Category: Fantasy

A Master Of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe #1) by P. Djèlí Clark

P Djèlí Clark wrote two novellas set in this universe before A Master Of Djinn, and I think that if you preferred A Dead Djinn In Cairo to The Haunting Of Tram Car 015 then you’ll definitely enjoy this one too. Like the prior novellas, his first full-length book is about mystical goings-on in an …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/17/a-master-of-djinn-dead-djinn-universe-1-by-p-djeli-clark/

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

It’s weird feeling like I’m perfectly suited to review this book as a diaspora Malaysian but also feeling inadequate to review this book for that very same reason. The experience of reading Black Water Sister was like stepping back into old, comfy clothes and wandering around my hometown, but a small part of me was …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/11/black-water-sister-by-zen-cho/

Odyssey Of The Dragonlords — Players Guide by James Ohlen, Jesse Sky & Drew Karpyshyn

As I look forward to being fully vaccinated — two shots down and waiting for those antibodies to spool up, baby! — I’ve been itching to play more tabletop role playing games than just my current three hours a week, twice a month or so local game. It’s a fun D&D game, a homebrew fantasy …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/03/odyssey-of-the-dragonlords-players-guide-by-james-ohlen-jesse-sky-drew-karpyshyn/

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I’m gonna preface this by saying that I’m sure there are tons of readers who love this book, who just adore this Belle Epoque-inspired fantasy romance novel. And I’m glad for readers who find joy and comfort in its pages. But if you, like me, find shitty historical romance tropes utterly tiresome to the point …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/30/the-beautiful-ones-by-silvia-moreno-garcia/

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

Wasn’t this fun! Susan Arkshaw has grown up in a rural corner of southwestern England, with an absent father and a very absent-minded artist mother. Two minutes before The Left-Handed Booksellers of London opens — on May 1, 1983 — Susan turns 18. She’s also just had one of her recurring dreams, full of giant …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/24/the-left-handed-booksellers-of-london-by-garth-nix/

Malice by Heather Walter

This book was such a struggle to get through, and I might not have done it if I hadn’t been grimly determined to see how Heather Walter made good on the terrific premise of Sleeping Beauty’s true love actually being the dark fairy who cursed her. In the land of Briar, bordering on the fae …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/16/malice-by-heather-walter/

An Interview with Oliver K. Langmead, author of Birds Of Paradise

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. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/09/an-interview-with-oliver-k-langmead-author-of-birds-of-paradise/

Birds Of Paradise by Oliver K. Langmead

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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/30/birds-of-paradise-by-oliver-k-langmead/

The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost #1) by C.L. Clark

The Unbroken starts out extremely promisingly, telling the tale of Touraine, the young Qazali who was taken from her home as a kid and raised in the Balladairean empire as a member of the colonial forces, meant to be the first troops sent back to quell any uprisings in their land of birth. And here …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/27/the-unbroken-magic-of-the-lost-1-by-c-l-clark/

Shadows of the Short Days by Alexander Dan Vilhjalmsson

Hrimland, an alternate Iceland, sighs under its exploitation by Kalmar, a Nordic union that in history lasted from 1397 to 1523 but extends into the unspecified present of Shadows of the Short Days. Garún feels that exploitation more keenly than most; half human and half huldufólk, she’s an outcast among the oppressed. Worse, she left …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/25/shadows-of-the-short-days-by-alexander-dan-vilhjalmsson-2/