Jan 14 2020
What’d I miss? The voters of the 2018 Worldcon awarded The Stone Sky the Hugo award for best novel, the first time in the award’s history that any author had won for best novel three years in a row, and also the first time that all three parts of a trilogy had won in that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/01/14/the-stone-sky-by-n-k-jemisin/
Jan 07 2020
I guess you don’t have to come into this having already read Tessa Gratton’s The Queens Of Innis Lear, but I’m betting it would be super helpful. And I say that as someone who spent a lot of time looking up both that novel as well as the Shakespearean plays that inspired them (Henry IV …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/01/07/lady-hotspur-by-tessa-gratton/
Nov 11 2019
Wow, this was probably my most disappointing read this year so far. After reading L. L. McKinney’s really terrific short story in the Wonderland anthology, I felt compelled to look her up, and found the listing for this novel in my library’s e-collection. I nearly swooned at the awesome cover, and the description (Buffy meets …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/11/a-blade-so-black-the-nightmare-verse-1-by-l-l-mckinney/
Nov 03 2019
I hate to damn The Fall of the Kings with faint praise because it’s fine, really it is. It’s just that this book follows the perfect Swordspoint and the extremely good The Privilege of the Sword, and while The Fall of the Kings is an interesting combination of a university novel in a fantastic setting …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/03/the-fall-of-the-kings-by-ellen-kushner-and-delia-sherman/
Nov 03 2019
Ngl, I totally picked up this book based on its cover, after my library website algorithms decided it was a good recommendation. I mean, honestly, just look at that cover! So charming! So irresistible! The novel itself is slight and targeted towards middle-grade readers. It’s alright. The world-building is mild: essentially, a bunch of fairy …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/03/flunked-fairy-tale-reform-school-1-by-jen-calonita/
Oct 26 2019
Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series takes place mostly in an England that’s a republic a Wales that’s a socialist republic; of Scotland there is practically no mention, though I cannot say whether that is a comment or happenstance. The Crimean War was still being fought in 1985, and there are various other bits of history …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/26/the-woman-who-died-a-lot-by-jasper-fforde/
Oct 19 2019
I gave myself a few days to properly mull over this book, and you guys. My biggest impression still is “that’s not okay.” First, stylistically (thematically?), I really, really hated that N. K. Jemisin veered away from the hard sci-fi of the first novel to get all fake(?) magicky. Honestly, when Alabaster (still hate that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/19/the-obelisk-gate-the-broken-earth-2-by-n-k-jemisin/
Oct 15 2019
One of the unusual things that Naomi Novik does in Spinning Silver — so unusual, in fact, that I can’t think of another fantasy book that does it — is to state that some of her main characters are Jews. The first chapter lays out the hints: the characters are moneylenders in a small town whose …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/15/spinning-silver-by-naomi-novik/
Oct 15 2019
This was such a surprisingly grounded, even-handed look at revolution and its toll, emotional and material, on the survivors. While very much a cross between the Harry Potter and Red Rising books — except with dragons instead of magic or advanced technology — it felt at its heart closer akin to Jo Walton’s The Just …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/15/fireborne-the-aurelian-cycle-1-by-rosaria-munda/
Oct 05 2019
It’s a happy coincidence that whenever I get a break from covering new fiction, there’s an installment of the Three Dark Crowns series waiting for me from the public library. It’s like it’s meant to be or something! Anyway, this novella looks back at formative chapters of the early lives of our three queens of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/05/the-young-queens-three-dark-crowns-0-2-by-kendare-blake/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire