Aug 08 2016
Two plots carry the action forward in The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café, the fifteenth in Alexander McCall Smith’s series about Botswana’s first detective agency run by women. In slight contrast to its immediate predecessor, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, the two plots are not both cases taken on by the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/08/the-handsome-mans-de-luxe-cafe-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
Aug 06 2016
Now this is how a Discworld story should be. After the uninteresting Interesting Times, Terry Pratchett came right back with the much stronger Maskerade. The Lancre witches take center stage, and stage is just right because most of the novel takes place in and around Ankh-Morpork’s opera house. Well, two of the witches do, which …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/06/maskerade-by-terry-pratchett/
Aug 06 2016
Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton is … strange. It’s a sentimental Victorian novel: the main plot turns on a lawsuit brought to settle the estate of a country squire. Subplots mostly involve finding suitable marriage partners for the younger generation, or that generation making efforts to hide their pre-marital arrangements from the older generation. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/06/tooth-and-claw-by-jo-walton/
Aug 02 2016
What’s good about Interesting Times, given that I don’t like its protagonist, Rincewind the hapless wizard? Cohen the Barbarian is back, ancient and sprightly and deadly as ever. Several other aged barbarian heroes join him for one last great caper. With this Silver Horde (of seven) is the Teacher, who has given up on the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/02/interesting-times-by-terry-pratchett/
Jul 27 2016
In Authoritarian Russia Vladimir Gel’man answers a question that is extremely important for contemporary international relations: Why is post-Soviet Russia the way that it is? Or, framed slightly differently, how did post-Soviet Russia get to be the way that it is? Gel’man, who is a friend of a friend, presents his answers in 150 carefully …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/27/authoritarian-russia-by-vladimir-gelman/
Jul 26 2016
By the penultimate book in the Fairyland series, my reading of them has fallen into a certain pattern: I struggle a bit in the first parts, while the author rattles off so many new characters, items and places so quickly that I get sort of a literary sensory overload. Not only that, they arrive so …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/26/the-boy-who-lost-fairyland-by-catherynne-m-valente/
Jul 25 2016
Charles Stross’ Laundry series began as pastiches of spy novels, with Lovecraftian beings of endless horror substituting for cat-stroking megalomaniacs as the bad guys. Running a close second in the bad guy scheme of things are the higher reaches of the spy organization, partly because the third well of inspiration for the series is The …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/25/the-nightmare-stacks-by-charles-stross/
Jul 24 2016
Death not only had a daughter, it turns out he had a granddaughter as well. In between, he had an apprentice and, as these things often happen, the daughter married the apprentice and in due course the daughter arrived. One unfortunate night, a carriage went too fast around Dead Man’s Curve, which earned its name …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/24/soul-music-by-terry-pratchett/
Jul 23 2016
All Clear, which picks up right where Blackout left off and comprises the second part of an 1100-page story, would have been a brilliant book at about half or two-thirds of its 640-page length. The ending has emotional power; it resolves the main question running through the books and ties up the characters’ individual tales …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/23/all-clear-by-connie-willis/
Jul 18 2016
Reading Connie Willis is always, sentence by sentence, a delight. Her characters are sympathetic and interesting to spend time with; conflicts usually arise from misunderstandings, or from the nature of a situation. Some few people are jerks, some are hurt and acting out, but that’s just like life, isn’t it? Willis also appears to have …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/18/blackout-by-connie-willis/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire