Sep 22 2021
Some time past the middle of the twenty-first century, Britain offers its citizens the safest, most democratic, best-adjusted society in human history. Every person under the System is encouraged — though not compelled — to spend a certain amount of time each week voting, and is semi-randomly assigned to decision-making bodies for the duration of their session. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/09/22/gnomon-by-nick-harkaway-pt-1/
Sep 03 2021
Who’s ready for a brand new story arc in the Enola Holmes universe? As we swiftly discover in the opening pages of this latest installment of the series, Enola has reconciled with her brothers and is living as an independent Consulting Perditologist in London. However, she’s dismayed that her brothers, famous old Sherlock and Mycroft, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/09/03/enola-holmes-and-the-black-barouche-enola-holmes-7-by-nancy-springer/
Jun 26 2021
Let me just say up front that I loved all four main characters in Utopia Avenue and didn’t want anything bad to happen to them ever. It’s a good thing I wasn’t in charge, then, as that would have made for a dull novel. David Mitchell not only had the skill to create people who …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/26/utopia-avenue-by-david-mitchell/
Jun 04 2021
The elevator pitch is essentially Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander meets Diana Wynne Jones’ The Time Of The Ghost, with naval battles galore (any Dianas who write about those? I’d be awfully pleased to know it.) Ofc, The Kingdoms isn’t quite so rapey as Outlander (thank God) nor as suspenseful as TToTG but is a thoughtful look …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/04/the-kingdoms-by-natasha-pulley/
Apr 09 2021
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. Birds Of Paradise had a particularly long gestation, as you note in your afterword. How did this novel evolve? A. In the end, it took me more than a decade to finish writing Birds of Paradise. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/09/an-interview-with-oliver-k-langmead-author-of-birds-of-paradise/
Apr 02 2021
After the events at Mena House, Egypt, in the first novel of this 1920s-set historical mystery series, our heroine, the widowed American Jane Wunderly, and her (obnoxious) Aunt Millie decide to take up residence at Wedgefield Manor, an estate in the English countryside owned by Lord Hughes, a former and possibly future paramour of Aunt …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/02/murder-at-wedgefield-manor-a-jane-wunderly-mystery-2-by-erica-ruth-neubauer/
Mar 30 2021
A gorgeous, almost dream-like meditation on dissociation, love, belonging and grief, punctuated by flashes of violence and pain, Birds Of Paradise follows the first man, Adam, as he’s making his way through modern life. When a Hollywood security gig goes awry, he’s hustled out of the country by Rook, who along with several other of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/30/birds-of-paradise-by-oliver-k-langmead/
Mar 24 2021
More than any other book I can think of Wolf Hall impressed upon me the number of people constantly present in a pre-modern household of any size. The first book of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell, it teems with people coming in and out the main character’s presence, from its unforgettable …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/24/the-mirror-and-the-light-by-hilary-mantel/
Dec 23 2020
Like the protagonist of Neuromancer, William Gibson is an artiste of the slightly funny deal. In The Peripheral the first slightly funny deal is between some people in England who hire some other folks in a small-town part of Appalachia in the US. The English contingent wants the people across the pond to fly a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/23/the-peripheral-by-william-gibson-2/
Aug 28 2020
The Child That Books Built, Francis Spufford’s second book, published six years after his first, raises a publishing question that I have long been interested in, but one that I suspect does not have any firm answer. How does an editor spot someone whose first book or two are strong but who is likely to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/28/the-child-that-books-built-by-francis-spufford/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire