It was so nice to read something really new for a change, a fresh perspective, to me at least, on the traditional fantasy coming-of-age novel. The Nigerian setting is terrific, and I loved the magic systems and cultural information that came bursting out of this book like the delicious, nourishing flesh of a perfectly ripe …
Category: Urban Fantasy
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/02/akata-witch-akata-witch-1-by-nnedi-okorafor/
May 08 2017
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
One of the things I particularly liked about All the Birds in the Sky is how Charlie Jane Anders chose to break up the story. It’s a two-sided, save-the-world story, and all of the basics are there: interesting leads, good counterparts, quick pacing, fun dialog, and so forth. She’s strong enough on the essentials even …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/08/all-the-birds-in-the-sky-by-charlie-jane-anders/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/07/the-city-born-great-by-n-k-jemisin/
Mar 12 2017
The Hanging Tree (Peter Grant/Rivers Of London #6) by Ben Aaronovitch
This series just gets better with each book! The depth and complexity of Ben Aaronovitch’s mystical London really comes into its own here, as we delve deeper into the overarching plot with the reveal of The Faceless Man’s true identity (whom I figured out perhaps half a beat before Mr Aaronovitch intended for the reader …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/03/12/the-hanging-tree-peter-grantrivers-of-london-6-by-ben-aaronovitch/
Dec 24 2016
Fables: Werewolves Of The Heartland (Fables #17) by Bill Willingham et al
Not a great jumping on point for new readers, no matter what the press may say. I enjoyed it as a bit of filler story for Bigby on the road, and it answers a few questions raised by his time fighting in WWII, but I didn’t feel it was an essential part of the Fables …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/12/24/fables-werewolves-of-the-heartland-fables-17-by-bill-willingham-et-al/
Dec 05 2016
Fables: The Deluxe Edition, Book Two by Bill Willingham et. al.
The only problem with reading comics in their original single-issue format is that, if you’re like me and disorganized and somewhat absent-minded (and thus, the kind of person who finds Goodreads a godsend for its ability to help me keep track of what I’ve read and what I haven’t,) a lot of times, you don’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/12/05/fables-the-deluxe-edition-book-two-by-bill-willingham-et-al/
Mar 08 2016
Nobody’s Home by Tim Powers
Nobody’s Home is subtitled An Anubis Gates Story, which helped to draw me towards reading this story because I had heard good things about The Anubis Gates, although I have not read it. In an alternate nineteenth-century London, ghosts haunt the living, and some magics work, if not routinely then with a certain amount of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/03/08/nobodys-home-by-tim-powers/
Nov 20 2015
Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
It took me two days to finish the last 5%, mostly because damn you, Ingress double ap, but also because I was neither ready for nor okay with the idea of a cliffhanger, which was where I thought the book was going. Instead, it goes one better and, while I still really, really want to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/11/20/foxglove-summer-by-ben-aaronovitch/
Nov 17 2015
Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch
This was prolly the first book in the series where the case itself felt a little too convoluted (I mean, Isengard, really?) tho I really loved how the overarching series continues to develop with the Faceless Man and argh argh argh the ending! I didn’t expect that to happen and I should have: props to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/11/17/broken-homes-by-ben-aaronovitch/
Oct 21 2015
New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear
There isn’t a zeppelin on the cover to let readers know this is an alternate history, but by way of making up for it, Elizabeth Bear sets the book’s first story on board hydrogen-filled German airship. The Hans Glücker is on its way from Calais to the jewel of British North America, the eponymous New …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/21/new-amsterdam-by-elizabeth-bear/