Tag: Short Stories
Weirdly, given how I love and devour mystery novels, I have never really been into reading Sherlock pastiches. For that matter, I’ve never been a huge fan of the source material, having read the originals only insofar as they were available to me in the library of a paternal uncle whom my family visited in …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/23/a-study-in-brimstone-warlock-holmes-1-by-g-s-denning/
So for real, Binti is a terrific character and the setting is amazing and the way Nnedi Okorafor builds a whole universe and sci-fi system is breathtakingly good considering the novella doesn’t even break a hundred pages but Jesus fuck, I was not okay with how the Meduse were deferred to. They did something to …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/09/binti-binti-1-by-nnedi-okorafor/
I didn’t even know this existed till I stumbled across a free Kindle copy. It’s really a novella (about 80 pages) of what happens when Tom and Huck get entangled in a murder mystery, based on an actual case that Mark Twain freely admits to using in the opening paragraphs. It’s an entertaining story set …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/03/tom-sawyer-detective-by-mark-twain/
This book is easily split into two parts, perhaps three. The first four stories are overtly supernatural and horrific, having to do with a fabled play, The King In Yellow, and its unhappy effects on its readers. The second bit transitions away from TKIY, seguing from horror and romance to horrors of a different sort …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/03/07/the-king-in-yellow-by-robert-w-chambers/
A solid collection of stories, some better than others, but none, if I’m being quite honest, really a groundbreaker. My favorites were likely The Inn Of The Seven Blessings by Matthew Hughes (whom I’d never heard of before) and Tawny Petticoats by Michael Swanwick (whose Mongolian Wizard series I adore!) The non-fantastic entries were, I …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/05/rogues-edited-by-george-r-r-martin-and-gardner-dozois/
I was initially resistant towards reading this book. If it was bad, I would feel a certain kind of “malu,” the nearly indescribable shade of embarrassment Malaysians feel when one of their own commits a faux pas, akin but not quite the same as the East Asian concept of losing “face.” And if it was …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/08/18/spirits-abroad-by-zen-cho/
The Third Bear is a somewhat unsettling collection of short stories by Jeff VanderMeer. I’ve been trying to find a way to classify this book, and it’s defying me. The stories within range from bizarre to creepy to unnerving, and they took my mind to pictures and ideas that I wouldn’t normally have found on …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/01/11/the-third-bear-by-jeff-vandermeer/
Wow, I remembered so very little this re-read from the last (which was, granted, nigh on two decades ago.) The two stories that did stir memories, though faint, are likely the ones I will continue to remember, Ann Bridge’s “The Buick Saloon” and Marghanita Laski’s “The Tower”, both for the unflinching cruelty done to the …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/11/09/the-penguin-book-of-ghost-stories-edited-by-j-a-cuddon/
Dear short story collection, It’s not you, it’s me. I only knew Vladimir Nabokov from his exquisite Lolita, a tale which, if not quintessentially American, conjures a sort of louche Riviera frame of mind, and I think that’s what I expected from you, too. I hadn’t expected quite so much Russianness, though that wasn’t so …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/11/01/the-stories-of-vladimir-nabokov-by-vladimir-nabokov/
I recently finished the Dark Tower series, which is mostly fantasy rather than horror, so I had forgotten how utterly creepy Stephen King’s imagination can be. I had been of the opinion that King peaked in the 80’s and had lost his touch since then, but this collection of stories has forced me to revise …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2013/09/28/nightmares-and-dreamscapes-by-stephen-king/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire