Aug 05 2024

A Bite Above The Rest by Christine Virnig

Oh gosh, I really do hope this is the start of a series! It’s so cute, and the ending is the perfect setup for sequels galore!

Eleven year-old Caleb isn’t super thrilled to have to leave California and all his memories of his late dad. But his mom enjoyed growing up in small town Wisconsin and wants a similar (and also more affordable) upbringing for her kid, so here they are in the quirky town of Samhain. Immersively, if not outright aggressively, themed as a Halloween-town, everyone dresses up every day in a place which is always decorated for spooky season. Even the kids wear full-out costumes to school, which Caleb finds pretty strange in an already super disorienting, pumpkin-spice-filled environment.

Luckily for him, his classmate Tai has volunteered to show him around and help him get settled. Caleb immediately assumes that plucky, vivacious Tai already has lots of friends, before realizing that mixed race Tai doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the Samhain denizens either. The two fall into an easy friendship, and decide to collaborate on a Social Studies project together with the aim of figuring out local government. Tai has a bit of an ulterior motive: her family is still mystified by a decision made by town council years earlier, and she wants to get to the bottom of it.

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Aug 04 2024

The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indra Das

Like many children who grow up in peculiar families, Ru does not realize just how peculiar his home life is. As he gets bigger, he starts asking questions. Who am I? Who are we? Where do we come from? The second two are particularly important in in Bowbazar, the Calcutta (the spelling that Das uses throughout the book) neighborhood where Ru’s small family lives in a large house with a Chinese restaurant in the front part. When he is in his first years in school, his mother answers the third with “You wouldn’t believe it if we told you.” (p. 13) Later on, she gives a bit more. “We come from nomadic people. We move around. There are many of us around the world, but we’re solitary, and don’t like to draw attention.” (p. 16)

The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indra Das

Readers will know more from this novella’s title, and from the memory of Ru’s that Das uses as its opening anecdote. He remembers being small, and in the garden with his grandmother, who was tending a bush low to the ground.

It wasn’t a seed pod at all. With practiced care she nudged open the curled, broad leaves, unwrapping it to reveal what was inside.
The broad petals of the pod were the brown wings of a creature that fit gently in the pink cradle of my grandmother’s palm like a bat. Its tail was the thin stem that connected it to the branches of the tree. And curled inside the embrace of its own wings was the contracted body of the beast, its six limbs clutched to its torso in insectile fragility, its sharp and thorny head like a flower’s pistil, the curled neck covered in a dew-dusted mane of white fur like the delicate filaments of a dandelion seed. The gems of its eyes were left to my imagination, because they were closed in whatever deep sleep it was in.
“It’s a dragon,” I said, to encase the moment in the amber of reality.
“Yes it is,” said my grandmother with a proud smile. Whether this was pride at me or the little dragon whose papery brown wings she was touching, or both, I can’t say. “Here, we call it the winged rose of Bengal.”
It was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my life. I remember the immensity of the happiness I felt, looking at this flower-like fetus of a dragon growing off a tree tended to by my grandmother, knowing that dragons were actually real and grew on trees, wondering if people knew.
I couldn’t really believe it, which is why the memory became a dream. I convinced myself it wasn’t a true memory, because dragons don’t exist. (pp. 10–11)

Later, he forgot the details. Still later, he remembered some of them and asked his family about dragons. They told him he had a dream. Even later, he became aware that he was missing many memories because drinking the Tea of Forgetting was a regular ritual for the only child in his home. But not everything stayed forgotten.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/04/the-last-dragoners-of-bowbazar-by-indra-das/

Aug 03 2024

Die Welt hinter Dukla by Andrzej Stasiuk

Without the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s set of 50 more great novels of the 20th century, it might have been a very long time before I heard of Andrzej Stasiuk, let alone read any of his books. Stasiuk was born in Warsaw in 1960, but he makes his home in a small town in Poland’s furthest southern reaches. He did not fit in well in communist-era Poland: he was dismissed from secondary school, dropped out of vocational school, and spent more than a year in jail for deserting the army. His literary career did not begin until after the old system collapsed. He has published nearly two dozen books, a number of which have been translated into English.

Die Welt hinter Dukla by Andrzej Stasiuk

Die Welt hinter Dukla — the German title translates as The World Behind Dukla although the book’s title in both its Polish original and its English translation is simply Dukla — is apparently typical of Stasiuk’s work in that it is long on impressions, short on plot, and somewhere in the middle on character, with most of the characterizations emerging from the impressions. Dukla itself is a real town in southeastern Poland, population about 2,000, about 20km north of the border with Slovakia, about 60km west of the border Ukraine. I don’t doubt that it’s physically very much as Stasiuk describes, though the narrator’s impressions, recollections and evaluations are obviously the matter of Stasiuk’s art.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/03/die-welt-hinter-dukla-by-andrzej-stasiuk/

Aug 02 2024

The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin

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 1989. To be sure, there is also a 2024 introduction by Ken Liu, but that did little to temper my sense that the essays are, by now, essentially period pieces, historical artifacts of an era nearly half a century past.

The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin

On the one hand, this edition of the book is itself an example of the kind of dialog — or at least serial monologues — that Le Guin wanted to foster and that she maintained were essential for the health of a literary field. There are her original essays from the 1970s, some written to work things out for herself, others written as introductions to her earlier novels as they were reprinted for wider audiences, still others derived from talks and presentations. The first edition of the book was edited by Susan Wood, a critic and professor of literature at the University of British Columbia. She provided a general introduction to the volume and more specific ones for each of the book’s five sections. The general introduction quotes (and provides a citation for) a wonderful piece of Le Guin lore. It’s a bit of an interview from 1975 that illustrates how science fiction was widely perceived at the time, and what Le Guin thought about that perception:

Jonathan Ward: Which would you rather have, a National Book Award or a Hugo?
Le Guin: Oh, a Nobel, of course
Ward: They don’t give Nobel Prize awards in fantasy.
Le Guin: Maybe I can do something for peace.
(pp. xxxvi–xxxvii)

Doris Lessing, who unquestionably wrote science fiction, won the Nobel Prize in 2007.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/02/the-language-of-the-night-by-ursula-k-le-guin/

Aug 01 2024

The Creepy Cute Sticker Book by Gaynor Carradice

I used to be a bit of a goth chick in my younger days (I know, WHAT a shocker.) That said, this was back when I was living in Malaysia, so finding the full accoutrements of goth was a challenge for someone with as little spending money as myself. Fortunately, my love of dark clothes and make-up transitioned easily into my Trinity from The Matrix phase, before I finally gave in and learned to fully embrace color.

But oh, wow, was that period of time brought back to me in a rush when The Creepy Cute Sticker Book landed on my desk! As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gravitated more towards jewel tones and pink in any shade, as if reclaiming my ability to wear any color (because ofc I am one of those annoying people who can wear any color well.) I’ve never really embraced a “cute” aesthetic — if anything, I spent years avoiding the word because I had one of those faces people called cute because I wasn’t quite pretty, never mind beautiful. As I’ve grown older tho, my face has worn in nicely, and I no longer feel compelled to distance myself from the kawaii. It also helps that I have three pre-teen kids and am 100% susceptible to anything cute right now, as they leave the adorableness of childhood behind and begin entering the awkward stages of adolescence. They’re still pretty sweet, but not as overwhelmingly as they used to be, so I am definitely craving a little more cuteness to fill that void in my life, without giving in entirely to the mawkish and saccharine.

Enter this sticker book! With over 500 relatively durable stickers of various sizes, this is decorative cuteness with an edge. There are plenty of fangs, eyeballs and bones in this assortment of monstrosities, from traditional ghosts and skeletons to monstrous adaptations of everyday items. The twist, ofc, is that even the most malevolent expression is accompanied by a healthy dose of adorableness, making this very much a collection of cute items with a creepy twist rather than the other way around.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/01/the-creepy-cute-sticker-book-by-gaynor-carradice/

Jul 31 2024

A Job For Penelope by Melanie Mikecz

I read a fantastic tweet recently which essentially said that getting a job you love does not mean, as the old saw says, never having to work a day in your life, but that you will in fact do far too much work, which is genuinely my plight right now. So when I picked up this picture book about an adorable little dog called Penelope who feels left out because everyone else in her family has a job, I immediately thought, “No, Penelope, don’t do it! Don’t let capitalism trick you into finding self-worth only through what the system deems valuable!”

Because let me tell you, being a loving dog to your family should be more than value enough. Offering comfort and joy in constant companionship with your loved ones is an underrated responsibility. Intangible contributions to a social unit have just as much value as fiscal ones, I promise you.

And, generously, one could argue that Penelope’s desire in this book to find a job comes less from wanting to feel like she needs to justify herself to her family, and more from a desire to give herself purpose by doing something that gives back to the community. I get that: I was the weirdo kid who set myself schoolwork back in the gap between private school and boarding school, because I didn’t know how else to quantify my journey as a constant learner. I just don’t want little kids to read this and think, “oh, do I need a job in order to matter? Am I just a burden otherwise?” as some other popular children’s media may imply. Work comes in many forms and rest is important, especially in a present-day where the gig economy ensures that so many of us are overwhelmed and underpaid.

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Jul 30 2024

Daughters Of Chaos by Jen Fawkes

Oh dear. This book starts out so promisingly, as a woman on her deathbed makes her lover swear to speak with the daughters the latter gave up for adoption. A grief-stricken Sylvie Swift has no idea how to approach the two girls she gave up as babies, so decides to write them a series of letters instead, chronicling her own history and the events that led her to flee Kentucky for Tennessee before settling down with her lover in California.

Sylvie’s own mother died shortly after giving birth to her and her twin brother Silas. Their older sister Marina helps raise them, as their father Horatio has never been the most practical man. After the twins turn fourteen, Marina abruptly leaves for Nashville. Horatio is devastated, refusing to speak of her. Following his death, the twins grow more distant from one another. With the Civil War breaking out, Silas decides to enlist with the Confederacy while Sylvie chooses to follow Marina to Nashville from their Kentucky home.

Nashville has recently been captured by the United States government. The few clues Sylvie has as to where Marina might be now lead her to a high end brothel called the Land Of Sirens. The denizens take her in, encouraging her work in translating Apocrypha, the alleged final work of Aristophanes, from French to English. As she begins to learn more about her own roots, she’s recruited by a United States colonel to infiltrate the charitable Ladies’ Aid Society, which he suspects of sabotaging Union forces to provide for the Confederacy. But the more time she spends with the charity, and especially with the beautiful Hannah Holcombe, the more she becomes entangled in the machinations of the Cult of Chaos, an ancient society of women who believe that overthrowing the violent rule of men is the only way to save the world.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/30/daughters-of-chaos-by-jen-fawkes/

Jul 29 2024

Jackson’s Wilder Adventures, Vol. 1: Habits & Habitats by Sarah Davidson

Jackson Wilder is an adorable little boy who lives with his dad and his beloved stuffed thylacine doll, Irwin. In the manner of all imaginative kids with a constant stuffie companion, Irwin often takes on a life of his own in Jackson’s imagination, as Sarah Davidson depicts in a way that will definitely bring up positive comparisons to Bill Watterson’s seminal Calvin & Hobbes series.

The main difference between the two comics, however, is the focus here on animal facts, biological and ecological. Stringently fact-checked by wildlife ecologist Kelly I Zimmerman, this book puts a delightful educational spin on the everyday comedy of an imaginative young kid’s life, with Irwin being Jackson’s guide to all the different animals of the world.

And there are a lot of animals under discussion here, precipitated first by Jackson refusing to eat the suspicious-looking mystery casserole his dad whips up for dinner. Irwin, ofc, has no problem downing a portion, then cheerfully shows Jackson all the much grosser things animals around the world routinely feast on. The friends travel from the Faroe Islands to Puerto Rico to Nebraska, before Jackson finally agrees to come home and try the mystery casserole.

Their next adventure flows seamlessly from this one, as Jackson deals with the stresses of moving to a different home. Irwin once more comes to the rescue, taking Jackson on a trip first to the African savannah, then to the Pantanal and finally to the North Pole, all environments where animals are being forced to move into shrinking spaces under far worse circumstances than Jackson is. This part of the book admittedly feels a bit more like a “children starving in Africa” admonishment than, ironically, the first part, but it’s still a very effective look at and way to sympathize with animals whose habitats are being seriously encroached upon by human choices.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/29/jacksons-wilder-adventures-vol-1-habits-habitats-by-sarah-davidson/

Jul 28 2024

Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

In the first two novellas of Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills series — The Empress of Salt and Fortune, and When the Tiger Came Down from the Mountain — violent conflict is kept at a distance, and much of the tension in the stories arises from the question of whether it can continue to be kept from erupting. In the first, the violence is in the past, in the stories that the old woman from Scarlet Lake tells, but the things that she reveals mean that the situation is much more dangerous than it first appeared. In the second, the titular tiger and her sisters would very much like to eat Cleric Chih, and the question is whether they can be held off, not by main force, but by wit and the power of stories. (I haven’t read the third, Into the Riverlands.)

Mammoths At The Gates by Nghi Vo

And so it proves in Mammoths at the Gates. Cleric Chih returns from their wanderings to find the abbey at Singing Hills much changed. For starters, it’s nearly empty. Chih soon learns that royal engineers drained a nearby lake, leaving a town uncovered for the first time in about three hundred years (p. 26), so the abbey’s clerics have gone to learn as much as they can before the engineers decide to refill the lake. Cleric Thien, a venerable and much respected teacher to Chih and many others in the abbey, died about three weeks before Chih’s return but has not yet been interred. Ru, one of Chih’s oldest friends, has been made acting Divine, in charge of the abbey while the more senior clerics are away at the lake site.

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Jul 27 2024

Hugo Awards 2024: General and Some Novellas

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 manage another one this decade. I have been aware of the Hugos since I started reading science fiction at an early and wonderfully impressionable age, and it’s always a thrill to be part of rewarding quality work, honoring the year’s best work in a community that I have cared about longer than I have had words to express such a thing.

The logo of the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon

I think that’s why last year’s wounding of the awards by trusted insiders hurt so badly. The Hugos are a community trust, and people who had been deeply involved for years, who were thought to be reliable and fair holders of that trust, turned out not to be, and there was apparently no recourse. I hope that during this year’s ceremonies on August 11, the Glasgow convention will find some way to acknowledge the harm done. (I suspect that they will take the insider view that each convention is separate; I think this looks rather different from the outside.)

This year’s awards have already been marked by a clumsy attempt to cast fraudulent votes. It’s good that the team caught the attempted fraud, but the fact that bad actors could send in 10% of the total vote is a sign that the Hugos continue to be vulnerable along several axes. It’s also long past time for Worldcon committees to find a way to have an outside auditor vouch for the integrity of the whole award process.

One of the best parts of being part of the Hugo process is the readers’ packet. This is a collection of samples of the work of almost every Hugo finalist, and its availability to every voter is an example of the generosity of publishers, the hard work of finalists, and the dedication of the volunteer staffers who put it together quickly and ensure its accessibility. How do voters make reasonably informed picks for the 18 categories and two not-a-Hugo awards? They lean heavily on the readers’ packet that includes samples of artists’ work, statements by editors about what they worked on and how they practice their craft, access to games, and written work ranging from excerpts to full novels. This year’s packet also included a complete feature-length movie, access to lengthy written series, and whole collections of graphic works. The packet is a trove of delight, and a testimony to the regard that publishers and producers have for the Hugo Award and its voters.

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