Jun 26 2023
The fourth in Neil Boyd‘s Bless Me, Father series finds the irascible Father Duddleswell laid up with lumbago just as the priest with whom Duddleswell began his career settles in for an extended visit. Father Abe — most definitely not Father Abraham, with seven sons — is getting on in years, but still sly and not …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/26/father-under-fire-by-neil-boyd/
Jun 19 2023
By mid-1916, British forces fighting in Europe have mastered the logistics of spiritualism well enough to gain occasional tactical advantages in the never-ending trench warfare of the Western Front. Men die; they report in to the Spirit Corps; the knowledge that they bought with their lives — a sniper’s location here, a hidden advance there, a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/19/ghost-talkers-by-mary-robinette-kowal/
Jun 18 2023
Two novellas in the world of The Last Unicorn? Yes, please. “Two Hearts,” the first, is closer in tone to Beagle’s classic novel. Sooz, who is nine when the story begins, tells of what happens when the griffin who has settled into her village’s woods stops eating sheep and goats, and starts taking away children …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/18/the-way-home-by-peter-s-beagle/
Jun 17 2023
In Apex City, known in former centuries as Bangalore, meritocracy and sound scientific management principles have produced a city that has not only survived the environmental catastrophes, it is home to thriving humanity and extraordinary individuals extending what is humanly possible in many fields of endeavor. In the Virtual society inside Apex City, seventy percent …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/17/the-ten-percent-thief-by-lavanya-lakshminarayan/
Jun 04 2023
It’s not difficult to guess Orlando Figes’ brief for The Story of Russia: write a history of Russia, accessible to the interested and educated public, acceptable to specialists; keep it under 300 pages; emphasize links between Russia’s deeper past and the government of Vladimir Putin. There is value in the book’s relative brevity, though I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/04/the-story-of-russia-by-orlando-figes/
Jun 03 2023
Well, I was charmed. What do D&D adventurers do when they’ve decided that they’ve quested their last quest and crawled their last dungeon? In the case of Viv, the orc barbarian who’s ready to hang up her greatsword Blackblood, her heart’s desire is to bring to the city of Thune the wonders of a fabled …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/03/legends-lattes-by-travis-baldree/
May 21 2023
In contrast to Doreen, I do not feel perfectly suited to review Black Water Sister. I’m basically none of the things that the protagonist is, starting with Malaysian and ending with haunted by my maternal grandmother’s ghost. (To be clear, Doreen is not haunted by her grandmother’s ghost either. As far as I know.) None …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/05/21/black-water-sister-by-zen-cho-2/
May 20 2023
Forest of Memory, a novella from 2016, finds Mary Robinette Kowal writing in a very different mode from her two well-known series, the Glamourist Histories and the Lady Astronaut books. Two hundred or so years into the future, material abundance and pervasive interconnection have left some very wealthy people hungering for the real, for the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/05/20/forest-of-memory-by-mary-robinette-kowal/
May 14 2023
What If?, this book’s predecessor, hit the sweet spot of serious science mixed up with deadpan presentation, and proved a (periodically dangerous) garden of delights. The second book exploring “serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions” does just that, boggling and amusing in nearly equal measure. If the leitmotif of the first volume is “What …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/05/14/what-if-2-by-randall-munroe/
May 05 2023
I wrote about Whispers Under Ground that I found the Rivers of London comfort reading, despite the uncanny events, the grisly murders, and the hints about horrible history in British magic. Broken Homes shows that I can still count on a narrator I enjoy spending time with, that there will be adventures and scrapes, and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/05/05/broken-homes-by-ben-aaronovitch-2/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire