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 18 2018
Quite by accident, Steffen Möller has found himself one of the most famous contemporary Germans in Poland. He moved there in the mid-1990s for no particularly profound reasons — looking for work, looking for things to be slightly different, looking into a society that was changing rapidly, looking at a place that was at once nearby …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/18/viva-warszawa-by-steffen-moeller/
Jul 18 2018
What if all of those 19th-century notions about the nature of the solar system were true? Venus is swampy and rainy, Mars is mostly dry but turns out to be good country for kangaroos, Neptune is covered by an immense and stormy ocean, the moon really does have seas. And more: the moons discovered by …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/18/radiance-by-catherynne-m-valente/
Jul 16 2018
At the opening of The Maid of Orleans, as Schiller’s five-act verse tragedy is known in English, France is divided among three parties: English troops who have taken Paris and the north in pressing their king’s dynastic claim to the French throne, southern lands held by the Valois king Charles VII, and Burgundy in the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/16/die-jungfrau-von-orleans-by-friedrich-schiller/
Jun 26 2018
Abe, a cranky retired history professor who’s pretty good on the harmonica. Joanna, a flight attendant who’s logged plenty of miles but still has a ways to go before she can stay on the friendly ground. They’re an unlikely pair, and they maintain their separate residences, separate worlds, but sixteen years together have been good …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/26/summerlong-by-peter-s-beagle/
Jun 17 2018
Just in time for World Cup, I have finished Unseen Academicals, the Discworld book that takes up soccer — football, as it is known in some places, or foot-the-ball, as it is generally called in Ankh-Morpork. I had not been looking forward to this particular book on my trek through all of the main Discworld novels. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/17/unseen-academicals-by-terry-pratchett/
Jun 15 2018
War for the Oaks had a band-naming scene before the name of your next band became a Thing. It had fantastic conflicts in a downtown setting before vampires were ever thought to be sparkly. It has strong female protagonists as if that is the most natural thing in the world, which of course it is. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/15/war-for-the-oaks-by-emma-bull/
Jun 12 2018
Like Going Postal, Making Money starts with a deus ex Vetinari. Moist van Lipwig has brought the Royal Post back to life, but the operation is running so smoothly that being in charge no longer satisfies his urge to take ridiculous risks. Lord Vetinari, the Patrician who rules the great city of Ankh-Morpork with a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/12/making-money-by-terry-pratchett/
Jun 10 2018
Everything I said here about the greatness of the first half of Life and Fate holds true for the second. What strikes me most is how consistently he captures the contradictions of humanity, in situations both mundane and extreme. Some people are pitiless one moment and turn around and show great compassion the next; they …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/10/life-and-fate-by-vasily-grossman/
Jun 09 2018
I am sure that I picked up The 13 Clocks because of the positive things that Neil Gaiman said about it among his reviews in The View from the Cheap Seats. I don’t have that text to hand just now, but I do have the introduction that he wrote to Thurber’s tale, even though he …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/09/the-13-clocks-by-james-thurber/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire