This book is fucking flawless and possibly the first time in recent years that a YA debut has deserved all the praise it receives. FLAWLESS, my friends, and easily one of the best fantasy/YA novels ever written. Raybearer opens on a young, love-starved girl named Tarisai who is brought up by servants in a secluded …
Category: Africa
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/25/raybearer-raybearer-1-by-jordan-ifueko/
Nov 20 2020
An Interview with T. C. Farren, author of The Book Of Malachi
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did The Book of Malachi evolve? A. I was living at a remove from society, feeling outrage at human cruelty and a dark, desperate humor at the time of writing TboM. Our suburb was close …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/20/an-interview-with-t-c-farren-author-of-the-book-of-malachi/
Jun 10 2020
LaGuardia by Nnedi Okorafor & Tana Ford
Yes, I am totally here for open border advocacy allegories, sci-fi tales that center non-white perspectives and experiences, and sly critiques of racism, overt or otherwise! Dr Freedom Chukwuebuka is five months pregnant when she abruptly leaves Lagos to return to New York City. She leaves behind a clinic where she treated both humans and …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/10/laguardia-by-nnedi-okorafor-tana-ford/
Apr 29 2020
The Colours of All the Cattle by Alexander McCall Smith
The back cover of The Colours of All the Cattle calls this book, the twentieth in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, “the one with the election.” Indeed, a special election for a seat on the Gabarone city council dominates the stories told in The Colours of All the Cattle. The council is closely …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/29/the-colours-of-all-the-cattle-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
Nov 02 2019
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
I’m pretty sure I would have liked this more if it had been more speculative fiction and less MFA. Thing is, it’s an entirely worthy book. If it wasn’t for Freshwater, I would have no idea what a non-binary trans person is, and I’m richer for having found out. But I didn’t find out from …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/02/freshwater-by-akwaeke-emezi/
Aug 03 2019
Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor
It’s nearly impossible to talk about Binti: The Night Masquerade without discussing elements of Binti and Binti: Home, so I am not even going to try. And to be honest, the best thing that happens in Binti: The Night Masquerade, from a storytelling perspective, is a plot surprise a bit more than halfway through the …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/08/03/binti-the-night-masquerade-by-nnedi-okorafor/
Jul 27 2019
Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor
Binti told the classic science fiction story of a talented young person from the hinterlands — and an outsider from an outsider people in those hinterlands — who gains admission to wider worlds by dint of talent and hard work. Unlike many of those stories, though, Binti’s is interrupted by violence and tragedy even before she …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/07/27/binti-home-by-nnedi-okorafor/
Jul 24 2019
The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
“The night in New Orleans always got something going on, ma maman used to say—like this city don’t know how to sleep.” (p. 7) It doesn’t, and neither does P. Djèlí Clark’s splendid, exciting, enchanting novella The Black God’s Drums. Clark’s first-person narrator, a slightly feral young woman named Creeper, makes her own way in …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/07/24/the-black-gods-drums-by-p-djeli-clark/
Jul 19 2019
Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo
Welcome to Lagos begins well outside of the Nigerian metropolis, at a hot and dirty army outpost somewhere in the Niger delta: oil country, but also rebel country. Serving under a corrupt colonel and terrorizing local people is not what Chike Ameobi signed up for the army to do. After twelve months as an officer …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/07/19/welcome-to-lagos-by-chibundu-onuzo/
May 31 2019
The House of Unexpected Sisters by Alexander McCall Smith
“That’s the mystery series where no one dies, right?” said Kid One. Yes it is, I said. “Well how can there be danger?” Ah, that’s the genius of this series, isn’t it? And oh, sweet youth, to think that death is the only kind of peril that’s strong enough to drive a story. Heartbreak, humiliation, …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/05/31/the-house-of-unexpected-sisters-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
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