Category: Fantasy

An Interview with R S Ford, author of A Demon In Silver

Q: Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did A Demon In Silver evolve? A: It actually sprang from an idea for a totally different novel. I came up with a concept set in the modern day, featuring warring gods who had fought …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/20/author-interview-with-r-s-ford-author-of-a-demon-in-silver/

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Just in time for World Cup, I have finished Unseen Academicals, the Discworld book that takes up soccer — football, as it is known in some places, or foot-the-ball, as it is generally called in Ankh-Morpork. I had not been looking forward to this particular book on my trek through all of the main Discworld novels. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/17/unseen-academicals-by-terry-pratchett/

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull

War for the Oaks had a band-naming scene before the name of your next band became a Thing. It had fantastic conflicts in a downtown setting before vampires were ever thought to be sparkly. It has strong female protagonists as if that is the most natural thing in the world, which of course it is. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/15/war-for-the-oaks-by-emma-bull/

A Demon in Silver (War of the Archons #1) by R.S. Ford

Maybe I don’t read enough (hahaHAHAHA) but I honestly can’t think of a grimdark meets high fantasy series that is as accessible as R. S. Ford’s War of The Archons. Granted, we only have the first book, A Demon In Silver, but I was well impressed with how Mr Ford took the best elements of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/13/a-demon-in-silver-war-of-the-archons-1-by-r-s-ford/

Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Like Going Postal, Making Money starts with a deus ex Vetinari. Moist van Lipwig has brought the Royal Post back to life, but the operation is running so smoothly that being in charge no longer satisfies his urge to take ridiculous risks. Lord Vetinari, the Patrician who rules the great city of Ankh-Morpork with a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/12/making-money-by-terry-pratchett/

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

I am sure that I picked up The 13 Clocks because of the positive things that Neil Gaiman said about it among his reviews in The View from the Cheap Seats. I don’t have that text to hand just now, but I do have the introduction that he wrote to Thurber’s tale, even though he …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/09/the-13-clocks-by-james-thurber/

Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski

Sword of Destiny collects six stories that take place early in the personal history Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher; that is, a human who has gained supernatural fighting abilities through a combination of training and magic. He is the central figure of four previous books by Sapkowski: The Last Wish, Blood of Elves, The Time …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/06/sword-of-destiny-by-andrzej-sapkowski/

Furyborn (Empirium #1) by Claire Legrand

You know there’s a problem with a book when you get to the end, find out it’s the first in a trilogy and groan out loud. I mean, the prologue essentially tells you the main plot of not only this book but the next (and who even knows, maybe the third given how dragged out …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/23/furyborn-empirium-1-by-claire-legrand/

A Hero Born by Jin Yong

“The Chinese Lord of the Rings.” Or, as translator Anna Holmwood puts it in her introduction, “one of the world’s best-loved stories and one of its grandest epics, a series that can count its fans in the hundreds of millions. And yet this is the first time it has been published in English, despite making …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/11/a-hero-born-by-jin-yong/

The Changeling by Victor LaValle

The fairy tales that we’re familiar with have spent centuries being smoothed down by retelling after retelling, retaining their magic despite the years and multiple minor tweaks because, as stories, they make sense to us. Some might argue that those minor tweaks Disney-fy the process, but I believe that they whittle away the things that …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/02/the-changeling-by-victor-lavalle/