This book reads like a corporate war manga as told from the perspective of the plucky ace/aro civilian sidekick who’s the bridge between the corporate super soldiers/heroes and the public kept in the dark about what the evil megacorps are doing, both to the super soldiers (called SpecOps here and given only numbers as identifiers) …
Tag: Science Fiction
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/07/firebreak-by-nicole-kornher-stace/
Apr 19 2021
Astro Mouse And Light Bulb #1: Vs Astro Chicken by Fermín Solís
In the absurdist tradition of Sergio Aragones comes the work of his compatriot Fermín Solís, who goes forward in time instead of back a la Aragones’ Groo to bring us the adventures of Astro Mouse, a mouse who’s an astronaut, and his companion Light Bulb. The comic starts off quite cleverly, as our heroes are …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/19/astro-mouse-and-light-bulb-1-vs-astro-chicken-by-fermin-solis/
Apr 01 2021
Chargés d’Affaires by Cordwainer Smith
When Cordwainer Smith first began publishing stories in the early 1950s, the genre was much further from the mainstream than it is today. Writing for magazines such as Galaxy or Worlds of If would have been considered extremely odd for one of America’s leading experts on psychological warfare and a Johns Hopkins professor of Asiatic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/01/charges-daffaires-by-cordwainer-smith/
Mar 31 2021
Down World by Rebecca Phelps
And here I thought I’d broken my streak of being grumpy with the science in speculative fiction novels! Granted, my last read, Oliver K Langmead’s terrific Birds Of Paradise, never pretended at being scientific, to its credit. But here I am reviewing another novel with half-baked scientific ideas that could have just been hand-waved entirely …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/31/down-world-by-rebecca-phelps/
Mar 19 2021
Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley
The most rational part of my brain understands exactly what I’ve just experienced with this book, but every other part of me, the emotional, the lizard brain, the higher consciousness etc. is absolutely 100% going, “What the fuck did I just read?!” and not in a bad way either. Inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/19/skyward-inn-by-aliya-whiteley/
Mar 05 2021
Forget Me Not by Alexandra Oliva
A genre-bending novel, when done right, can really reshape the way we think about what’s possible both in fiction and in real life. Much like Sara Faring’s The Tenth Girl, this layered blend of literary genres has the reader reconsidering the processes of our everyday existence, what it takes to live in (or buck) the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/05/forget-me-not-by-alexandra-oliva/
Mar 01 2021
Machinehood by S. B. Divya
Set at the end of the 21st century, this sci-fi novel follows the stories of two sisters-in-law who will both prove pivotal in the fight against the terrorist organization known as the Machinehood. Eighty years from now, people are heavily reliant on technology and weak artificial intelligences (known as WAIs) to perform the most mundane …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/01/machinehood-by-s-b-divya/
Feb 27 2021
The Swimmers by Marian Womack
It’s kind of hilarious how the back cover of this volume calls it a reimagining of Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea even as Marian Womack’s afterword candidly discusses how she doesn’t want to compare The Swimmers to what was for her a seminal text. And I can see for both arguments: the comparison is a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/02/27/the-swimmers-by-marian-womack/
Feb 25 2021
The Loosening Skin by Aliya Whiteley
I first read this novella over two years ago, courtesy of the lovely people at Unsung Stories, one of the finest British independent purveyors of weird fiction today. I very much enjoyed it at the time, so when Titan Books told me they were publishing it for the first time in America, I leapt at …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/02/25/the-loosening-skin-by-aliya-whiteley-2/
Feb 11 2021
The Future Is Yours by Dan Frey
The reading experience of this was really interesting to me: I spent maybe the first and last fifteen percent of the book deeply skeptical but was absolutely immersed in everything in between. The premise is simple, for a science fiction novel. Two best friends from college found a Silicon Valley startup after one of them …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/02/11/the-future-is-yours-by-dan-frey/
Al Singh
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Professor X
Robert Maedgen
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The Shire