Category: Fantasy

Raybearer (Raybearer #1) by Jordan Ifueko

This book is fucking flawless and possibly the first time in recent years that a YA debut has deserved all the praise it receives. FLAWLESS, my friends, and easily one of the best fantasy/YA novels ever written. Raybearer opens on a young, love-starved girl named Tarisai who is brought up by servants in a secluded …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/25/raybearer-raybearer-1-by-jordan-ifueko/

From Page To Screen: The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

I’m not deeply knowledgeable regarding The Witcher property, having only started with the third game (brilliant) and going on to enjoy The Last Wish, the first of Andrzej Sapkowski’s phenomenally successful fantasy series. While Blood Of Elves and The Time Of Contempt languish still on my TBR pile, I did manage to find time to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/23/from-page-to-screen-the-witcher-by-andrzej-sapkowski/

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

From the very first pages, I was completely blown away by how lovely the prose of this novel is! In all honesty, pretty phrasing isn’t high on my list when it comes to what makes a novel entertaining, but Shveta Thakrar’s beautiful descriptive writing, coupled with her gift for presenting absolutely natural dialog and emotion, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/19/star-daughter-by-shveta-thakrar/

These Violent Delights (These Violent Delights #1) by Chloe Gong

So there are some really good bits in Chloe Gong’s retelling of Romeo And Juliet, set in 1920s Shanghai and featuring the scions of two rival gang families needing to team up to defeat a supernatural threat to the city. First and foremost is the lived-in character of Juliette Cai, heir to the Scarlet Gang, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/17/these-violent-delights-these-violent-delights-1-by-chloe-gong/

We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1) by Hafsah Faizal

I was so chuffed to learn about this Arabian-inspired fantasy YA novel by an American niqabi, which had been getting so many rave reviews! I had to keep putting off reading it for one reason or another, but was so pleased to finally have time to settle in with it over the weekend. I was …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/04/we-hunt-the-flame-sands-of-arawiya-1-by-hafsah-faizal/

Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber

Swords Against Death

The stories in Swords Against Death are among the first published adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, making them more than 70 years old at this writing. The bulk of them were published as stand-alone stories in pulp magazines in the 1940s and 1950s; nearly all of them predate The Lord of the Rings, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/01/swords-against-death-by-fritz-leiber/

A(nother) Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

A Night in the Lonesome October

Just in time for the full moon falling on Halloween (the celestial alignment that drives the book’s plot), I re-read A Night in the Lonesome October. Everything I wrote about it last time holds true: it’s a romp, a hoot, a love letter to classics of Halloween and suspense, a master storyteller having fun with …

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Rowley Jefferson’s Awesome Friendly Adventure (Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid #2) by Jeff Kinney

My 9 year-old pressed this book on me immediately after he finished reading it last night, because he really wanted to discuss it with me. I read it over dinner, and was honestly relieved to find that the narrative voice was quite different from in its parent series, The Diary Of A Wimpy Kid. Granted, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/30/rowley-jeffersons-awesome-friendly-adventure-diary-of-an-awesome-friendly-kid-2-by-jeff-kinney/

Shadows Of The Short Days by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson

Imagine Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus crossed with Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist, filtered through a China Mieville sensibility of industrial magic set firmly in the history and myths of Iceland. That’s what you’re getting in Shadows Of The Short Days, Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson’s wildly inventive, deeply thoughtful debut novel, which he translated himself from its …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/20/shadows-of-the-short-days-by-alexander-dan-vilhjalmsson/

Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse

One of the things I was most impressed by in this first novel of Rebecca Roanhorse’s new epic fantasy series is how effortless it all feels. She’s created a brand new universe using the indigenous cultures of the Americas as its basis, and there isn’t a single moment of self-conscious telling instead of showing. It’s …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/19/black-sun-between-earth-and-sky-1-by-rebecca-roanhorse/