Jul 04 2017
Raven Stratagem picks up right where Ninefox Gambit left off, with the star-spanning hexarchate facing threats from within and without: internal heretics who threaten to disrupt the tight control of time that enables faster-than-light travel and other sufficiently advanced technologies, external aliens bent on conquest. A swarm sent by Kel Command, the highest authority of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/07/04/raven-stratagem-by-yoon-ha-lee/
Jun 29 2017
I’ve finished marking up my Hugo ballot for 2017, and I’m satisfied with where my votes have gone. That doesn’t mean I have finished reading everything that’s on the ballot — far from it — but I have done enough in each work that I am going to read to have a sense of how …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/29/hugo-voting-2017/
Jun 21 2017
This Census-Taker, by China Miéville, did not add up for me. If it were not a Hugo finalist, if I had not read and liked close to half a dozen of his other works, I would have pronounced the Eight Deadly Words and set the book aside. Miéville is aiming for the mythic, but mythic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/21/this-census-taker-by-china-mieville/
Jun 17 2017
In an alternate universe, I’m a professional fiction author and Pierce Brown and I have beautiful literary babies together. I mean, what greater compliment can I give this series? It’s smart and beautiful and moving. It examines the compromises of society, and the ethics of war and love, and does it all with a stunning …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/17/golden-son-red-rising-2-by-pierce-brown/
Jun 08 2017
Maybe this book just suffers in comparison with the very excellent Ms Marvel that I’d also recently finished reading, but as a space opera, I felt it only really took off (if you’ll pardon the horrible pun) in the last two issues. Everything before that was mildly interesting but not compelling, though Rocket Raccoon’s reaction …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/08/captain-marvel-marvel-now-1-by-kelly-sue-deconnick-david-lopez/
May 25 2017
“As if Cordwainer Smith had written a Warhammer novel.” That blurb sold me on Ninefox Gambit. Even so, I almost bounced off of it in the first chapter. In terms of the blurb, too much Warhammer; in terms of my taste in reading, it felt too much like simple-minded war-glorifying fiction. Boom, boom! Pew! Pew! …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/25/ninefox-gambit-by-yoon-ha-lee/
May 24 2017
The important information on this book’s cover is the subtitle, Conversations with Robert Silverberg. Traveler of Worlds is entirely a set of interviews with Silverberg, who recently passed 80 years of age. He’s one of the grand old men of science fiction; he has attended every Hugo award ceremony; he was incredibly prolific back in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/24/traveler-of-worlds-by-alvaro-zinos-amaro/
May 22 2017
The two main characters of A Closed and Common Orbit are learning what it is to be human. That’s not quire correct in one case; maybe it would be more correct to say that each is learning what it is like to be a person, with a fairly wide definition of what “person” means. They …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/22/a-closed-and-common-orbit-by-becky-chambers/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/20/the-tomato-thief-by-ursula-vernon/
May 08 2017
One of the things I particularly liked about All the Birds in the Sky is how Charlie Jane Anders chose to break up the story. It’s a two-sided, save-the-world story, and all of the basics are there: interesting leads, good counterparts, quick pacing, fun dialog, and so forth. She’s strong enough on the essentials even …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/08/all-the-birds-in-the-sky-by-charlie-jane-anders/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire