What if people took Plato’s Republic seriously enough to attempt putting it into practice? What if two of those people were the Greek deities Apollo and Athena, who have the power to make Plato’s implausible starting conditions real? Those are the premises underlying The Just City by Jo Walton. The Olympians, as Walton describes them, …
Tag: Fantasy
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/27/the-just-city-by-jo-walton/
Apr 17 2016
Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett
Fourteen books into Discworld, Lords and Ladies is the first time Terry Pratchett deemed it necessary to put in a note connecting the event in the book at hand to a previous volume. It hasn’t hurt that I have been reading them in order of publication, but it hasn’t been particularly necessary either. And in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/17/lords-and-ladies-by-terry-pratchett/
Mar 23 2016
The Paper Magician by Charlie N Holmberg
A rather slight novel given the rather amazing magic system on display. I love the fact that magicians can manipulate man-made objects but bond to only one category, and thought the pseudo-Victorian era intriguing, but thought there was a lot of fast and loose played with the society’s rules. Ceony’s journey through the heart was …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/03/23/the-paper-magician-by-charlie-n-holmberg/
Feb 23 2016
Mistborn: Secret History by Brandon Sanderson
Immediately upon finishing Bands Of Mourning, I went to Amazon and purchased this novella. Now, everyone will warn you that you can’t read this book without having read the entirety of the first Mistborn trilogy, and I am no different. But I will further recommend that you read this soon after reading those books, because …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/02/23/mistborn-secret-history-by-brandon-sanderson/
Feb 22 2016
Bands Of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
Just Goddamnit, Brandon Sanderson, why are you so good?!?! HOW are you so good?! I spent far too much time yelling at the book like it was an Arsenal match, it was that engaging. At one point, I pounded my fists on the table with rage. Really terrific installment. The Mistborn series just gets better …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/02/22/bands-of-mourning-by-brandon-sanderson/
Feb 09 2016
Brayan’s Gold by Peter V. Brett
Brayan’s Gold is a novella that forms part of the back story for the main character in a set of novels by Peter V. Brett, which I have not read. It began as a reference tossed into the first of those, “reminding people that Arlen had a ton of adventures back when he was young …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/02/09/brayans-gold-by-peter-v-brett/
Feb 08 2016
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
After looking at the power of stories in Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett turns to some of the greatest stories ever told: religions, and, somewhat more incidentally, philosophy. Small Gods, the thirteenth Discworld novel, takes place in and around Omnia, an austere land on the edge of a great desert. The church of the Great God …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/02/08/small-gods-by-terry-pratchett/
Jan 08 2016
Shadows Of Self by Brandon Sanderson
This guy. Seriously, Brandon Sanderson is the kind of author all professional writers should aspire to be. You’d think that the quality of his output would suffer given the discipline he adheres to in producing it, but no: all his books are intelligent, creative, wildly entertaining and filled with his distinctive sense of humanity and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/08/shadows-of-self-by-brandon-sanderson/
Oct 27 2015
Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
Teresa Nielsen Hayden has observed that while plot is a literary convention, story is a force of nature. In Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett explores some of the things that can happen when these forces of nature latch on to people in his most unnatural of settings. People think that stories are shaped by people. In …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/27/witches-abroad-by-terry-pratchett/
Oct 21 2015
New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear
There isn’t a zeppelin on the cover to let readers know this is an alternate history, but by way of making up for it, Elizabeth Bear sets the book’s first story on board hydrogen-filled German airship. The Hans Glücker is on its way from Calais to the jewel of British North America, the eponymous New …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/21/new-amsterdam-by-elizabeth-bear/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire