Jun 04 2016
The Night’s Watch that Terry Pratchett set up in Guards! Guards! comes into its own in Men at Arms, the fifteenth Discworld novel. The characters are already established, so Pratchett can start in media res although, as always, he includes enough background so that readers new to Discworld can start reading deep into the series …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/06/04/men-at-arms-by-terry-pratchett/
Jun 03 2016
Jo Walton, writing at the height of her powers, has solved the second-book problem, or at least this one instance of the problem. The Philosopher Kings is in fact the middle book of a trilogy, but it is so much its own thing that although it has the advantages of a sequel—less time setting up …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/06/03/the-philosopher-kings-by-jo-walton/
May 25 2016
Soon after reading The Collapse was just the right time to pick up Europe at Midnight, Dave Hutchinson’s second book set in a Europe that kept right on collapsing after 1989 and, by the unspecified date of the story, sends more than 500 entrants each year to the Eurovision Song Contest. Europe at Midnight splinters …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/25/europe-at-midnight-by-dave-hutchinson/
May 18 2016
The Ruins of Gorlan is a splendid introduction to fantasy, especially for readers who like fast-moving stories but who may not be ready for the canonical masters of the genre. There aren’t any surprises for experienced readers, except to see how deftly and economically Flanagan moves his story and characters along. He does both, and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/18/the-ruins-of-gorlan-by-john-flanagan/
May 17 2016
Some of the people I have mentioned this book to love Neil Gaiman’s work because he tells stories that draw on the mythical, the archetypal, pulling on deep threads of human experience and weaving it into contemporary settings. Others find that he pulls on those too quickly, that there isn’t enough context around the story …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/17/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-by-neil-gaiman/
May 13 2016
The mystery was a bit more predictable here, and the book overall took on a much more Harry Potter-slant than the first, but still a tremendously charming and engaging supernatural mystery, ostensibly for children, but definitely enjoyable for those well past that stage in life. In this installment of the series, Oona Crate enters a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/13/the-magicians-tower-by-shawn-thomas-odyssey/
May 13 2016
This book was so darn charming that I immediately went and got the next in the series. Oona Crate lives in Victorian-era New York City, or on a street adjacent to it anyway. Magic is inherent in her blood, but she would rather spurn her natural talents and the unreliability of magic for the cold, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/13/the-wizard-of-dark-street-by-shawn-thomas-odyssey/
Apr 27 2016
What if people took Plato’s Republic seriously enough to attempt putting it into practice? What if two of those people were the Greek deities Apollo and Athena, who have the power to make Plato’s implausible starting conditions real? Those are the premises underlying The Just City by Jo Walton. The Olympians, as Walton describes them, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/27/the-just-city-by-jo-walton/
Apr 17 2016
Fourteen books into Discworld, Lords and Ladies is the first time Terry Pratchett deemed it necessary to put in a note connecting the event in the book at hand to a previous volume. It hasn’t hurt that I have been reading them in order of publication, but it hasn’t been particularly necessary either. And in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/17/lords-and-ladies-by-terry-pratchett/
Mar 23 2016
A rather slight novel given the rather amazing magic system on display. I love the fact that magicians can manipulate man-made objects but bond to only one category, and thought the pseudo-Victorian era intriguing, but thought there was a lot of fast and loose played with the society’s rules. Ceony’s journey through the heart was …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/03/23/the-paper-magician-by-charlie-n-holmberg/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire