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, …
Category: Science Fiction
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/27/the-just-city-by-jo-walton/
Apr 16 2016
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
I remembered three things from when I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress long, long ago: the taxonomy of jokes (not funny, funny once, and funny always), that dropping rocks onto earth from the moon was an important part of the revolution, and the significant death at the end. I also remembered liking the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/16/the-moon-is-a-harsh-mistress-by-robert-a-heinlein/
Apr 15 2016
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Like the human aliens of the planet Gethen, The Left Hand of Darkness is first one thing and then another, encompassing all of them yet remaining bounded by its humanity. The inhabited worlds of Le Guin’s interrelated Hainish novels are tied together by membership in the Ekumen, eighty-odd planets in something like a trading federation, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/15/the-left-hand-of-darkness-by-ursula-k-le-guin/
Mar 24 2016
Salvage and Demolition by Tim Powers
Salvage and Demolition is the other Tim Powers novella that I read in an afternoon or so last autumn. It’s a fun mashup of genres: It starts as a noir mystery with a splash of Bukowski and a studied bookishness; it veers [spoilers] into time travel and Lovecraft, with just a little bit of Snow …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/03/24/salvage-and-demolition-by-tim-powers/
Feb 28 2016
Cauldron by Jack McDevitt
Cauldron is the sixth novel in Jack McDevitt’s series of novels featuring Priscilla Hutchins as a protagonist, and is not a good place to begin reading the series. In fact, it’s chronologically the last novel (to date) in the series, as the seventh book goes back to the very beginning of Hutchins’ career to show …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/02/28/cauldron-by-jack-mcdevitt/
Feb 11 2016
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
I thought that Lagoon would be the first book I read by Nnedi Okorafor. Or maybe The Book of Phoenix, which a friend had strongly recommended. Turns out the first was Binti, one of a new line of novellas published electronically and on paper by Tor.com. I have it on paper, courtesy of a surprisingly …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/02/11/binti-by-nnedi-okorafor/
Jan 16 2016
Template by Matthew Hughes
All the best sci-fi novels are, at their cores, novels of ideas. Template is no different, exploring philosophies of the defining traits of societies and what it means to belong. Here’s the thing with this book, tho: while written in the third person, it takes the narrative view of the hero of the piece, Conn …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/16/template-by-matthew-hughes/
Dec 27 2015
A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge
There are so many, many great and splendid things about this book. First, as with all good hard sf, it is a novel of ideas, not merely translating our human experiences into distant settings, but also imagining alternate forms of personhood, whether in the structure of alien races — beyond the tired insectoid/robotic hive minds …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/27/a-fire-upon-the-deep-by-vernor-vinge/
Oct 29 2015
Remake by Connie Willis
Most of the rest of Connie Willis’ writing would lead a reader to expect that Remake, her tale of Hollywood endlessly recycling classic movies and classic actors through digital magic, would be a screwball comedy that packed an emotional wallop. But no, this is as close to dystopia as Willis gets. As the back cover …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/29/remake-by-connie-willis/
Oct 17 2015
Sky Key (Endgame #2) by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton
In the interval between Endgame: The Calling and Sky Key, I got heavily involved in the Endgame: Ancient Societies augmented reality game, a primarily on-line game that involved solving puzzles and being creative after declaring yourself for one of the 12 lines. I chose to be a Nabatean, and set up our online community, and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/17/sky-key-endgame-2-by-james-frey-and-nils-johnson-shelton/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire