Jan 23 2021
Well this time around — the first in at least eight years — I read the Tom Bombadil chapter, and I’m glad I did. I had gotten in the habit of skipping it, so it had lodged in my mind as both much longer — turns out the chapter is only 15 pages — and far duller …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/01/23/the-fellowship-of-the-ring-by-j-r-r-tolkien/
Jan 22 2021
This was a weird and wonderful story of a warrior priestess coming to realize that maybe the gods are liars, and that the most important thing is to work for the betterment and security of one’s people instead of haring off to get yourself killed for an idea of glory. Hessa is an Eangi, one …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/01/22/hall-of-smoke-by-h-m-long/
Jan 21 2021
Siiiiiigh. There are the bones of a good story here. Once upon a time, Poets were able to work Enchantments with their songs, but when dark magic began to take over in the form of plague, the king of Eivar demanded that magic be excised from the kingdom altogether, putting the Poets and the Academy …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/01/21/last-song-before-night-the-harp-and-ring-sequence-1-by-ilana-c-myer/
Jan 08 2021
Siiiigh. In the year 2021, is describing a book as being like The Hunger Games even a good reference any longer? Especially since, if you’re really looking for an on-the-nose comparison, Highlander would be much more appropriate? I suppose I’m focusing on the petty business of book marketing because I don’t want to address how …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/01/08/lore-by-alexandra-bracken/
Jan 01 2021
My husband got me this book several years ago as I’m a huge Bad Machinery fan, but for some reason or other, I put off reading this until I felt it was the “right time.” So it’s been languishing on my dining room table for years, unready to join its kin — the first four …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/01/01/the-case-of-the-fire-inside-bad-machinery-5-by-john-allison/
Dec 31 2020
How would a sword-and-sorcery author who basically wanted to have a hell of a lot of fun write in the twenty-first century? They’d write like Tamsyn Muir does in Gideon the Ninth, I think. “In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!—Gideon Nav packed …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/31/gideon-the-ninth-by-tamsyn-muir/
Dec 22 2020
Y’all, I thought this was the last book in the series. Like, I’m glad there’ll be more, but I was under the impression that this was the grand finale, so spent the last thirty or so pages being pretty confused till Seth Dickinson’s afterword acknowledging both that there’s one final book coming but also that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/22/the-tyrant-baru-cormorant-the-masquerade-3-by-seth-dickinson/
Dec 16 2020
I put off reading this for so long because I assumed it was the kind of book a certain subset of YA readers go gaga over despite a lack of any real substance, and BOY, WAS I WRONG! This book was so good, I wound up reading in bed way past my bedtime, telling myself …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/16/the-cruel-prince-the-folk-of-the-air-1-by-holly-black/
Dec 10 2020
Look at that gorgeous cover! It’s literally the best part of this nonsense book that had me wanting to dig up copies of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows And Amazons series so I could read a tale of young pirates that I would actually enjoy. Okay, Adrienne Young’s prose is pretty decent — there are some lovely …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/10/fable-fable-1-by-adrienne-young/
Dec 06 2020
Bro! As has been said before, Beowulf is a poem that forces translators to show their style from the very first word. That word in the original is “Hwæt,” an Old English attention grabber, and how translators render it tells a lot about what’s coming in the rest of the poem. Will the version lean …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/06/beowulf-translated-by-maria-dahvana-headley/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire