Category: Horror

Clementine, Book One by Tillie Walden

It’s become vanishingly rare for there to be anything new to say about the zombie apocalypse. This book is no different, but will likely hit the sweet spot for fans of the subgenre, and especially for those who don’t think that there’s enough teenage angst already in the existing corpus. In this expansion on Robert …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/24/clementine-book-one-by-tillie-walden/

Hugo Awards 2022: Best Novelette Nominee

I’m a big fan of ordering my group reviews for the Hugos alphabetically, but what to do when my favorite is the very first of them? I haven’t had a chance to read much Suzanne Palmer, but I adored Bots Of The Lost Ark, which managed to pack a whole bunch of interesting and delightful …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/14/hugo-awards-2022-best-novelette-nominee/

Hugo Awards 2022: Best Novelette

Bots of the Lost Ark by Suzanne Palmer, magazine cover

Myth, starfaring bots, near-future Nigeria, fell fae, artistic immortals and the magic of the mind all feature in the 2022 Hugo finalists in the category of Best Novelette. “Bots of the Lost Ark” by Suzanne Palmer sets its story on a large interstellar ship that just barely survived an encounter with hostile aliens and is …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/09/hugo-awards-2022-best-novelette/

Hugo Awards 2022: Best Short Story Nominee

Hugo packets are out, hurray, and I have till August to read everything! Having already consumed and voted for the nominees in the Best Dramatic Presentation: Long Form category and reviewed the first in the Graphic Story category, it’s time to look at the Short Stories, which I’ll discuss here alphabetically by title. Links are …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/02/hugo-awards-2022-best-short-story-nominee/

Monstress Vol. 6: The Vow by Marjorie M. Liu & Sana Takeda

Wow, has this series grown on me! As with last year, I selected this title first of the Hugo nominees for Graphic Novel in hopes of getting it out of the way, but was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually does keep getting better from volume to volume. As always, an overwhelming amount happens …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/31/monstress-vol-6-the-vow-by-marjorie-m-liu-sana-takeda/

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

It would have worked, too! As the back cover of Meddling Kids says, in 1977 the Blyton Summer Detective Club unmasked the Sleepy Lake monster, a low-life fortune hunter who put on a funny suit to scare people away while he searched the grounds of the Deboën mansion for the gold hoard that was rumored …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/06/meddling-kids-by-edgar-cantero/

When Things Get Dark edited by Ellen Datlow

I am genuinely impressed by the way this collection invokes the spirit of Shirley Jackson. So many of the stories read as if they might have come from her pen, so seamlessly do they fit into the dark atmosphere engendered by stories such as The Haunting Of Hill House, The Lottery and We Have Always …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/03/24/when-things-get-dark-edited-by-ellen-datlow/

The Soul Stealer by Graham Masterton

Horror with a distinct 1970s/1980s vibe is definitely having a resurgence, as recent novels such as John Darnielle’s Devil House and Simon Jacobs’ String Follow have shown. And who better to ride this wave than one of the luminaries of the scene himself, Graham Masterton, whose prolific, prize-winning career began in 1976 with The Manitou, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/03/08/the-soul-stealer-by-graham-masterton/

Dracula: Curse Of The Vampire by Jonathan Green, illustrated by Hauke Kock

Happy New Year, readers! Here’s to another wonderful year of reading and discovery for you all! Back in 2020, we told you about the very cool Kickstarter campaign for Jonathan Green’s gamebook Dracula: Curse Of The Vampire. I received my copy partway through 2021, but didn’t have time to sit down and read/play through it …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/03/dracula-curse-of-the-vampire-by-jonathan-green-illustrated-by-hauke-kock/

Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

Many things have transpired at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children since I read the debut novella, Every Heart a Doorway, but I did not feel lost at all. My thanks to Seanan McGuire for making subsequent installments of her series inviting even to people who do not hang on its every word. The Home …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/25/come-tumbling-down-by-seanan-mcguire/