Jun 02 2024

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Charlie Fitzer’s day is just about to get a lot better. As it begins, he’s divorced (his ex-wife is seeing an investment banker and sharing her fabulous vacations on her Instagram account, which of course Charlie follows), his career has descended from business reporter for the Chicago Tribune to middle-school substitute teacher (thanks to layoffs and a stint caring for his father during his final illness), his bank account is near zero and his main asset is a quarter share of his childhood home, where he has continued to live after his father’s death. His three half-siblings, holders of the other shares, very much want to sell. Then Charlie gets news that his uncle has died. His billionaire uncle. Who had no other close relatives. Also, a kitten adopts Charlie.

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

His week, however, is just about to get a lot worse. The first real inkling of how bad is when one of the mourners at his uncle’s funeral pulls out a big knife and winds up to stab the corpse. This is how it came to pass: One of his uncle’s minions showed up at Charlie’s house (“He kept tabs on you,” [Mathilda] Morrison [the minion] said. “Discreetly. From a distance. In a way that wouldn’t antagonize your father.” “Well, that doesn’t sound creepy at all,” I said. (p. 25)) and offered to set up a deal that would leave Charlie sole owner of the house and give him enough money to become proprietor of the local pub, something he felt would be much better than substitute teaching. The catch was that he would have to stand for his uncle at the funeral a few days later. Stabbing had not been mentioned in advance. That this might not be an ordinary funeral was indicated by floral arrangements delivered by courier bearing messages such as “See you in Hell” (“It is, however, one of the nicer [messages].” (p. 34)) and “Not soon enough.” Then there were the mourners.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/06/02/starter-villain-by-john-scalzi/

May 31 2024

Tantalizing Tales — May 2024 — Part Two

It’s the end of May, and while I’ve been able to read twenty-two books so far this month (covered either here or over at CriminalElement.com) there have still been so many gorgeous books that crossed my desk that I haven’t quite been able to fit in yet.

The first of these, and the first I’m hoping to be able to get to, is I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter Beagle. I definitely feel like I’m letting down Doug, who is a huge Beagle fan, by not immediately dropping everything and diving into this tome, especially since it’s been a dozen years since the fantasy master behind The Last Unicorn last had a book published. Now he’s back with a cozy vengeance, with this charming, whimsical fairy tale about dragons and their reluctant exterminator.

Dragons are common in the backwater kingdom of Bellemontagne, coming in sizes from mouse-like vermin all the way up to castle-smashing monsters. Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax (who would much rather people call him Robert) has recently inherited his deceased dad’s job as a dragon catcher/exterminator, a career he detests with all his heart in part because he likes dragons — feeling a kinship with them — but mainly because his dream has always been the impossible one of transcending his humble origin to someday become a prince’s valet. Needless to say, destiny has something rather different in mind…

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/31/tantalizing-tales-may-2024-part-two/

May 30 2024

Crying In H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Y’all, I was so excited when my friend Emily asked if I wanted to read Crying In H Mart with her, especially since it would help cap Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month for me here at The Frumious Consortium. We’d both heard so many great things about the book, and it looked short and relevant to our interests as parents and foodies. We dove in over this past weekend and, um, wow. Actually “yikes” is probably the best word to encapsulate the experience.

I have to say that I’m super glad I had Emily to message with throughout this experience, because as an Asian American parent whose own Asian mother will never win any Mother Of The Year awards, even I was staggered by the amounts of abuse on display throughout the book. More concerning to me was Michelle Zauner’s bizarre over-identification with her mom. At first, I thought I was unable to relate because my own mother and I don’t have the best relationship, but soon realized that my detachment sprang from the fact that I’ve only ever seen this kind of behavior in abuse victims. By the end of Chapter 2, I was telling Emily, “Mostly, I’m hoping there’s [a positive] arc to this story, because if [the author] stays like this throughout the book, I’m just gonna be hella depressed for her by the end.”

Reader, I was hella depressed for her by the end.

For those of you who blessedly have never heard of this memoir, it’s a recounting of Michelle’s childhood and early adult life as an allegedly difficult only child to a Korean American mom and white American dad. She fled to the East Coast for college from where she grew up in Oregon, and stayed there for several years after graduation, working odd jobs while nurturing her musical career. She was also slowly beginning to reconcile with her mom when the latter was suddenly diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Michelle immediately gave up her admittedly not that terrific life on the East Coast to come take care of her mother for the next year or so, before death claimed Chongmi for good. The memoir bluntly depicts everything that happened, with several chapters devoted to the aftermath as well.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/30/crying-in-h-mart-by-michelle-zauner/

May 29 2024

The Deck Of Many Drinks by Jef Aldrich & Jon Taylor

subtitled The RPG Cocktail Recipe Deck with Powerful Effects! A part of the Dungeonmeister line of books and gaming aids.

This has got to be one of the most fun and useful items I’ve ever whipped out while running a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Sure, there may have been more fun items, not that any come immediately to mind. And, let’s face it, the Dungeon Master’s screen is the most useful aid for any DM trying to hide the results of their rolls so they can save their party of reckless adventurers from certain doom, ahem. But as a combination of both fun and useful? This deck cannot be beaten.

The fifty oversized cards come in a sturdy flip top deck box, accompanied by a high quality booklet that serves as both guide and recipe book. Let’s talk about the book first before I ooh and aah over the cards. The glossy interiors are in black and white, and are divided into two main parts. First, there’s a How To Use section which talks a little about the D&D lore-related inspiration behind the deck before discussing the drinks’ potential uses as treasure and craftable items, complete with very handy game-mechanics advice for both. The authors then describe the Dungeonmeister Tavern that can be used as a setting related to these drinks, complete with non-player characters the DM can use to staff the bar.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/29/the-deck-of-many-drinks-by-jef-aldrich-jon-taylor/

May 28 2024

Strange Gods by Annamaria Alfieri (EXCERPT)

Hi readers! We’re in for a treat today, as we begin a series of semiweekly excerpts from Annamaria Alfieri’s recently reissued historical mystery series set in 1911 British East Africa, Vera And Tolliver.

The Vera of the series is Vera McIntosh, the rebellious daughter of Scottish missionaries. Having grown up in Africa with Kikuyu playmates, Vera is not the well-bred Scottish maiden her mother would like her to be. More than anything, she dreams of the idealistic and handsome Justin Tolliver, a member of the police force she’s previously danced with.

When the body of Vera’s uncle, a doctor of the mission hospital, is found with a tribesman’s spear in his back, Tolliver comes to investigate. Tolliver’s superiors want him to arrest a suspected Kikuyu medicine man, but as the weapon used was a Maasai spear, Tolliver doubts it could be the medicine man and pleads for the chance to prove the man’s guilt. With the help of Kwai Libazo, a tribal lieutenant, Tolliver discovers there is much more to the story…

A romantic and engaging mystery, Annanmaria Alfieri’s Strange Gods captures the beauty and the danger of the African wild and the complexities of life when cultures clash.

Read on for an excerpt from the debut novel, Strange Gods!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/28/strange-gods-by-annamaria-alfieri-excerpt/

May 24 2024

Tantalizing Titles — May 2024 — Part One

Hello, dear readers! I had a bit of a meltdown earlier this week when the weight of all the wonderful books I’ve received but haven’t been able to read, much less review, finally took its toll on me. Doug, ofc, helped me through this by brainstorming a recap post featuring all these luscious books I haven’t yet been able to get to but am absolutely meaning to once I get the time.

So let’s begin with the first two weeks of May, and five books that published in that time that I want to highlight ahead of reading them. Just because I can’t get to them in a timely fashion doesn’t mean that you have to miss out!

Our first selection is Women And Children First by Alina Grabowski, a gripping literary puzzle that unwinds the private lives of ten women as they confront tragedy in a small Massachusetts town.

Nashquitten, MA, is a decaying coastal enclave that not even tourist season can revive, full of locals who have run the town’s industries for generations. When a young woman dies at a house party, the circumstances around her death suspiciously unclear, the tight-knit community is shaken. As a mother grieves her daughter, a teacher her student, a best friend her confidante, the events around the tragedy become a lightning rod: blame is cast, secrets are buried deeper. Some are left to pick up the pieces, while others turn their backs, and all the while, a truth about that dreadful night begins to emerge.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/24/tantalizing-titles-may-2024-part-one/

May 23 2024

Mapping The Night by J David Bethel (EXCERPT)

Hello, readers! This week we have the privilege of giving you a sneak peek at J David Bethel’s latest suspense-filled thriller, Mapping The Night.

The upcoming novel follows the hunt for a serial killer terrorizing New York City’s Upper East Side in attacks carried out only under cover of dark, bringing the reader into a shadowy underworld where evil lurks everywhere and nothing is as it appears. This opening scene was inspired by newspaper coverage of a real life murder, but leads our fictional investigators into an elaborate cover-up that could very well reach into the highest levels of American government. There are people in politics who are responsible for this killer being on the street –- and who do not want him caught.

Read on for a gripping excerpt!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/23/mapping-the-night-by-j-david-bethel-excerpt/

May 22 2024

Magic The Gathering Oracle Deck by Adam Lee & Fred Gissubel

It was one of the nicest surprises of my reviewer life to receive this package, unsolicited, in the mail! Back when the American Library Association’s Annual Conference was held in DC two years ago, I was subcontracted by Wizards Of The Coast to run D&D games for librarians. As part of my experience, I got to ooh and aah over the Dungeons And Dragons Tarot Deck that had just come out. It wasn’t quite in my budget then, but I 100% still think about it with longing.

So when I received the Magic The Gathering Oracle Deck from the same creative team unsolicited, you bet I squealed with joy. While I’m certainly far more active in D&D than I am in Magic nowadays, I’ve been a player since the glory days of Urza, and still use Arena to scratch that occasional card flopping itch. Gideon Jura stan for life, baby! And while I’ve always been a white weenie fan, I do have a fondness for a black and white Innistrad deck, because who doesn’t love gaining life with every point of damage I make? That said, I never really got to play in Theros, Magic’s Ancient Greece-inspired plane, so the setting of this Oracle Deck was both intriguing to me as someone new to it, as well as distinctly apropos given the origin of the word oracle. Plus, I super love retellings of the Ancient Greek myths, and definitely wanted to know Magic’s take on them, as well as the authors’ officially licensed take on a divination deck altogether (especially since reading some of James D’Amato’s fascinating theories on creating those for gameplay in his excellent The Ultimate RPG Game Master’s Guide.)

But before I could do any of the reading, I first had to evaluate this as a physical object. Oracle decks are meant to be held and handled and used, after all. Frankly, the presentation of this deck is unparalleled. It comes in a sturdy case which flips open smoothly, revealing first a glossy guidebook, then the deck itself nestled in a hollow beneath the book, with a ribbon to help lift out the cards. All of the adornment excepting the card art is in black and vermilion with gold accents. I did think it a bit odd that the backs of the decks aren’t possessed of biradial symmetry: while this is in keeping with your standard Magic cards, it seems weird in a divination deck, where that lack of uniformity seems to discourage reversals or at the very least signal them. Before you say something dumb like “just buy sleeves like ppl do for competitive Magic”, these oracle cards are way bigger than even your standard Tarot deck, much less your typical collectible card game.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/22/magic-the-gathering-oracle-deck-by-adam-lee-fred-gissubel/

May 21 2024

The Band by Christine Ma-Kellams

Reading this book was a distinctly disorienting experience, in the best way possible. Was I reading the author’s diary? Did this thus make us best friends? Obviously the answer to both questions is no, but it still felt like a weirdly intimate experience, as if a good friend was telling me all about a recent bizarre experience she’d had, in much the same manner I recount things, minus the academic citations.

The unnamed narrator begins by talking about a fictional K-Pop group named, simply, The Band. Frankly, the only pop culture opportunity missed here was the lack of allusion to the Canadian-American group of the same name. We get a bit of a lesson on K-Pop as we’re introduced to each member, plus Pinocchio, the impresario who put them together.

When a song and music video released for The Band member Sang Duri’s birthday accidentally sets off an international firestorm, Duri goes into hiding in California. In an Asian grocery store, of all places, he meets and ingratiates himself with the narrator, and winds up staying in her house for a while, to the bemusement of her husband and kids. The narrator is unhappily married, and recognizes that, as a psychology professor, she has a bit of a savior complex. As her relationship with Duri unfolds, outside drama threatens to take him away from her for good.

Honestly, this book was the most grown-up version of boy band fanfic I’ve ever read. And, gosh, that’s definitely not even describing it properly. Insofar that all boy band fiction — hell, all fiction about musical groups — is fanfic in some form, this brilliant homage to the musical genre easily navigates and communicates the specific nuances of K-Pop to readers like myself who know very little about it. K-Pop fans will, I imagine, find much here that speaks to them too.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/21/the-band-by-christine-ma-kellams/

May 20 2024

Plain Jane And The Mermaid by Vera Brosgol

I love pretty much everything First Second Books publishes. My relationship with them started with the excellent Sailor Twain by Mark Siegel, and while I haven’t had the time to cover as many of their books as I’d honestly like to, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to review their latest title that also features an alluring mermaid.

Interestingly, before I could dive (ha) into this latest digital ARC, my favorite bookstore mentioned that they’d be having Vera Brosgol in to sign copies one Wednesday morning. Since I’d been planning to go lead an orchestra rehearsal afterwards anyway, I figured I’d stop by, if the digital read turned out to be good enough to warrant buying a physical copy. So I cracked open the ARC… and was full out sobbing by page 37.

So! Off to People’s Book I went the next morning, to buy a copy and get it signed and hopefully not make too much of a fool of myself in front of the author. Who is an absolute delight, btw! I loved the experience so much, I wrote about it during the bookstore’s Zine-Making Workshop a few nights later. Ms Brosgol and I chatted and laughed, and I cried a little bit, and I taught her how to mew, thanks to lessons from my Gen Alpha thirteen year-old. It was one of the loveliest author meetings I’ve ever had, which is saying a lot since I’ve genuinely had so many lovely author meetings in my lifetime.

What I wish I had more of, tho, is time to read! It took me a little while to actually be able to sit down and read the (signed) book, but I was so glad I’d bought it, because physical copies of graphic novels are so far superior to digital, ime. And oh, what a lovely, tender fable of learning to see your own value past the expectations society has of you! In Jane’s case, the expectations revolve around her physical attractiveness as a woman, a lesson that’s echoed and refracted in several different ways throughout the narrative.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/20/plain-jane-and-the-mermaid-by-vera-brosgol/