June 2020 archive

The Wicked + The Divine Vol. 9: Okay by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson & Clayton Cowles

Semi-tangent before I get into my review: my 9 year-old and I have taken to saying “okay” to each other in the voice of Princess Daisy from Super Mario Party. It’s a weird in-joke. My kid is the best. Anyhoo, I had to sit and think about this volume for a while before I could …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/30/the-wicked-the-divine-vol-9-okay-by-kieron-gillen-jamie-mckelvie-matt-wilson-clayton-cowles/

The Wicked + The Divine Vol. 5-8 by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson & Clayton Cowles

Post the stunning story arc of Vols 1-4, our Pantheon has now entered their Imperial Phase, at the height of their powers and looking down at a slow decline towards death. With Ananke out of the picture, the surviving gods are free to do as they please… or is there more afoot than our troubled …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/29/the-wicked-the-divine-vol-5-8-by-kieron-gillen-jamie-mckelvie-matt-wilson-clayton-cowles/

The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Fated Sky

Pacing, and the parts of the story not told, shape The Fated Sky the second book in Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronauts series. The Calculating Stars ended with Elma York, the series’ first-person narrator, on her way to the moon. By the beginning of The Fated Sky, there is a colony on the moon with …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/28/the-fated-sky-by-mary-robinette-kowal/

Die Schule der Nackten by Ernst Augustin

You have better things to do with your time than read this book, or at least the latter two-thirds of it. The first-person narrator, Alexander, is interesting, and a bit odd in an interesting way. He’s a historian of sorts, unattached to any academic institute, specializing in the ancient Near East: Chaldean studies, Aramaic studies, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/27/die-schule-der-nackten-by-ernst-augustin/

Die Rumplhanni by Lena Christ

Die Rumplhanni

Rural Bavaria at the outbreak of the Great War still moved to the rhythms of nature and the seasons. Village life revolved around the inn, the smithy, and the farms that surrounded both. Generations shared the same house, the young people paired up early and had little choice but to stick together, and families kept …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/26/die-rumplhanni-by-lena-christ/

The Wicked + The Divine: Vol. 1-4 by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson & Clayton Cowles

I had the weirdest visceral reaction after reading the first four volumes of this comic book and that is this: I felt young again, like a 20-something again, all over-sexed and full of energy and the certainty that I’m being misunderstood. Reading The Wicked + The Divine reminded me of waiting outside clubs in the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/26/the-wicked-the-divine-vol-1-4-by-kieron-gillen-jamie-mckelvie-matt-wilson-clayton-cowles/

Paper Girls Vol. 6 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matthew Wilson & Jared K Fletcher

Oh, it’s over? I don’t want it to be. So this is the final volume of the time-traveling adventures of four badass paper girls who originally meet as 12 year-olds the morning after Halloween, while delivering newspapers in their small town of Stony Stream, Ohio. After getting shunted through time in four separate directions at …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/25/paper-girls-vol-6-by-brian-k-vaughan-cliff-chiang-matthew-wilson-jared-k-fletcher/

Paper Girls Vol. 1-5 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matthew Wilson & Jared K. Fletcher

Imagine if the D&D-playing nerds of Stranger Things were four badass girls with paper routes, and you’ll get a decent idea of where this comic book series begins. Tho, tbf, this setting feels less Stranger Things than (at least the roleplaying version of) Tales From The Loop, as its 80s setting is of a decidedly …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/24/paper-girls-vol-1-5-by-brian-k-vaughan-cliff-chiang-matthew-wilson-jared-k-fletcher/

In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children #4) by Seanan McGuire

Oh, that was a hot mess. One reason that the rest of the books in the Wayward Children series have worked for me, despite my misgivings regarding certain of Seanan McGuire’s narrative choices (e.g. the blanket disdain for parents in Every Heart A Doorway, the idolization of The Baker in Beneath The Sugar Sky, the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/23/in-an-absent-dream-wayward-children-4-by-seanan-mcguire/

The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes

Would I have liked this more were we not at a point in time where the news is so saturated in Black pain that reading entertainment that centers that just feels like too much? It’s not that I want to turn my back on the Black experience, but I am definitely at the point where …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/22/the-deep-by-rivers-solomon-daveed-diggs-william-hutson-jonathan-snipes/