Jul 08 2022
I’ve had time to think about it, and tho this final installment of the RPG-nerd series made me cry, it also made me kind of mad, and this is why: there’s a bizarrely “time to put away childish things” overtone to the ending that really irritated me. Kieron Gillen was trying to tread a fine …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/08/die-vol-4-bleed-by-kieron-gillen-stephanie-hans-clayton-cowles/
Jul 06 2022
I think Doug liked this one a lot more than I did. Lynesse Fourth Daughter is a princess who still believes in the old chivalric tales of courage and oaths. When the lands adjoining her mother’s Lanessite Empire are overrun by what the refugees refer to as demons, she chafes at the prevailing wisdom that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/06/elder-race-by-adrian-tchaikovsky-2/
Jul 03 2022
Becky Chambers dedicates A Psalm for the Wild-Built to “anybody who could use a break,” and the novella is, on the whole, very restful. It’s not without conflict, but it is a break from the grim, from the horrible, and it shows people trying to be their best selves. That’s not easy, and one person’s …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/03/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built-by-becky-chambers/
Jun 21 2022
Across the Green Grass Fields is the first of Seanan McGuire‘s Wayward Children series that I have read that’s entirely waywardness, and I liked it that way. There’s no mention of Eleanor West’s Home, nor do any of the characters from the previous five novellas in the series appear. I didn’t miss them at all, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/21/across-the-green-grass-fields-by-seanan-mcguire/
Jun 20 2022
This is one of those books that I can appreciate, even if I don’t like it. And there’s a lot to like here, so maybe it’s just a me thing. I just… I feel like Cat Valente has a lot to process in terms of abuse and marriage, and that her issues spill out way …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/20/the-past-is-red-by-catherynne-m-valente/
Jun 15 2022
Oooh, Bridgette with a sword on the cover, y’all! Inside however, as in prior installments, good old Gran is more comfortable with a gun, using it to good, if horrifying, effect when the titular parliament of magpies comes calling, bearing ominous news. She immediately calls her grandson, the reluctantly heroic Duncan, who says he’ll call …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/15/once-future-vol-3-the-parliament-of-magpies-by-kieron-gillen-dan-mora-tamra-bonvillain/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/14/hugo-awards-2022-best-novelette-nominee/
Jun 12 2022
Elder Race offers an extended meditation on Clarke’s Third Law, some thoughts on cultural contamination that are not new but are important to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s characters, all wrapped up in a fast-paced adventure of swords and sufficiently advanced technology. The novella is set on Sophos 4, a planet colonized by humans during the first interstellar …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/12/elder-race-by-adrian-tchaikovsky/
Jun 11 2022
Forbidden love between two princesses. Forbidden not because they are both women, but because they are princesses, and relations between their two states are tense and unequal. Thanh is a princess of Bình Hải, in the south, nominally superior to its northern neighbor but falling back in relative power because of the neighbor’s greater access …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/11/fireheart-tiger-by-aliette-de-bodard/
Jun 09 2022
Myth, starfaring bots, near-future Nigeria, fell fae, artistic immortals and the magic of the mind all feature in the 2022 Hugo finalists in the category of Best Novelette. “Bots of the Lost Ark” by Suzanne Palmer sets its story on a large interstellar ship that just barely survived an encounter with hostile aliens and is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/09/hugo-awards-2022-best-novelette/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire