Aug 20 2024
with art by ChrisCross and Loyiso Mkize, and colors by Andrew Dalhouse. Imagine waking up in the middle of a video game, and not a fun one with multiple save points and animal friends either. Okay, so there are animal companions to be found in the titular Tower where the game takes place, but our …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/20/tower-vol-1-by-camrus-johnson-kelsey-barnhart/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/11/hugo-awards-2024-best-novelette/
Aug 02 2024
I should have read the description of The Language of the Night more closely because when it arrived I was a little irritated to discover that it’s a collection of essays mostly from the early and mid-1970s, with some footnoted and additional remarks that Le Guin added to a new edition of the book in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/02/the-language-of-the-night-by-ursula-k-le-guin/
Jul 27 2024
This is the fifth year that I have been a reader and a voter for the Hugo Award, a practice I began when I fulfilled a long-time dream and attended a World Science Fiction Convention. Finances and geography, among other things, have conspired to keep me away in the years since, but maybe I will …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/27/hugo-awards-2024-general-and-some-novellas/
Jul 19 2024
On the plus side, with this I’ve finally read all the nominees for Best Novella for the 2024 Hugos! That said, what a strange set of entries for this year. As Doug has opined elsewhere, this was not a good year for the category Jo Walton considers an excellent barometer of the speculative fiction zeitgeist. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/19/the-mimicking-of-known-successes-by-malka-older/
Jul 17 2024
translated into English by Alex Woodward. I guess I should start by attempting to summarize this story, but it’s just so weirdly — if not outright poorly — written (or perhaps translated? I’m sorry for throwing you under the bus here Mr Woodward but this story was just so bafflingly not good) that I don’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/17/life-does-not-allow-us-to-meet-by-he-xi/
Jul 16 2024
a graphic adaptation of Liu Cixin’s bestselling sci-fi novel of the same name, which I adored. This, tho… I very much did not love this. A large part of the problem with this adaptation of The Three-Body Problem is the fact that it strips out much of Mr Liu’s writing save the dialog, which was …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/16/the-three-body-problem-part-one-by-cai-jin-ge-wendi-bo-mu-caojijiuridong/
Jul 11 2024
Once upon a time, I used to give authors 900 pages before I decided whether I was done with them, probably forever. That, ofc, was before I became a professional book critic and found myself inundated with more books than I have time for. In the before times, I might have extended that courtesy towards …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/11/rose-house-by-arkady-martine/
Jul 03 2024
translated into English by Alex Woodend. This is a weird little novella that definitely feels very old-fashioned old school, almost as if it was lifted entirely from the cutting edge of the mid-20th century. It’s also on the shorter side — never a bad thing — but it definitely felt a little more sketched in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/03/seeds-of-mercury-by-wang-jinkang/
Jul 01 2024
collecting issues 61-66 of the long-running comic book series. It has been a long ass time since I read the first Saga collection, and I have apparently not read anything else of it since, despite quite liking the first book. So when I saw that Volume 11 was nominated for the Hugos, I was super …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/01/saga-vol-11-by-brian-k-vaughan-fiona-staples/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire