Oct 09 2019

Always North by Vicki Jarrett

I went into this thinking it would be a bit like Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, partly due to the cover, but also due to the prospect of a young woman going on a dangerous expedition into the unknown, and the resulting ecological devastation she witnesses firsthand. But that’s about where the similarities end. Izzy is a restless young woman with a middling sense of morality who rationalizes illegally surveying the protected Arctic wilderness for her corporate bosses with the thought that someone else would do it if she didn’t. She embarks on the Polar Horizon with a crew that includes wary Captain Bjornsen, sexy second officer Jules, her partner in tech and occasionally bed Grant, and the irritating pencil pusher Max, sent by corporate to breathe down everyone’s necks about profitability.

As they head further and further north through the Arctic wastes, their path seems to mirror that of a polar bear that appears to be much older than it should be. The polar bear can’t possibly be tracking them… could it? As the intensity of near-endless daylight begins to take its toll on Izzy, the Proteus programming she and Grant have set up for the expedition begins to malfunction, setting off a chain reaction of events that will send a bloodstained Polar Horizon racing for the safety of southern waters.

Years later, Izzy is barely ekeing out a living in a world devastated by global warming when Grant shows up, offering her a job. Out of desperation, Izzy accepts. And then things get weird.

Always North is a fascinatingly constructed novel that deals with environmental collapse in a way reminiscent of J. G. Ballard’s The Drowned World, but with an audacious literary technique that I’m hard pressed to find comparisons to (tho this may speak to my idiosyncratic reading habits that gravitate more towards story than art.) Vicki Jarrett does with her narrative what figure skaters do with ice, cutting graceful, nearly symmetrical loops in their media for an effortless beauty that belies the strength behind it. Much like I felt with the afore-mentioned Annihilation, this is a book that grows lovelier in the remembering, tho for very different reasons. The ending of Always North is both unsettling and beautiful, incomplete yet strangely perfect. I want to know more, but any more writing would ruin the plot’s delicate balance. I will say that this book hearkened back, for me, to New Wave science fiction of the 1960s & 70s, exploring climate change and the permeable nature of memory with a stylistic boldness you don’t often find in today’s market. Ms Jarrett is truly one to watch.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/09/always-north-by-vicki-jarrett/

Oct 08 2019

Firefly – The Big Damn Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel (Review Part III)

Welcome to Part 3 of our 4-part series! You can check out part 1 here and part 2 here.

So this week we’re going to take a look at Wash’s Wife Soup, a delightfully hearty vegetable soup that Zoe makes for him as a special treat. The picture in the cookbook had me absolutely salivating, as does most of Chelsea Monroe-Cassel’s food photography: to add to her talents as a cookbook author, she’s also a terrific food photographer. I’ve stated before that this is an absolutely gorgeous volume, in large part due to her photos, which are both creative and evocative. This is the kind of volume you could just flip through for the prettiness, though the substantiveness of content makes it more likely you’ll actually want to cook from it rather that just admire it (not that both activities don’t have their own utility.)

Unfortunately, this leads to the only thing I didn’t care for with this book, something that no one in the publishing business can help in this present age. Since Firefly and Serenity were filmed long before our present era of photography standards, the contrast between the film/series stills and Ms Monroe-Cassel’s food and atmosphere photography is marked. While you could almost reach in and touch some of the food (the roast duck, in particular, glistens with deliciousness,) a lot of the show photos look like you’re viewing them from a turn-of-the-century TV. Gosh, I remember re-watching Serenity several months back and being struck by the lack of HD — ironic because it was one of the first movies, if not THE first, to embrace digital standards. But that’s a very tiny criticism of aesthetics far beyond the control of the people who came up with this otherwise delightful and wholly rewarding cookbook.

Now let’s look at one of the Recipes For Shipboard Living (lightly edited for format):

~~~~~~
Wash’s Wife Soup

1 leek, sliced in half lengthwise
1 potato, cubed
3 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 cups vegetable broth
2 Tbsp white miso
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 cup peas
3 Tbsp heavy cream
Zaatar, to garnish

Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Toss all the vegetables (except the peas) and garlic cloves with olive oil and spread out on the baking sheet. Roast for around 20 minutes, until all the vegetables are soft but not too browned.

Add the broth, miso, and rice vinegar to a medium saucepan over medium heat and stir until the miso is dissolved. Add in the roasted vegetables and cook for another minute or so. Add the peas, cook for a further minute, then puree everything in an upright blender or with an immersion blender. Immediately pour into serving bowls, garnish with cream and zaatar, and serve.

It’s great with some crusty garlic bread.
~~~~~~

I used frozen peas with this recipe tho I image you could use canned at a pinch, since the general mushiness of the latter won’t work against them here. I also used all of the leek, feeling it rather silly to toss the perfectly edible tops. The biggest surprise for me with this dish is that I didn’t need to add salt or pepper to it: it’s perfectly seasoned as is. The zaatar is definitely a nice touch, tho, and if you need a little more kick, adding more of that to your soup will definitely satisfy. Vegans can skip the heavy cream part, but even a confirmed omnivore like myself finds this vegetarian soup to be extremely craveable. Gosh, even my kids liked it and they never like anything I cook (insert crying emoji here.)

Next week, we close up the series with a recipe and food philosophy near and dear to my heart. Do join me!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/08/firefly-the-big-damn-cookbook-by-chelsea-monroe-cassel-review-part-iii/

Oct 05 2019

The Young Queens (Three Dark Crowns 0.2) by Kendare Blake

It’s a happy coincidence that whenever I get a break from covering new fiction, there’s an installment of the Three Dark Crowns series waiting for me from the public library. It’s like it’s meant to be or something!

Anyway, this novella looks back at formative chapters of the early lives of our three queens of Fennbirn — Mirabella, Arsinoe and Katharine — and the awful, no-good choice their mother made shortly after they were born. I mean, I get why she did it, and the system is as much to blame as she was but yikes. And it sure as hell didn’t do what she intended, to break the stranglehold of the Arron family of poisoners on the politics of the island. Tho, granted, there’s still another book in the series — that I’m anxiously panting for — so who knows, perhaps her choice wasn’t so misguided after all. I just… God, I feel so bad for Katharine. At this point in the series, 3 full-length novels in, she’s clearly a villain but she is so much the product of both her upbringing and the terrible, terrible things that were done to her since the fight to rule officially began, that all I want is for her to be able to find a safe place to live a quiet, happy life, redemption optional tho preferred. Anyway, this book answers the main question of why two of the queens were “giftless” growing up, and goes into more detail on their childhood bonds and what it took to break them (among many other things!) Lots here for series fans: newcomers should probably start at the beginning with Three Dark Crowns tho.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/05/the-young-queens-three-dark-crowns-0-2-by-kendare-blake/

Oct 03 2019

Structuring the State by Daniel Ziblatt

At the start of the nineteenth century’s second half, Germany and Italy were both patchworks of states; by century’s end, both were united kingdoms taking their place among Europe’s great powers. Similar ideas drove the leaders of unification in both regions, yet the states that emerged from the wars and negotiations were quite different. Though both were monarchies, Germany had a strongly federal structure, with an upper house representing its constituent states, significant financial responsibility at the state level, and even included semi-autonomous army units from the kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony and Württemburg that had been incorporated into the German Empire. Italy, by contrast, was a unitary state along French lines. The Italian regions, the Papal States, polities that had been jealous of their independence for centuries were subsumed into Piedmont’s rule, with practically no trace of their structures left in the new Kingdom of Italy. Why did two similar processes end so differently?

Structuring the State

Daniel Ziblatt’s brief book (152 pages of primary text) looks at the historical and political science literature on the subject, at least as it stood when his book was published in 2006, and finds that the prevalent explanations do not adequately answer the question. He finds that Prussian and Piedmontese leaders held similar ideas about the desirability of federal solutions to the challenges of governing Germany and Italy. Bismarck and Cavour were both well aware of the significant differences among the regions of the nations they sought to unify; they knew the loyalties commanded by local identities. Both wrote that a centralized state modelled on post-Napoleonic France would not be ideal. Thus ideology could not be the main reason that the outcomes differed so strongly.

Some of the literature on state formation assigned a crucial role to military strength. The greater the military strength of the unifying group, the more it will be able to impose its will on the constituent parts, and the more likely it is to dominate the resulting state. This argument clearly does not apply to the cases of Germany and Italy. The disparity between Prussia and the other German states was much greater than the difference between Piedmont and, for example, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Yet it was the smaller military that won the unconditional surrender of its regional competitors.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/03/structuring-the-state-by-daniel-ziblatt/

Oct 02 2019

Firefly – The Big Damn Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel (Review Part II)

So last week, I showed you how I prepared the Five-Spice Mix from the section on basics. This week, we’re going to sip on something delightful while I wax poetic, as promised, on the way this Big Damn Cookbook is organized.

First off, I have to admire Chelsea Monroe-Cassel’s ability to blend creativity with organization to present a seamless cookbook experience. There are five main food sections: the Basics; Shipboard Living; Recipes From The Border And Beyond; Recipes From The Core Worlds, Upper Crust, and Recipes From The Core Worlds, Underbelly. These distinctions provide a distinct narrative flow, beginning with the background before introducing the crew and gradually giving you an idea, as with the series, not only of the setting but the overarching plot as it goes from space western to planet-spanning sci-fi conspiracy. Not a lot of cookbooks are actually fun to read, but this one definitely is, even if you’re unfamiliar with (or perplexingly, not a fan of) the Firefly ‘verse. To add further utility to the volume, Ms Monroe-Cassel then adds indices for courses as well as for nutrient information and culinary conversions. I’ve stated previously that I’m a fan of her very clear directions: added altogether, this makes for a cookbook that I’ll actually reach for again and again because it collects information I both want to and can use with ease.

Also, as a Firefly fan, I loved so much how Ms Monroe-Cassel presents this as a tome started by Kaylee for keeping in the Serenity’s galley, with in-character notes from each contributor (and the occasional interested party.) I could hear each crew member’s voice in my head as I flipped through the book, with each of the recipes definitely according to what we know of their contributor. It really feels as if the characters compiled this book together, which makes for such a satisfying read.

So let’s toast the very talented Ms Monroe-Cassel with glasses of Shimmerwine, using a recipe from the Upper Crust of the Core Worlds contributed by Inara (and lightly edited here for format):

~~~~~

Shimmerwine
4 servings

1/4 cup orange liqueur or water
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Dash of edible gold luster dust
Chilled champagne or other bubbly wine

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the liqueur, sugar, and ground ginger. Stir occasionally until the sugar has dissolved, then remove from heat. Stir in the luster dust, just enough to give the syrup a good shimmer, then let the syrup cool.

When you are ready to serve, pour about 1 Tbsp of the syrup into the bottom of your glass. Top up with champagne and adjust the level of shimmer, if needed. Serve immediately, as the shimmer will settle over time.

~~~~~

My lovely assistant Karin and I tried this on an empty stomach while we were prepping other foods and got absolutely slizzard. It is a shockingly potent, extremely delicious drink that had us giggling through an evening’s worth of cooking — insert parallels to Inara here. It’s also a fun and easy twist on the usual champagne cocktails: definitely a drink to make when you’re looking to impress. Pictures don’t quite do it justice, but the one on the left comes closest, I think, to depicting in it all its gleaming glory.

If you haven’t already, check out Part I of this series with the terrific Five-Spice Mix basics recipe. Next week, we’ll talk about the graphics of this gorgeous cookbook and try out a delicious (and healthy!) soup from shipboard life. Do join me!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/02/firefly-the-big-damn-cookbook-by-chelsea-monroe-cassel-review-part-ii/

Oct 01 2019

Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery edited by Christopher Golden & Rachel Autumn Deering

Oooh, 18 brand new tales of witchcraft from some of the finest female fantasy and horror authors working today? Sign me up!

Now some of these stories are set in certain of said authors’ established universes, which is super great for fans but can seem daunting for newer readers. For the most part, these stories work well as stand-alones. I was actually really pleased with how easily accessible Home, Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampires story, was for me given that I’ve never read any of her books. Kelley Armstrong’s Black Magic Momma was also a strong addition to her Otherworld universe but honestly, I don’t think she’s ever written a bad thing in that series. I was also a big fan of Theodora Goss’ How To Become A Witch-Queen even as I hesitate to group it with her Victorian-era novels of lady explorers: it’s set in a much earlier Europe but still features accurate period detail with a strong dose of Ms Goss’ trademark female agency in the retelling of familiar tales.

That said, the best stories in this volume were, for me, the ones that fell decidedly on the horror side of the scale rather than the fantasy. Sarah Langan’s Night Nurse is a nightmare of modern motherhood, while Amber Benson’s This Skin gives us a glimpse into the mind of a budding psychopath (I was also glad to remedy my prior lack of Amber Benson reading, and need to look out for more of her stuff in future.) On a lighter, if no less gruesome, note, Hillary Monahan’s Bless Your Heart is a wickedly witchy story of small town Southern motherhood. Parenthood is a prominent theme in this collection, perhaps unsurprisingly given the historical association of witches with midwives and other independent women.

There were certain stories I think I would have enjoyed more were I smart enough to understand the endings, and some where the link to witchcraft seemed rather tenuous, but overall this was an excellent contemporary, popular showcase of women writing specifically on this supernatural theme. And, in keeping with Titan Book’s other productions, it’s a simply gorgeous volume, from the intricate dust jacket to the interior illustrations. Definitely a perfect read for the Halloween season, especially for women with a bent for the fantastic and bizarre.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/01/hex-life-wicked-new-tales-of-witchery-edited-by-christopher-golden-rachel-autumn-deering/

Sep 30 2019

An Interview with Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, editors of Wonderland: An Anthology

Q: Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did Wonderland evolve?

Marie: Our editor at Titan, Cat Camacho, had quite a large part to play with this one. We were pitching various projects, one of which was an anthology of dark fairy tales – Cursed, due out in March next year – and Cat said they’d like to see an anthology of stories based around the world of Alice. Not surprisingly, we leapt at the chance to edit that one – it’s been a lot of fun. Once we had the go-ahead, we started contacting authors we thought would love the idea as much as we did, and we went from there – we’ve been very lucky to have some wonderful authors on board, and they’ve all written stories we love.

Q. Did you curate this anthology with any particular audience in mind? Are there any particular audiences you hope will connect with this book?

Paul: I think first and foremost we had Alice fans in mind when we set out to put this book together, but also wanted the anthology to be accessible to people who weren’t that familiar with the tales. Both of us are into the darker side of fiction as well, so that probably played a part when approaching authors and talking to them about our intentions. But really we wanted to keep it as open as possible and hope that in the range of tales we got back there would be something for absolutely every reader. Judging from the response to the book we’ve had so far, we seem to have achieved that for the most part. One reviewer even commented recently ‘There’s something for everyone’, so job done, I hope.

Marie: As Paul says, the first and most obvious audience is readers who loved Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass – but more than that, we wanted an anthology of stories that would hopefully draw new readers into that world; if they like Wonderland, we hope they’ll seek out the originals – and some of the other Alice-inspired fiction that’s out there. We’re both known for loving – and writing and editing – darker fiction, so I think that’s possibly informed our sensibilities on this project as well as filtering through to the authors. We have what we wanted, though, a very broad range of stories so that anyone picking the book up should, we hope, find something in there to love.

Q. Wonderland covers such a broad spectrum of speculative fiction, with excellent works from really talented authors. Were there any authors you were sad not to have been able to include in this collection?

Paul: There are always going to be writers you wish you had space to include, or that they had time to contribute something to the line-up. Two that spring to mind are Neil Gaiman and Christina Henry, who for different reasons couldn’t be involved – but we did manage to get them into our next one for Titan which comes out in March next year, Cursed. But, as you say, the list of hugely talented authors in Wonderland is so terrific that we have no complaints whatsoever. They’ve made it the book it is, which we think is very special indeed and hope that readers agree.

Marie: That’s always the case – no matter how big an anthology is, there’s always someone you’d love to have included but either there’s no more room, or they haven’t got time, or don’t feel they’re right for a particular project… as Paul’s mentioned already, we did ask Neil Gaiman and Christina Henry to take part but they couldn’t this time around – they will be in Cursed, though, and we couldn’t be happier.

Q. I know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but if you could only pick one work to recommend from
Wonderland, which would it be?

Paul: They’re all so fantastic that it would be hard to single any out. What’s so lovely is that the range of different topics, the styles and tones, are so different that no two stories are alike – which also means you can’t really compare them to each other either. All I’ll say is that they’re of such a high quality that it

makes me proud to have been able to read, work on, and include them in this anthology. Marie: I can’t do that, sorry – we’re very happy with all the stories we received, and they’re all very different from each other, I wouldn’t like to single one out over the others.

Q. Apart from Wonderland itself, what has been your favorite work in the setting, whether it be in print or other media?

Paul: You mean in the Wonderland universe, and apart from the original tales – which had quite a big impact on both of us growing up? The Disney adaptation is the one that comes to mind straight away, which I saw before reading the original books. Even at a really young age, that appealed to my love of the surreal and the bizarre. But I’ve also mentioned this one before in interviews, there was a great adaptation from 1999 starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Kingsley, Robbie Coltrane and Gene Wilder to name but a few, with Tina Majorino as Alice. That one stands out for me amongst the live action versions.

Marie: I think my favourite was set by the first thing that introduced me to Alice, and that was the Disney movie – I read and loved the books after that, but the Disney remains my first love when it comes to Alice.

Q. What were the first books you read that made you think, “I have got to create something like this someday!”

Paul Kane

Paul Kane

Paul: In general? My grandad used to read me a story by Enid Blyton when I was little called ‘The House in the Fog’, where this boy gets lost in a strange mist and finds a weird house. He takes shelter inside and lots of fantastical things happen to him, but when he returns after the fog has gone the house isn’t there. I used to get him to read that to me time and time again; that really sparked my imagination. When I was old enough to read, I devoured anything that was SF, Fantasy, Horror or Crime, but the books that really made me want to be a writer were Clive Barker’s Books of Blood – and of course his subsequent novels after that. Anyone who knows me, knows about my lifelong love of his work. It just blew me away, from the ideas to the style of
writing. I’m lucky enough to have worked in Clive’s universes myself and count him as a friend all these years later.

Marie: I grew up on Enid Blyton, then when I was around seven I started on Agatha Christie and loved those – then when I was nine I found an anthology called Thin Air in the school library, and took it out every week for two years until they gave it to me; so I guess it was that. It was a huge anthology of classic horror stories, like W.W. Jacobs’ ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, Charlotte Gilmore Perkins’ ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, M.R. James’ ‘The Ash Tree’… loads of them. Then a little later I discovered Stephen King and was lost forever.

Q. You’re both accomplished authors. What made you decide to go the compendium-editing route, and how was that transition for you?

Paul: I’ve been editing almost as long as I’ve been writing professionally, going back to the ’90s. I was editing back then for the small presses, and when I got to know Marie she asked if I’d like to come on board at the British Fantasy Society as Special Publications Editor, putting out books featuring the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Rob Holdstock, Kim Newman and Muriel Gray. That was a fantastic training ground for me, and a few years later we began editing anthologies together mass market beginning with Hellbound Hearts for Simon & Schuster – stories based around the Hellraiser mythos – and continuing on with books like A Carnivale of Horror (PS), The Mammoth Book of Body Horror (Constable & Robinson/Running Press) and the current books for Titan like Exit Wounds and Wonderland. So really it wasn’t a case of transition, because I’ve been doing it for so long anyway. I used to teach creative writing as well, so I think that helps – it’s a similar process to marking fiction, editing it. But of course you’re always editing your own work too, or should be. It’s all connected. I love that feeling of being the first person to read something new from a favourite writer. It really gives me a buzz.

Marie: I first got brought into the British Fantasy Society by Gary Couzens, who asked me if I’d like to edit their newsletter, Prism. From there I moved on to editing their fiction magazine, Dark Horizons, and eventually co-edited an anthology for the BFS with Paul – BFS: A Celebration. I’ve always loved reading short fiction, and editing magazines eased me into the idea of editing anthologies – I’ve done quite a few with Paul now, plus two of my own – The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women and Phantoms – and I’ve also recently co-edited one for charity with New Zealand author and editor Lee Murray – Trickster’s Treats #7, for Things in the Well. I love that feeling when you get an idea for a project, and start thinking how to put it together, who’d be great to write a story for it… and it’s a wonderful feeling to see the finished project.

Q. Do you find yourselves gravitating towards certain editing tasks such that each of you ends up having a particular role in bringing a book to fruition, or do you both cover a little bit of everything?

