Apr 21 2020
Ahhhh, so lovely to slip back into the genre-bending fantasy-cyberpunk world of The Founders Trilogy, like a nice warm bath for my mind. The first novel Foundryside was one of my favorite books of 2018, and I was ecstatic to be able to get my hands on an advance copy of the sequel, which begins …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/21/shorefall-the-founders-trilogy-2-by-robert-jackson-bennett/
Mar 29 2020
This is the end of the series and what a strange and terrific end it is for the triplet queens of Fennbirn, doomed to fight each other to the death for a crown that not all of them will want. As this final entry opens, Arsinoe is attempting to bring Jules back to sanity, only …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/29/five-dark-fates-three-dark-crowns-4-by-kendare-blake/
Mar 23 2020
I unreservedly loved the first half of this book. I’ve had a problem recently with books claiming to represent the various of my identities and doing a pretty shitty job of it, so it was something of a relief to see how meticulous Natasha Ngan and the team behind Girls Of Paper And Fire were …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/23/girls-of-paper-and-fire-girls-of-paper-and-fire-1-by-natasha-ngan/
Mar 17 2020
Modern fairy tale anthologies are 100% my jam, so I absolutely devoured this 300+ page compilation of 20 short stories and poems written by some of the finest contemporary writers of speculative fiction. Absorbing and for the most part well-written, this is a book of re-told fairy tales that are far darker in nature than …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/17/cursed-an-anthology-of-dark-fairy-tales-edited-by-marie-oregan-paul-kane/
Mar 05 2020
Great concept, abysmal execution. I love, love, love the idea of teenage lesbian witches coming of age but there were two huge problems I had with this book that seriously interfered with my enjoyment of the story. A brief on said story, before I go about lamenting where it could have done so much better: …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/05/these-witches-dont-burn-these-witches-dont-burn-1-by-isabel-sterling/
Feb 26 2020
Foreign Devils continues the cowboys and Romans mashup started in The Incorruptibles, a story that will conclude in Infernal Machines. I am very glad that I don’t have to wait for John Hornor Jacobs to write the third volume, because boy howdy is Foreign Devils a middle book. As the Ruman Empire strides through its …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/02/26/foreign-devils-by-john-hornor-jacobs/
Feb 20 2020
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did The Golden Key evolve? A. The story emerged, oddly enough, in California while I was attending the Clarion Workshop. It was the story I wrote to be workshopped the week when Catherynne Valente was teaching …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/02/20/an-interview-with-marian-womack-author-of-the-golden-key/
Feb 17 2020
If you’re looking for a book with atmosphere, The Golden Key has it in peat-filled, gas-lit spadefuls. Set just after the end of Queen Victoria’s death, it travels from the fenlands of England to the spiritualist parlors of London, where seances are once more all the rage. Samuel Moncrieff is a young man adrift after …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/02/17/the-golden-key-by-marian-womack/
Feb 14 2020
I have a weird confession to make: I’ve loved every single one of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers Of London novels but I’ll be darned if I could, today, explain the plot of even just one of the first six books to anybody who asked. Okay, maybe Midnight Riot since that was the foundational text, and then …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/02/14/lies-sleeping-rivers-of-london-7-by-ben-aaronovitch/
Jan 28 2020
Man, I dig a morally ambiguous lead character as much as the next person (V. E. Schwab’s Villains series, the badass coven of Hannah Capin’s upcoming Foul Is Fair) but this was waaaaay not that. Aina Solis is an orphan whose parents were killed for practicing their pacifist religion in Kosin, the titular Diamond City. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/01/28/diamond-city-diamond-city-1-by-francesca-flores/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire