Dec 16 2021

The Cursed Carnival And Other Calamities: New Stories About Mythic Heroes compiled by Rick Riordan

First, a small pat on the back to myself for slowly but surely catching up on my reading backlog.

Second, a huge pat on the back to everyone involved with Rick Riordan Presents, an imprint that showcases fantastic middle-grade fiction based on world mythologies. The representation is gloriously diverse and fascinatingly educational. I love mythology myself, but when I was growing up the only stories really accessible to me were the standard Greco-Roman. Sure, there were some Norse, but nowhere near as well explained as Greek — I’m still learning some of the Norse tales today! And as for the rest of the world’s mythologies? Nearly inaccessible, up to and including my own.

But now we have RRP, which presents entire books out of mythologies world-wide (with slight modifications, ofc) for readers of all ages. Younger me would have read these non-stop. Older me is just so glad to be able to share these with my kids, and so grateful that young people have this kind of thing available in their lives.

As of this writing, there are almost two dozen RRP books in print, covering a vast array of the world’s mythos. The Cursed Carnival And Other Calamities is essentially an introduction to several of those series, incorporating legends from almost all of the continents, giving readers a bite-sized idea of what the full books have to offer. The stories are overall very strong examples of fantasy/sci-fi writing for middle-grade, with perhaps my favorite being Yoon Ha Lee’s The Initiation, which continues the very cool space story begun in Dragon Pearl, following Min and Jun as they’re sent off to train as agents.

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Dec 15 2021

Iranian Love Stories by Jane Deuxard & Deloupy

It’s always so frustrating reading books like this and feeling the shock of recognition turn into a weariness, then a resentment at the fact that people don’t think this shit could happen to them, too.

The Iranians certainly didn’t think they’d lose their freedom in the late 70s when a coalition of communists and Islamic fundamentalists banded together to throw out the American-backed, corrupt Shah. The fundamentalists quickly turned on and routed the communists, setting up a hardline right-wing regime that was swiftly, if unwittingly, propped up by Iraqi aggression. Decades later and the Iranian fight for civil liberties seems to be on its last legs, the Green Revolution a dying gasp in the face of a brutal authoritarian state that hides behind theology to justify its excesses. The Iranian people are tired, and cowed, and doing whatever they can to survive.

This is the atmosphere that Jane Deuxard, the pseudonym for two journalists who travel through Iran undercover, reports on in the pages of this distressing graphic novel. Everyone they interview is in an extended state of coping: their material needs may be more or less cared for, but their psychological, existential crises almost bleed off the page. From the sincere young revolutionary broken by the death of Neda, the figurehead of the Green Revolution’s rebellion, to the gleefully anti-feminist young woman who insists that women are treated much better in Iran than in the West, the stories of these mostly young people makes for traumatizing reading.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/15/iranian-love-stories-by-jane-deuxard-deloupy/

Dec 14 2021

Dance Class Vol 12: The New Girl by BéKa and Crip

This slight but amusing volume is perfect for dance enthusiasts anywhere and of any age!

We catch up with Lucy, Alia and Julie as a new girl joins their classical ballet class. Maya’s real love is basketball, but she’s been forced by her mother to try ballet before it’s “too late”. Maya is a team player tho, so she’s ready to give it the old college try. However, her background in competitive team sports makes for a lot of culture shock, not only for her, but also for her new classmates and their teacher.

Meanwhile, mean girl Carla is up to her old tricks again. When she’s cast as the lead in their Afrojazz class recital, the rest of the girls decide to take her down a peg or two, to hilarious result. And while the older girls are working on their programs, the younger class, including Lucy’s irrepressible sister Capucine, are also hard at work, to the dismay of Capucine’s dad, who’s been roped in to his daughters’ efforts one time too many. Can he finally find a way to turn his daughters’ dance obsession to his own advantage?

Told in loose vignettes that highlight the humor of young dance-obsessed lives, this series continues to be an antidote to the superabundance of moody, self-destructive dancer narratives out there. And don’t get me wrong, I love me some messed up ballet psychodrama but it’s always nice to remember too the giddy joy of being a young dancer learning the craft, before it becomes a job or a chore or a burden.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/14/dance-class-vol-12-the-new-girl-by-beka-and-crip/

Dec 13 2021

The Dead Don’t Sleep by Steven Max Russo

Steven Max Russo sent this to me with a warning about graphic violence, but honestly? I’ve read enough horror novels and thrillers that, while this book is definitely on the violent side, it never descends into gratuitous gore, instead giving a visceral depiction of what really happens in war and bloodshed and refusing to look away from the cost of taking a life and what that means for the killer, justified or otherwise.

The Dead Don’t Sleep tells the story of Frank Thompson, a mild-mannered Vietnam vet who’s recently lost his beloved wife. After grieving alone for a while in his rural Maine home, he decides to accept an invitation to spend a week with his nephew Bill and family down in New Jersey. While out trap shooting at a range with Bill, he runs into a face from the past, even tho he initially pretends to have no idea of their connection.

Jack Sprague is the kind of guy who never forgets a face, however. Despite having last encountered Frank decades ago, he instinctively remembers the man, as well as the grudge he still bears him. After recruiting several other vets who also knew Frank back in Vietnam, they trace Bill’s Jeep to its home address and spring an unpleasant surprise on their former brother-in-arm’s family.

Determined to protect what few relatives he has left, Frank makes it clear to his old “buddies” that he’s gotten the message and is clearing out of New Jersey post-haste. But his old comrades believe that revenge is a dish best served cold (and high), and decide to take their revenge trip on the road, following Frank back up to Maine for a final, lethal showdown.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/13/the-dead-dont-sleep-by-steven-max-russo/

Dec 12 2021

Station Island by Seamus Heaney

I still struggle with a notion I first mentioned when writing about Heaney’s inaugural collection, Death of a Naturalist, the idea that with each collection of poetry I should take time to live with it, read through several times, maybe even commit bits to memory so as to have them always at the ready. I remember a formative English teacher saying that you should read a poem seven times before thinking that you understand it. Much of my literary upbringing said that poetry should be absorbed as much as it should be read, it should become a part of the reader. The only poem of Heaney’s I have come close to readily calling to mind is “Digging,” the very first poem in the very first collection.

Station Island by Seamus Heaney

The truth, though, is that I read Station Island like I read Heaney’s other collections: on the train during my daily commute, in between helping kids with homework, late in the evening when things are quiet and even, occasionally, during longer periods when I can devote some uninterrupted time to reading. I would like poetry to be like a pilgrimage, but in practice it’s more prosaic.

Heaney manages both in Station Island. The eponymous central section arises from a pilgrimage Heaney made more than once in his younger days to an island in Lough Derg in County Donegal, Ireland. The island is home to “Patrick’s Purgatory” and has been a pilgrimage site at least since 1185. As practiced today, the pilgrimage has a three-day fast, an all-night vigil the first night, and nine stations of prayer. Heaney’s poem has twelve stations, and in each of them the speaker encounters a ghostly presence, country people he has known, fellow poets, a young priest, James Joyce. I was most struck by the eleventh and twelfth parts: the eleventh for its nearly mystical vision of a fountain of life and its repeated invocation “although it is the night”; the twelfth for its conjuring Joyce’s voice in Dante’s stanzas, closing the poem with invocation and instruction, the ghost telling the poet “You’ve listened long enough. Now strike your note.”

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Dec 11 2021

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye by Alan Dean Foster

It’s 1978. There is only one Star Wars movie, and it doesn’t have a subtitle or an episode number. Star Wars is still playing in some movie theaters, more than a year after its release. There are a ton of toys, and fans are busily imagining what their beloved characters were up to before and after the events of the movie (well, American fans mostly, Star Wars did not premiere in the UK until late December of 1977, and it took even longer to arrive elsewhere), but as far as official Star Wars stories go that was it. Until Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was published in March 1978. With that cover!

Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Darth Vader dominates Ralph McQuarrie‘s painting. Vader has the drop on Luke and Leia, standing atop a pile of rubble between stone two columns with a misty forest in the background. Something bright and red and glowing is in the middle of the pile, commanding a viewer’s attention almost as much as Vader does. What’s happening? How did they get to where they are? I still find the cover and the title almost as irresistible as I did when I first bought the paperback way back in the days before the Empire struck back.

A copy recently made its way to me, a Del Rey paperback with a cover price of $1.95 and an ad in the back to mail-order books by Robert A. Heinlein, 50¢ to cover postage and handling, please allow four weeks for delivery. I hadn’t read Splinter of the Mind’s Eye in at least thirty years, more likely forty. Had the Suck Fairy paid a visit? I mentioned it on social media, and replies ran the gamut — liked it, couldn’t get into it, anticipation followed by disappointment, loved it (but how did Luke learn to swim while growing up on Tatooine?), it always sucked — but nobody said they had read it recently.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/11/splinter-of-the-minds-eye-by-alan-dean-foster/

Dec 10 2021

Cardboardia Vol 1: The Other Side Of The Box by Richard Fairgray and Lucy Campagnolo

This delightful adventure follows four young friends (or three young friends and one pesky younger sister, according to at least one of our foursome) as they’re drawn into the strange and wonderful realm of Cardboardia, there to serve as heroes or villains, depending on whom you ask.

If you ask our four protagonists, ofc, they’ll all claim to land firmly on the hero side, even as they all have very different personalities and ways of coping with their lives back in the real world. Pokey Stilton is the youngest, the pesky little sister to Mac, the quiet, troubled one who may have been the very first to get a glimpse into what Cardboardia has to offer and why. Pokey’s certainly the most eager explorer of this odd new place, after getting separated from the responsible, if hardly straitlaced enough for her conservative parents, Maisie. The fourth member of their group is the even-keeled Bird, whose calm temperament comes from a lifetime of dealing with his own rambunctious siblings.

Mac, Bird and Maisie are all classmates who are planning a sleepover that Pokey also desperately wants to attend, but when Pokey and Maisie accidentally stumble into Cardboardia while at school one day, all thoughts of sleepovers are banished from their minds. When an accident shoves Maisie back into the real world without Pokey, Maisie must recruit the boys to help her rescue the younger girl. Weirdly, everyone in Cardboardia keeps staring at the trio as they begin their search for Pokey, and they soon discover why. Apparently, they’re on a Most Wanted list. But whose list is this and why have they deemed the kids public enemies?

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Dec 09 2021

If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich

Funny story, I actually had a brief Twitter conversation with the very lovely Sophie Gonzales about this book and how, while it is a romance, it isn’t a rom-com, as many are expecting. I thought this misapprehension was due to a combination of the cartoon-y cover and the glowing blurbs that all accentuate how light and adorbs it is — the kind of stuff you’d see in the marketing for a rom-com. And now I’ve read the book, and can confirm that while there are definitely humorous parts in the prose (mostly courtesy of Angel and Jon,) this book is definitely on the more serious side of YA romance.

Essentially, Ruben and Zach are members, with the afore-mentioned Angel and Jon, of the mega-selling boy band Saturday. Ruben has been told by Chorus Management, the company that basically runs Saturday’s entire existence, to stay in the closet despite being openly gay for years. Since each of the boys in the band is meant to fit an appealing archetype, Ruben acquiesces, comfortably enough filling the Nice Guy role while wishing he had more chances to showcase his vocal abilities. The Nice Guy, ofc, doesn’t get the starring roles, despite the stage-trained Ruben easily having the best vocal range of the group. Chorus assures him that this is all temporary but Ruben is starting to have his doubts.

Zach is the Bad Boy, tho in reality he’s the quiet one with the dream of becoming a singer-songwriter in the vein of the pop punk bands he admires. Alas that Chorus prefers to go with more easily palatable pop music for Saturday’s repertoire. But they do encourage him to keep writing, in hopes of eventually snagging some songwriting credits. Zach is also straight… he thinks. When he finds himself attracted to Ruben, he starts having to reevaluate everything he thought he knew about himself, as well as everything he thought he’d be able to put up with as the price of being part of Saturday.

As Ruben and Zach fall in love, the pressures to keep their relationship quiet and not rock the boat begin to get to them, even as the pressures of being in a boy band start to wear on all its members. With media rumors rife about (fake) feuds and (even faker) girlfriends, can the four guys who originally started Saturday out of friendship and a shared love of music find a way to hold on to their bond and their band without losing their integrity?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/09/if-this-gets-out-by-sophie-gonzales-and-cale-dietrich/

Dec 08 2021

The Loud House Special: Love Out Loud by The Loud House Creative Team

It’s always a delight to catch up with the Loud House comics, even if I do have to re-read the cast of characters intro each time to make sure I know who’s who before plunging in!

This volume is dedicated to love in all its forms, whether it be romantic, familial, platonic or platonic wanting to be more. From Lucy feeling sad at not getting a card from her sister Leni, to Luna and her girlfriend writing shmoopy songs together, to Lalo trying to make a new friend at the dog park, this was a wonderfully broad and inclusive look at the way love improves our lives, with more than a dose of The Loud House’s trademark humor. The stories are all short sketches but pack a lot in, not only of the Loud family’s tales, but also scenes from the lives of the Casagrandes, Changs and McBrides.

The art is in keeping with the cartoon shows and, as always, it sometimes takes me a minute to differentiate between all the many blondes. I think I’m finally getting familiar enough to figure out the rest of who’s who without needing to think too hard or head back to the introduction to decode them tho! And that isn’t the fault of the art at all: there are just so many characters here, as there would be in real life, which adds to the fun realism of the series.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/08/the-loud-house-special-love-out-loud-by-the-loud-house-creative-team/

Dec 07 2021

Her Second Death by Melinda Leigh

Her Second Death is a kick-ass short story introduction to Melinda Leigh’s on-going Bree Taggart mystery series. It takes place just days after Detective Taggart’s transfer to the Homicide division of the Philadelphia Police Department. And while this is the first official homicide she’s been assigned to — and is, in fact, her second case with this department — it’s far from the first homicide she’s ever been involved with.

What that was and how it impacted her life and career form a large part of this wonderfully dense short story, that packs a whole lot of mystery into fewer than fifty pages. It also provides a lot of excellent character work both for Detective Taggart and her highly experienced, no-nonsense new partner Detective Dana Romano, as they’re called out to investigate the shooting death of one James Tyson, found shot in the head in his car one cold December morning. This story really whetted my appetite for more in the Bree Taggart series, which I’ve now added to my never-ending To Be Read pile.

We here at the Frumious Consortium are so honored and pleased to be able to kick off the book tour for this terrific short story. Keep reading for an excerpt, as well as for an Amazon giveaway!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/07/her-second-death-by-melinda-leigh/