Paul: We both cover a bit of everything. When a story comes in, we’ll format it and then both of us will go through it. Then when everything is in we’ll talk about where to place the stories in the book, before compiling everything and going through it as a whole, and even talking about covers. We’re really lucky in that we work well together, we’re quite in tune. As a married couple you’d certainly hope so!

Marie: We both cover everything; we both go over the stories at every stage of the project, and both decide things like story order, covers, everything really. We work very well together on the editing side of things – we do with most things, really.

Q. What made you choose horror and dark fantasy as your primary means of expression?

Paul: For me personally, I’ve always been drawn to the darker side of fiction – whether it’s reading or writing it. Not sure why that is, maybe it reflects the kind of world we live in – or is a means to have some kind of ‘control’ over the bad things that happen in it, to escape a – sometimes – much darker reality for a while. Speculative fiction has always been very good at commenting on what’s happening around us, so I like that about it. But also the best drama comes from conflict and struggle, and nowhere do you see this more than in horror and dark fantasy. It’s fiction you can really get your teeth into, reading or writing-wise.

Marie: As I said earlier, it hooked me from a very early age – to quote the master, Stephen King, it’s what sticks in the drain. By which I mean – it’s what speaks to me, what holds my interest and sparks my imagination in a way no other fiction form has ever done. I love reading across many genres, my favourites are horror and crime, and those are the two I write in predominantly – at least so far.

Q. What can you tell us about your next project?

Paul: Together, that would be editing Cursed for Titan, but I’m not sure how much we’re allowed to say at this point. It obviously focuses on curses, with different spins on the fairytale and other mythologies, both modern and traditional. Writing-wise for me, I’ve just signed a three-book deal with HQ Digital/HarperCollins to deliver a set of psychological/domestic noir thrillers as PL Kane. The first of those will be out in January 2020, Her Last Secret, and is available to pre-order here po.st/herlastsecret

Marie: Cursed is the next anthology, as Paul’s said, writing-wise I have a collection of psychological horror short stories due out next spring from Black Shuck Books, and there are a few projects that are at varying stages of completion, so hopefully more on those next year.

Q. What are you reading at the moment?

Paul: I’m reading Nothing to Hide by James Oswald, the second in his Constance Fairchild series which came out the other month. I’m a huge fan of James’ work, especially his Inspector McLean books; they blend horror and crime perfectly, and that ticks a lot of my boxes.

Marie: I’m reading The Reddening, Adam L.G. Nevill’s latest supernatural novel, due out next month – I’m a big fan of Adam’s writing, and am thoroughly enjoying this one.

Q. Are there any new books or authors in speculative fiction that have you excited?

Marie O'Regan

Marie O’Regan

Paul: Again, it’s difficult to single some people out over others – there’s a lot to get excited about in the genre at the moment. But for me, personally, I’m looking forward to Ghoster by Jason Arnopp, because I thought his previous novel The Last Days of Jack Sparks was amazing. Very much looking forward to the next novel by Paul Tremblay as well, as The Cabin at the End of the World was one of the best things I’ve ever read – I’m still chewing over some of the stuff in there, which is always a good thing. I think Laura Mauro – who, coincidentally, is in Wonderland – is an author to keep an eye on. She has a new collection out at the moment Sing Your Sadness Deep from Undertow Publications, and I hear she’s going to turn her hand to a novel in the near future so I’m very much looking forward to reading that.

Marie: There are quite a few names to get excited about in speculative fiction at the moment – like Paul, I’m looking forward to Jason Arnopp’s Ghoster and anything by Paul Tremblay. I’m a big fan of Josh Malerman, too, so very much looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next – his work is so varied, and always a pleasure to read. Sarah Lotz is another author whose work I love, then there’s Michelle Paver, Catriona Ward, Laura Purcell… so many wonderful writers.

Q. Tell us why you love Wonderland!

Paul: As a place? Well, it’s just barking mad isn’t it. I absolutely love that! I’ve always been attracted to the surreal and weird – my favourite painters are Magritte and Dali, my favourite comedy show is Python… so you get the drift. Wonderland is the epitome of that in a fantasy setting, with horror elements. It really doesn’t get any better than that as far as I’m concerned.

Marie: Because there are no limits to what you might find there – it’s a place without obvious rules, where the limits of your imagination are the only boundaries you’ll find… it’s a place where, quite simply, anything could happen – and probably will.

~~~

Author Links:

Marie O’Regan

Paul Kane

~~~

Wonderland was published September 17th 2019 and is available via all good book sellers. My review of the book itself may be found here.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/30/an-interview-with-marie-oregan-and-paul-kane-editors-of-wonderland-an-anthology/

Sep 28 2019

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

Entirely too much time has passed since I read Francis Spufford’s wonderful first novel (after five mostly non-fictional books, of which it has so far only been my pleasure to read Red Plenty) Golden Hill for me to be able to do it anything approaching justice. Nevertheless, a few words.

Golden Hill

The story is set in late 1746 in New-York, as it was styled then; a place, as Spufford notes in an afterword, that “had a population of about 7,000, while London, then the largest city in Europe, had one of 700,000: genuinely a hundred-fold difference.” (p. 343) To this place that is small by British standards but looms large in the American colonies comes Mr Smith, a man in such a hurry that he will not allow a late afternoon arrival in a November drizzle to persuade him to spend an extra night on board the ship on which he had crossed the Atlantic. Spurning the captain’s invitation to remain, he desired to be rowed ashore and, once there, dashed off as fast as his newly landed legs could carry him to “the counting-house of the firm of Lovell & Company on Golden Hill Street” just before closing time, whereupon, just as “the clock on the wall showed one minute to five, [he] demanded, very civilly, speech that moment with Mr Lovell himself.” (p. 2)

That speech with Mr Lovell sets everything in motion:

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/28/golden-hill-by-francis-spufford/

Sep 27 2019

Slay by Brittney Morris

Before this devolves into a rant on stupid Adobe products, let me first admit that I couldn’t read the entire book, as the first page of each chapter was entirely invisible to me. That said, I did very much enjoy what I did read, and Slay was exactly as good as expected where expected.

Very cool story about a fictional indie MMO? Check. Smart black girl protagonist with a messy love life? Check. Moral dilemmas involving but not limited to racism and the realistic ways these are resolved? Check. Slay is both the name of this novel and of the underground video game created by our heroine, Keira Johnson a.k.a. Emerald, and the development partner she’s never met, ign Cicada. Keira is a 17 year-old honors student who attends Jefferson Academy as one of the few black students there, along with her younger, popular (and arguably more sensible) sister, Steph. Her boyfriend is Malcolm, who Steph calls a hotep because that’s exactly what he is, Keira, Jesus. Keira’s best friend is Harper, a white girl with an annoying younger brother, Wyatt, Steph’s age.

A little over three years earlier, Keira got the idea for a cool card game/MMO that trades on the idea of Black Excellence. She taught herself how to program and went into partnership with someone she met on a message board, Cicada, to host, run and develop the game. Since then, Slay has become an underground phenomenon, a safe online place for black players the world over to game in peace without having to worry about the discrimination and hate speech rampant in so many other MMOs. But then a teenager is shot and killed in a dispute over Slay, bringing the game to mainstream attention. Accused of being racist (meh) and exclusionary (yeah but so?), Slay sparks off a firestorm that only worsens Keira’s guilt over the death to begin with.

As if that weren’t enough to stress over, Keira is waiting for an acceptance letter from Spelman College. Malcolm has already been accepted to Morehouse, and is waxing poetic about the life they’ll lead together in Atlanta. Keira finds herself conflicted and unsure as to why (insert Steph’s voice yelling “YOU KNOW WHY”) but the controversy over Slay pushes all thought of her love life to the back burner, especially when a troll shows up in the game and threatens to tear down everything she’s worked so hard to build.

The Black Panther parallels are obvious: Brittney Morris has stated that that was a direct inspiration and it shows, lovingly without being derivative. Ms Morris has also stated that she didn’t know a thing about coding when she started writing Slay. To this former IT person, that very much shows as well. The idea of only two people running a game as complex and popular and allegedly beautiful and detailed as Slay is probably the most fantastic part of this otherwise quite grounded story. I was also a little eh at the idea that the VR gear necessary to play didn’t automatically make this game the purview of the relatively well-off, which leads to another issue I had: how very American it all is. Ms Morris tries her best to include elements of African heritage from all over the world, and while some parts succeed, others feel more worthy of a “well, you tried.” One of the coolest things about the Black Panther movie is that America is neither the default nor the gold standard: I understand how hard that would be to translate to an American-based YA novel tho. That said, the most affecting parts of the book were when we got to look at the home life of Q.Diamond, and when Keira fiiiiinally saw through Malcolm’s bullshit. This is an excellent book that addresses a lot of real issues, and I’m super glad I got to read it.

What I’m not super glad about was the publisher’s decision to distribute advance copies using Adobe Digital Editions. I get it, Amazon is evil, but at least their mobis are easily readable and portable across platforms. ADE’s acsm standards are hot garbage. First off, ADE is incredibly user-hostile, to the point that I had to download a separate eReader on my phone in order to open the acsm link at all. Then I discovered that the first page of every chapter is missing, due to ADE being unable to handle drop cap illustrations. Unbe-fucking-lievably, I was told to open the acsm on my PC to be read with Acrobat, to which I should not need two different programs on two different devices in order to access the same fucking text, Adobe! Please, publishers, for the love of God, stop handing these people money until they come up with a product that actually enhances the reading experience. Mobis expire too, if you’re that concerned about timing out reading permissions. Adobe sucks. Please stop torturing your readers by forcing us to use their terrible products.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/27/slay-by-brittney-morris/

Sep 26 2019

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, pt. 1

“Give it what it’s worth, Doug,” said my Cockney editor one afternoon before deadline when I asked how long a newspaper article should be. Richard Rhodes takes one of the most important stories in human history — the story of the discovery of atomic structure and how that structure could be opened up, releasing vast amounts of energy — and gives it what it’s worth. The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a great work, a magnum opus, 750 pages from Rutherford’s discovery of the atomic nucleus to the horrors of the military use of atomic energy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though he writes about the discovery of the fundamental forces of the universe, Rhodes never forgets or overlooks that people are doing the discovering. He captures their personalities — their backgrounds, their strengths, their sorrows, their philosophies, their styles, their foibles, and their rivalries — and sets them down on the page so that throughout the great work a reader has a clear sense of the humanity of science.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Rhodes opens the book with a chapter on Leo Szilard — “Hungarian theoretical physicist, born of Jewish heritage in Budapest” (p. 13) — one morning in London in September 1933. Within seven pages of introducing Szilard, Rhodes has sketched the milieu he grew up in, with a father who was a civil engineer and prosperous enough for the family to hire governesses who helped the children learn French and German. Upon graduating from school, Szilard won the Eötvös Prize, the Hungarian national prize in mathematics. Rhodes sets the stage for introducing later the amazing generation of Hungarian mathematicians and physicists who were Szilard’s contemporaries by noting that despite the prize, Szilard “felt that his skill in mathematical operations could not compete with that of his colleagues.” (p. 15) A brush with Spanish influenza got him sent home from his unit in the Austro-Hungarian army; he heard later that his regiment had come under severe attack in the waning days of World War I and practically wiped out. Szilard first chose engineering for his course of studies, but after moving to Berlin in the early 1920s and dabbling in chemistry, he found physics more suitable. “As soon as it became clear to Szilard that physics was his real interest, he introduced himself, with characteristic directness, to Albert Einstein.” (p. 16) Working under Max von Laue, Szilard received an obscure problem in relativity as his main task. Making no headway, he gave himself free rein to think over Christmas break. About what?

What he thought, in those three weeks, was how to solve a baffling inconsistency in thermodynamics … There are two thermodynamic theories, both highly successful at predicting heat phenomena. One, the phenomenological, is more abstract and generalized (and therefore more useful); the other, the statistical, is based on an atomic model and corresponds more closely to physical reality. In particular, the statistical theory depicts thermal equilibrium as a state of random motion of atoms. … But the more useful phenomenological theory treated thermal equilibrium as if it were static, a state of no change. That was the inconsistency.
Szilard went for long walks—Berlin would have been cold and gray, the grayness sometimes relieved by days of brilliant sunshine—’and I saw something in the middle of the walk; when I came home I wrote it down; next morning I woke up with a new idea and I went for another walk; this crystallized in my mind and in the evening I wrote it down. … Within three weeks I had produced a manuscript of something which was really quite original. But I didn’t dare to take it to von Laue, because it was not what he had asked me to do.’ (pp. 19–20)

What did Szilard do?

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/26/the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb-by-richard-rhodes-pt-1/