Aug 08 2021
Naomi Novik opens A Deadly Education with what ought to be a perfect narrative hook: “I decided Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life.” (p, 3) Who’s speaking? Who’s Orion? Why does the narrator want to kill him? And why the second time he saved the narrator’s life? The narrator …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/08/a-deadly-education-by-naomi-novik/
Jul 25 2021
I loved “The City Born Great,” the 2016 short story (and 2017 Hugo finalist) that was the seed of this novel. “The conceit of the story is that great human cities have a life of their own. Maybe that life awakens quickly, maybe it takes centuries or millennia, but at some point the genius loci …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/07/25/the-city-we-became-by-n-k-jemisin/
Jun 06 2021
Since the last time I looked in on Murderbot, it has become more secure in its freedom and found something like a home among the people of the Preservation Alliance. Preservation, as it is known throughout Network Effect, is something of a post-scarcity utopia, an interstellar polity posed as a counterpoint to Murderbot’s area of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/06/network-effect-by-martha-wells/
May 31 2021
The Relentless Moon, the third book in Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronauts series, changes locales and first-person narrator from the first two books, The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. Nicole Wargin is also one of the original astronauts, and in early 1963 as The Relentless Moon opens, she is both an old Moon hand …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/31/the-relentless-moon-by-mary-robinette-kowal/
Mar 17 2021
I’m so glad I managed to sneak in this novella between work assignments! It’s a swift read, tho the first few pages require the reader to make several quick adjustments as Nghi Vo drops us directly into her Asian-inspired milieu. It’s well worth it tho, as Ms Vo packs a whole lot more into this …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/17/the-empress-of-salt-and-fortune-the-singing-hills-cycle-1-by-nghi-vo/
Dec 31 2020
How would a sword-and-sorcery author who basically wanted to have a hell of a lot of fun write in the twenty-first century? They’d write like Tamsyn Muir does in Gideon the Ninth, I think. “In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!—Gideon Nav packed …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/31/gideon-the-ninth-by-tamsyn-muir/
Dec 06 2020
Bro! As has been said before, Beowulf is a poem that forces translators to show their style from the very first word. That word in the original is “Hwæt,” an Old English attention grabber, and how translators render it tells a lot about what’s coming in the rest of the poem. Will the version lean …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/06/beowulf-translated-by-maria-dahvana-headley/
Sep 01 2020
Happy September, readers! We’re starting off the month with a slate of great books, including this one. ~~~~~~~ My only complaint about A Closed And Common Orbit is that it didn’t reunite us with the crew of the Wayfarer who featured so endearingly in the first novel of the series, A Long Way To A …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/09/01/a-closed-and-common-orbit-wayfarers-2-by-becky-chambers/
Jul 28 2020
I need P Djeli Clark to write me some meaty 300+ page books! He’s definitely doing great things with shorter works: 2019’s The Haunting Of Tram Car 015 felt fully realized despite its brevity, and I can only imagine that this year’s Ring Shout will only showcase his increasing command of the novella form. Unfortunately, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/28/the-black-gods-drums-by-p-djeli-clark-2/
Jul 22 2020
Finished reading this last Hugo nominee for Best Novel right before the buzzer, and wow is my brain tired! So many interesting concepts and some really great, fun writing throughout the many books and stories I’ve covered for/off this slate. My right eye is still twitching even as I type these words, tho some of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/22/middlegame-middlegame-1-by-seanan-mcguire/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire