Author's posts
This may easily be the most fascinating invented setting I’ve read for a murder mystery in ages, and that definitely includes the Anglo-Nordic nation Peter Spiegelman created for his excellent A Secret About A Secret. Imagine, if you will, a near-future world in which North America was never colonized by Europeans. Instead, the indigenous tribes …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/01/the-peacekeeper-the-good-lands-1-by-b-l-blanchard/
Wow, has this series grown on me! As with last year, I selected this title first of the Hugo nominees for Graphic Novel in hopes of getting it out of the way, but was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually does keep getting better from volume to volume. As always, an overwhelming amount happens …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/31/monstress-vol-6-the-vow-by-marjorie-m-liu-sana-takeda/
Oh my heart. This was one of the sweetest, most tender, yet still emotionally honest and unflinching middle grade novels I’ve yet had the privilege of reading. Little wonder that Varian Johnson has won so many awards with prose and plotting like this! Our hero is ten year-old Anthony “Ant” Joplin, who plans to team …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/26/playing-the-cards-youre-dealt-by-varian-johnson/
Hurray, only one more book to read and I’ll finally be done with the 2020 Hugos, glargh! So this was an interesting novel. Good, but I can see why I never hear of it outside of this nomination, even as plugged in as I generally am to publishing and particularly genre circles. The Vanished Birds …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/17/the-vanished-birds-by-simon-jimenez/
As the 20th century draws to a close, Sienna is intent on having one last perfect summer with her friends, who are all her co-workers at the Game Champ video game store. Sienna is a bit of a control freak, but she gets along fine most of the time with Art, the aspiring comic book …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/16/good-game-well-played-by-rachael-smith-katherine-lobo-justin-birch/
Oh gosh, I didn’t expect this to end on such a cliffhanger! I also didn’t expect this kind of visual design from a book aimed squarely at middle school kids. It’s seriously delightful, a clever mix of mid-century modern with the more expected kids’ doodles on graph paper. The illustrations throughout are entirely suited to …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/12/f-a-r-t-top-secret-no-kids-allowed-by-peter-bakalian/
The latest installment of this cute, kid-friendly comics series picks up soon after the events of the last book. Which, wow, came out two years ago! Time certainly flies! Interestingly, I feel that Art Baltazar’s style for this book has grown to take on a subtly more sophisticated cast in the intervening years. The art …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/11/gillbert-4-the-island-of-the-orange-turtles-by-art-baltazar/
I wanted to make it a point to finally be able to cover Cathy Yardley’s adorable romance novel Love, Comment, Subscribe for Asian American Pacific Islander Month, so here we are! The first book in the Ponto Beach Reunion series focuses on two former classmates, uptight Lily Wang and goofy Tobin Bui. Back in their …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/10/love-comment-subscribe-ponto-beach-reunion-1-by-cathy-yardley/
God, what a depressing book. And I don’t say that as a bad thing necessarily, tho I certainly wouldn’t recommend this for anyone in need of an emotional pick-me-up. And while this is a decidedly sad volume — what self-respecting book covering the often needless extinction of entire species wouldn’t be? — it also carries …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/05/atlas-of-extinct-animals-by-radek-maly-illustrated-by-jiri-grbavcic-pavel-dvorsky/
To be perfectly honest, I’m a little peeved that The Suicide Squad wasn’t nominated this year. It was by far the best superhero movie of 2021, even before launching the excellent Peacemaker series. Given what won last year’s award tho, I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised that my tastes differ so greatly from the …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/04/hugo-awards-2022-best-dramatic-presentation-long-form-nominees/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire