Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal is the fourth of her Glamourist Histories series, following Shades of Milk & Honey, Glamour in Glass, and Without a Summer. The series crosses Regency romances with alternate (but not terribly alternate) history and a dash of domestic magic that may yet admit of industrial applications. The teaser …
Category: Doug
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/09/valour-vanity-by-mary-robinette-kowal/
Mar 07 2015
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
Equal Rites, the third Discworld novel, makes a big leap in quality from the second. Terry Pratchett leaves the characters who were at the hub of the first two novels and sets off to tell a completely independent tale. Having spent the second book concocting a tale of danger to the whole Disc and then …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/07/equal-rites-by-terry-pratchett/
Mar 04 2015
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Wasn’t this great fun? The front flap of The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison, summarizes the set-up: “A half-goblin, the youngest son of the emperor, has lived his entire life in exile, far form the imperial court and the deadly intrigue that surrounds it. But when his father and three half-brothers, who are heirs to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/04/the-goblin-emperor-by-katherine-addison/
Mar 03 2015
The Mallet of Loving Correction by John Scalzi
I find it impossible not to like John Scalzi’s public persona. He’s clever, thoughtful, straightforward, and sometimes delightfully wacky. I read Whatever, his blog, regularly, and have for years. I also liked the first collection of writings from it, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. Nevertheless, even though I breezed happily through the new collection, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/03/the-mallet-of-loving-correction-by-john-scalzi/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/02/number-ten-ox/
Feb 25 2015
Midnight at the Pera Palace by Charles King
Where to start when writing about a city as vast and storied as Istanbul? In Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul, Charles King takes an inflection point in the history of a city that is itself a key inflection between East and West. Or rather, he takes a period of hinges …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/25/midnight-at-the-pera-palace-by-charles-king/
Feb 12 2015
What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton
Jo Walton answers the question posed by the title for a bit more than 100 books in this collection of brief reviews devoted to re-reading. As I read through, I enjoyed thinking of how the emphasis could fall on each of the words in the title, although the cover design clearly places it on the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/12/what-makes-this-book-so-great-by-jo-walton/
Feb 09 2015
The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett
In the second Discworld novel, The Light Fantastic, Rincewind saves the Disc, not quite by accident but certainly not through great forethought and cunning action, either. The Disc appears to be hurtling toward a great red star in such a way that collision is imminent, and the only way to prevent the Disc’s annihilation is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/09/the-light-fantastic-by-terry-pratchett/
Feb 06 2015
Truth and Fear by Peter Higgins
People who were annoyed by the cliffhanger ending of Wolfhound Century should definitely wait the six weeks or so until Radiant State is published before reading Truth and Fear. Peter Higgins hasn’t solved the middle-book problem, but it’s clear that he conceived and wrote the three books of the Wolfhound Century tale as a single, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/06/truth-and-fear-by-peter-higgins/
Feb 05 2015
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield
This was a hoot. As the back cover says, “the Reduced Shakespeare Company‘s classic farce” presents, after a fashion, all 37 plays and does something to with the sonnets in just over 90 minutes of stage time. They do the comedies all at once, in a bit
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/05/the-complete-works-of-william-shakespeare-abridged-by-adam-long-daniel-singer-and-jess-winfield/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire