I genuinely cannot remember the last time I read a short story collection so consistently stunning. Honestly, there’s not a weak one in the bunch, and that’s saying a lot considering there are 34 tales of post-apocalyptic life in this hefty volume. Whether the end of the world comes about due to war or infection …
Category: Science Fiction
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/06/04/wastelands-3-the-new-apocalypse-edited-by-john-joseph-adams/
May 14 2019
An Interview with Tim Major, author of Snakeskins
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did Snakeskins evolve? A. As far back as 2015 I wrote the idea in my notebook, after learning that during a seven-year period, every cell in the human body is replaced. I loved the idea that instead …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/05/14/an-interview-with-tim-major-author-of-snakeskins/
May 13 2019
Acceptance (Southern Reach #3) by Jeff VanderMeer
Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible to do a competent review of this book without spoilers, so you’ve been warned, dear reader, spoilers abound ahead! The third book in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy is by far the weirdest. Whereas Annihilation was a love story in a creepy sci-fi expedition setting, and Authority was a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/05/13/acceptance-southern-reach-3-by-jeff-vandermeer/
May 08 2019
Snakeskins by Tim Major
One of my favorite things about this book is Caitlin Hext, one of our main characters, whose emotional journey as an insufferable adolescent thrust into dealing with the seemingly impossible causes her to perpetrate reckless acts in order to do good and, eventually, to realize how she used to be and how she’s growing as …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/05/08/snakeskins-by-tim-major/
Apr 28 2019
A Conspiracy of Stars (Faloiv #1) by Olivia A. Cole
I’m a confirmed omnivore, but this book made me seriously sympathize with vegetarianism. But also, and especially when paired together with Hanna Alkaf’s The Weight Of Our Sky, it has a really good point about decolonization and basic tolerance and respect (tho, that said, I’m a firm believer in socio-economic progress requiring real socio-political representation.) …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/04/28/a-conspiracy-of-stars-faloiv-1-by-olivia-a-cole/
Apr 18 2019
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad is a hell of a book. Like Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters, Whitehead’s book was published in 2016 and takes a slightly science fictional look at slavery in the United States of America. Winters’ narrative brought slavery into the 21st century and imagined what the peculiar institution would be like in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/04/18/the-underground-railroad-by-colson-whitehead/
Apr 07 2019
Head On by John Scalzi
Head On follows Lock In as a near-future, science fictional mystery in a world in which a pandemic (“Haden’s disease”) has killed many millions of people and left millions more alive and conscious, but with no control of their voluntary nervous system, locked into themselves. A crash research program has delivered enough advances in the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/04/07/head-on-by-john-scalzi/
Mar 28 2019
Firefly: The Magnificent Nine by James Lovegrove
What a sheer delight of a book. Better even than its predecessor, Big Damn Hero, it hits all the fan favorite beats while managing to avoid more adroitly the issues I had with the first book. Captain Mal Reynolds’ annoying mouthiness gets put on the backburner, as does the glorification of the losing rebel army …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/03/28/firefly-the-magnificent-nine-by-james-lovegrove/
Mar 22 2019
Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rocannon’s World was Ursula K. Le Guin’s first published novel. It contains some of the forms of a fantasy story but takes place in a science fictional setting, part of the Hainish universe that she developed in several of her later novels, including The Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World is Forest, and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/03/22/rocannons-world-by-ursula-k-le-guin/
Mar 17 2019
Ruin’s Wake by Patrick Edwards
Gosh, idk why that took forever to read. I think my brain finally needed a break from the speed with which I’ve been reading lately, and took it out on this novel, which is a quite good dystopian sci-fi jam-packed with ideas that extrapolate quite beautifully from our present-day tech and, to a certain extent, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/03/17/ruins-wake-by-patrick-edwards/