, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/21/say-goodbye-by-lewis-shiner/
Jan 17 2022
The Long Sunset is the eighth book in Jack McDevitt’s series named after the Academy of Science and Technology, whose central character is Priscilla Hutchins, a pilot of interstellar craft generally known by her nickname “Hutch.” Six years ago, when I read Cauldron, I wrote: The universe that McDevitt has shown through Hutch’s … eyes …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/17/the-long-sunset-by-jack-mcdevitt/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/07/taking-stock-of-2021/
Dec 31 2021
In Lent, Jo Walton takes the life of Girolamo Savonarola both seriously and literally. Not only his life, the whole framework in which he lived that life: God, demons, Purgatory, the Rule of St. Benedict, the Dominican Order to which Savonarola was dedicated, his desire to create a new Jerusalem in Italy, and ever so …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/31/lent-by-jo-walton/
Dec 30 2021
There’s a live recording of a Bruce Springsteen song — “The River,” I think — with a long spoken introduction in which Springsteen talks about his difficult relationship with his father. The elder Springsteen, a veteran of World War II, didn’t understand what his son was doing with his long hair and his late nights and his …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/30/outside-the-gates-of-eden-by-lewis-shiner/
Dec 26 2021
Readers who made it through the first few unforgiving chapters of The Peripheral and went on to enjoy the rest of the book will find the beginning of Agency easier going, with the essential setup unchanged and many of the characters returning. In the main timeline sometime late in the twenty-second century, humanity has mostly …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/26/agency-by-william-gibson/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire