Jul 29 2023

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

One of the ways that the Folly — the secret unit of London’s Metropolitan Police Service that deals with the supernatural — is integrated into regular police work is that they receive reports concerning missing children. Apparently in previous eras, rogue practitioners used to use children for some very rogue practices. And so Nightingale dispatches Peter to fictional Rushpool in not-entirely-fictional Herefordshire on the English-Welsh border to lend a hand to the local police in the disappearance of two eleven-year-old girls.

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

Nightingale explains:

“… It’s always been our policy to keep an eye on missing child cases and, where necessary, check to make sure that certain individuals in the proximity are not involved.”
“Certain individuals?” I asked.
“Hedge wizards and the like,” he said.
In Folly parlance a “hedge wizard” was any magical practitioner who had either picked up their skills ad hoc from outside the Folly or who had retired to seclusion in the countryside—what Nightingale called “rusticated.” (p.5)

Nightingale has someone in particular in mind.

I popped back to the Folly proper and met Nightingale in the main library where he handed me a manila folder tied up with red ribbons. Inside were about thirty pages of tissue-thin paper covered in densely typed text and what was obviously a photostat of an identity document of some sort.
“Hugh Oswald,” said Nightingale. “Fought at Antwerp and Ettersberg [the WWII clash between British and German magicians that left few alive on either side].”
“He survived Ettersberg?”
Nightingale looked away. “He made it back to England,” he said. “But he suffered from what I’m told is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still lives on a medical pension—took up beekeeping.”
“How strong is he?”
“Well, you wouldn’t want to test him,” said Nightingale. “But I suspect he’s out of practice.”
“And if I suspect something?”
“Keep it to yourself, make a discreet withdrawal and telephone me at the first opportunity,” he said. (pp. 6–7)

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Jul 28 2023

Big Shot (Diary Of A Wimpy Kid #16) by Jeff Kinney

Jms really wanted to read this installment of the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series together, and I was happy to continue the sports theme here and oblige! I’m actually really glad we got a chance to, and for more reasons than just one.

In Big Shot, our hero Greg Heffley details his various disastrous experiences with sports in middle school. There’s a delightful all-school showdown involving Field Day, as well as an ill-fated attempt by Greg’s dad to bring him to a grown-ups-only gym. Over the course of the series, Frank has displayed the really bad habit of leaving Greg to his own devices, which usually backfires on Frank more spectacularly than on Greg. You’d think Frank would have learned his lesson after their only visit to a football game together, but Greg certainly inherits his cluelessness from someone!

Alas that he didn’t inherit his mother’s athleticism. Some of Susan’s fondest memories of middle school involve her time on the basketball team, as she never tires of telling Greg. It isn’t just about the sports, tho: Susan genuinely believes that being on an athletic team helps build character, and she’s not entirely wrong. When Greg somehow muddles his way onto a school basketball team, she gets really excited, leading to the hapless but highly entertaining series of events chronicled in these pages.

(My kid also pointed out to me how each book has the same number of pages, in keeping with the conceit of Greg filling out a standard notebook for each of his adventures.)

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Jul 26 2023

Fuzzy Baseball Vol. 5: Baseballoween by John Steven Gurney

Between watching Arsenal play in person (twice!) and the Women’s World Cup, it has been a satisfyingly sports-mad week for me. Why not keep the streak going with this adorable graphic novel featuring anthropomorphic animals getting together to play baseball?

The Fernwood Valley Fuzzies are enjoying the start of their off-season before they figure out what to do once the weather gets cold. They’re all gathered to watch Game 7 of the World Series live when their wistful discussion about playing more is overheard by a bat named Count Flappula. He asks if the Fuzzies will come play one last game before the year ends, against his team, the Graveyard Ghastlies.

Turns out that the Ghastlies only get together one night each year, on Halloween night, naturally. After the game, they’re looking forward to having the Fuzzies for dinner. Or, as Flappula quickly explains, having the Fuzzies as their guests for dinner. Certainly not as the meal, chortle chortle.

The cheerful Fuzzies are definitely up for a friendly before hibernation season, but even they are unsettled to arrive at the Ghastlies’ home field and discover that it’s a graveyard next to a creepy forest. Will they be able to enjoy a good game and a great feast in the company of folks some might consider creepy… or will something far more sinister befall our furry heroes?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/26/fuzzy-baseball-vol-5-baseballoween-by-john-steven-gurney/

Jul 23 2023

Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes is something of a second-hand autobiography. Wilkins was Pratchett’s personal assistant from 2000 until Pratchett’s death in 2015 of a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. He was also in possession of the notes toward an autobiography that Pratchett made but never turned into a full manuscript. As time went on, and particularly in the final years as Pratchett’s faculties diminished, Wilkins’ role increased: he read speeches that Pratchett had written; when Pratchett eventually took to social media, the Twitter account was @terryandrob. “Later on, Terry said to me, ‘It appears we now share a brain.'” (p. 11) So this is as close as readers will ever get to a Pratchett autobiography, and it is also a biography by someone as close to him as anyone who wasn’t family.

Terry Pratchett A Life with Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

The truth is, I bounced right out of A Life With Footnotes the first time I sat down to read it and didn’t even make it through the introduction. Here’s what threw me:

I was also fired many times over, although one quickly learned that Terry, being a writer, had an experimental interest in saying things to see what they sounded like, and that if you adopted an experimental approach yourself, and simply turned up the next day, it would normally turn out that you hadn’t been fired at all. (p. 9)

I think that’s a rotten way to treat someone, let alone someone who works for you, let alone someone who’s meant to be your personal assistant. Immediately after that alarming report, Wilkins mentions Neil Gaiman’s introduction to a collection of Pratchett’s non-fiction in which he made a point of noting that Pratchett was not a jolly old elf. Pratchett had a deep well of anger — “This anger was the engine that powered Good Omens,” he told Gaiman — but it was anger in service of fairness and of decency. Fortunately, Pratchett had an expansive definition of who deserved fairness and decency: everyone.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/23/terry-pratchett-a-life-with-footnotes-by-rob-wilkins/

Jul 21 2023

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

S.A. Chakraborty spends the first fifty or so pages of The City of Brass creating an alternative fantasy Cairo that’s so multifaceted, so lively, so enthralling and exciting that I never really reconciled to the characters’ departure. Sure, Daevabad is the fabled City of Brass. It’s full of djinn in all of their different clans; it’s practically pulsing with magic; it’s monumental and gorgeous. But give me Cairo’s alleys and markets where Nahri plies her various trades of thieving and deceiving. Give me all the peoples that the Nile, history, and Cairo’s fabulous wealth have brought together. Give me her Jewish apothecary friend and teacher, though they exasperate each other. Give me gullible Turks, Nubian ceremonies, Franks as unseen rulers of the city whose authority clearly does not extend to much of the streets.

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

Nahri is a young woman of uncertain background — though she says “I am as Egyptian as the Nile” (p. 6) to a Turkish basha she is setting up for a burglary — who is making her way by her wits, healing talents, and convincing impressions of being a medium. She steals, of course, but it’s in the best traditions of the protagonist of a fantasy story. She does it with style and élan, mostly from people who can well afford it, and she aids people less fortunate than even her precarious self.

Until one day when she accidentally calls forth a real djinn mere hours after she said to her apothecary friend “There’s no magic, no djinn, no spirits waiting to eat us up.” (p. 27) By the time she regrets her words, she’s caught between a djinn, an ifrit, and grabbed by ghouls springing up from Cairo’s largest burial grounds. To say nothing of the flying carpet.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/21/the-city-of-brass-by-s-a-chakraborty/

Jul 20 2023

The Color Of Always edited by Brent Fisher & Michele Abounader

An LGBTQIA+ Love Anthology.

While all anthologies can be hit and miss, comics collections tend to be more so, I feel, as it’s a more complicated medium to synthesize into one cohesive collection. This is, ofc, due in large part to the visual aspect making it immediately obvious if things aren’t meshing.

Thematically, this book works, even if the overall beats of the collection tend to land a little strangely. The title opener by Brent Fisher, Elisa Romboli and Ariana Maher is an upbeat tale of courage and love, and is the most polished, art-wise. This is immediately followed by the sweet Claddagh by Julia Paiewonsky and Alex Putprush, an affecting slice-of-life comic about falling in love.

The next story, Tethered, is a lot of people and a lot of pages to tell not very much at all. Fortunately, the volume picks up again with Lilian Hochwender and Gabe Martini’s Sea Change, telling the story of a young sailor who falls overboard during a storm and finds terror and transformation within the ocean depths. Letting It Fall by Priya Saxena and Jenny Fleming is really great until the awkwardly underwhelming art of the last full-page panel, which does a disservice to the rest of the story and its delightfully retro illustrations.

Long Away by Tillie Bridges, Susan Bridges and Richard Fairgray was one of my favorite stories here, as a young woman travels back in time to meet the father who died way too soon. All That Glitters by Michele Abounader and Tench uses very few words to elegantly describe how a struggling nonbinary person gets some great advice from a drag queen.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/20/the-color-of-always-edited-by-brent-fisher-michele-abounader/

Jul 18 2023

John Tiffany Vol. 1 by Stephen Desberg & Dan Panosian

Every time I see a square-jawed black-haired white dude with a five o’clock shadow in comics, I immediately think Jon Hamm. Is that weird?

Our book’s namesake hero is another Jo(h)n. John Tiffany is a very successful bounty hunter whose inner circle consists of only four people. First there’s Dorothy, his right hand woman, whose politics are decidedly right wing. Then there’s Wan Chao, who worked computers for the Shanghai Triads before joining John’s operation. His main focus nowadays is studying Judaism so he can convert and marry his lady love. Pastor Lovejoy isn’t exactly a proponent of the prosperity gospel, but definitely encourages John to do whatever it takes to get the job done so long as his intentions are good. Finally, Magdalena Profokiev is the love of John’s life, an elusive sex worker drifting right out of his reach.

It’s while John is in Mexico chasing down a lead that he realizes that one of these four people must have betrayed him. An $800,000 bounty has been placed on his head, probably by the brother of a terrorist he’d recently handed over to the Americans. In order to get the bounty lifted, and to figure out which of the only four adults in his life that he trusts has turned on him, he’ll have to travel to Karachi and have a… discussion with the man out for his blood.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/18/john-tiffany-vol-1-by-stephen-desberg-dan-panosian/

Jul 17 2023

The Meltdown (Diary Of A Wimpy Kid #13) by Jeff Kinney

My eldest child has had his computer taken away from him this summer so he’s been spending a lot of free time not only re-reading his Diary Of A Wimpy Kid books, but also pestering me about my opinions of them. I’ve been trying to get him to read some new books, to no avail, but recently realized that I’d confused this installment with Cabin Fever and its absolute nightmare of poor Susan having to take care of three kids while snowbound and with broken glasses. Since I couldn’t very well urge him to read something new while neglecting to read some of his favorites, I sat down with him to go over this completely different wintry installment of the series.

Our Wimpy Kid Greg Heffley continues to navigate middle school with his usual mix of laziness and imagination. As the book opens, his area is experiencing a heat wave that has everyone thrown for a loop. School management has the heat up high despite the mild temperatures outside, leading to some uncomfortable and gross (but honestly hilarious) situations. When snow finally comes, Greg has to figure out ways to avoid the indignities it brings with it, not helped by his neighborhood dynamics.

The kids of Upper Surrey Street (where Greg lives) and Lower Surrey Street do not get along. Upper Surrey Street is built on a slope, whereas the lower part is on flatland. Thus the lowlanders get to enjoy all sorts of athletics, while the slope of the upper street makes summer — and spring and autumn — ball sports far more frustrating. Reveling in their advantage, the lowlanders refuse to let the highlanders play on their territory. The situation is dramatically reversed in the winter, however, when the slope makes for excellent sledding. The highland kids aren’t going to let the slights of the rest of the year go, and defend their land from any incursions.

Things come to a head when, inspired by tales of igloos, Greg and his best friend Rowley decide to build a snow fort on a vacant lot. This soon turns into a massive neighborhood wall against the lowlanders, followed by all out war. Will Greg and Rowley be able to survive with their skins, and perhaps more importantly their dignities, intact?

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Jul 16 2023

Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

This review inevitably has spoilers for Silver in the Wood.

Emily Tesh returns to Victorian England to show readers what has happened since the end of Silver in the Wood, and it starts out with a right mess. Henry Silver, fastidious when last seen, has allowed Greenhallow Hall to fall into disrepair, nearly into ruin. Its collapse has progressed enough to allow a dryad to enter, something that could not have happened when the Hall was still a home. Henry himself, no longer lord of the manor but rather of the Wood, is rather worse for the wear, “wearing the ragged remains of what had been one of his better shirts, and no socks or shoes.” (p. 13) He tries to put a brave face on it — “Was he hot the Lord of the Wood, nearer demigod than mortal man, master of time and seasons, beasts and birds, earth and sky?” (p. 13) — but the dryad Bramble has bad news: His mother has come to visit.

Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

Mrs. Silver is not merely a Victorian widow of strict habits and firm views, she is also a practical folklorist, skilled in tracking down England’s bumpier supernatural creatures and ensuring that they do not trouble the good folks just trying to get on with their lives. Permanently, if need be. “Silver had never dared to ask her if she was really still mourning his father or if she just found the sober attire of the widow convenient for her purposes. Hunting monsters could be a messy business. Bloodstains hardly showed on black.” (p. 17) And she is having none of Henry’s melodramatic nonsense. Mr Finch is away in Rothport.

“Your father also liked to sulk,” said Mrs Silver.
“I am not sulking,” said Silver.
“I cannot think what else to call it,” Mrs Silver said, “when a healthy young person insists on building himself a thorn-girt fortress and sitting in it consuming nothing but sour fruit and small beer for months on end.” (p. 19)

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/16/drowned-country-by-emily-tesh/

Jul 13 2023

The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler

I’m not sure how it happened, but way too many Millennial women in the United States have been raised to be people-pleasers in a manner that horrifies my late Gen X/geriatric Millennial sensibilities. Somehow, they’ve been persuaded by “Lean In” and “yes and” culture (with a healthy dose of late-stage capitalism) to think that having it all means running yourself ragged and putting everyone but yourself first. Ironically, that’s the kind of thing they’d pretend to disparage in Boomers while doing the very same themselves (and I know several Gen Xers who also fall into this trap yet, on balance, make up a much smaller percentage of our cohort.)

The three New York City women at the heart of this book exemplify this problem, all quietly seething at the perceived injustices of their lives. Lauren kicked out her husband after discovering his secret sexual life, and is further blindsided when he chooses to make inappropriate relationship choices after their divorce. Independently wealthy Madeline has spent most of her adult life being the mother she never had for her now-teenage daughter Arabella, and doesn’t know what to do when her ex-husband in London starts talking about bringing their daughter to come live with him for a year. Sophie is struggling to pay the bills for her two kids while her deadbeat ex and his gorgeous, accomplished new wife and baby have the Instagram-perfect life she can’t help obsessing over.

One drunken dinner between the three friends persuades Lauren to launch a service called The Wife App, sort of a Task Rabbit on steroids. After the women complain about the thankless Mental Load they’ve always taken on as wives and mothers — mostly in planning, organizing, and mentally and emotionally supporting their families — tech-oriented Lauren decides to build an app for a service that takes over. After all, if you can hire housekeepers and nannies, why not hire a family organizer and counselor, essentially a Wife without all the sex and romance? Gloria Steinem would be proud.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/13/the-wife-app-by-carolyn-mackler/