Category: Post-Apocalypse

Life House by Pete Townshend, James Harvey, David Hine & Max Prentis

Ngl, reading this felt like what I imagine an acid trip would be like. I guess one good thing about it is that it made me want to listen to more of The Who’s music? Good thing this graphic novel is being released with an accompanying vinyl LP! (Link at the bottom, tho you can …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/01/18/life-house-by-pete-townshend-james-harvey-david-hine-max-prentis/

What If? 2 by Randall Munroe

What If 2 by Randall Munroe

What If?, this book’s predecessor, hit the sweet spot of serious science mixed up with deadpan presentation, and proved a (periodically dangerous) garden of delights. The second book exploring “serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions” does just that, boggling and amusing in nearly equal measure. If the leitmotif of the first volume is “What …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/05/14/what-if-2-by-randall-munroe/

Wrapping Up

The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag

Time for some short takes to clear the desk for the coming year. Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk. Nobel winner Tokarczuk uses very short chapters, each titled “The Time of …”, to depict life in an archetpyal Polish village from just before the outbreak of the First World War through the last years …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/30/wrapping-up-3/

The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2) by N.K. Jemisin

I gave myself a few days to properly mull over this book, and you guys. My biggest impression still is “that’s not okay.” First, stylistically (thematically?), I really, really hated that N. K. Jemisin veered away from the hard sci-fi of the first novel to get all fake(?) magicky. Honestly, when Alabaster (still hate that …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/19/the-obelisk-gate-the-broken-earth-2-by-n-k-jemisin/

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1) by N.K. Jemisin

So on the one hand, this is some gorgeously written, truly imaginative sci-fi set in a world where the science seems like magic, so much so that the book reads like a terrific fantasy novel. It’s also a sharply drawn parable of slavery and gilded cages, based on inherent powers owned by people dubbed orogenes …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/08/14/the-fifth-season-the-broken-earth-1-by-n-k-jemisin/

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Trail of Lightning delivers perfectly cromulent action and adventure in the Navajo corner of a world that has suffered a partly supernatural climate apocalypse. Maggie, the book’s first-person narrator, is a badass. Trained by a near-god in the arts of combat, she adds magical powers of speed and killing prowess, powers drawn from her Navajo …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/07/22/trail-of-lightning-by-rebecca-roanhorse/

The Record Keeper by Agnes Gomillion

Hi, Frumious Readers! I feel like I’ve been away foreeeever, but it’s been crunch time over at my other reading job with CriminalElement.com so my apologies for being infrequent over here. Anyway, with Doug away for a bit, I’m glad to be back with this really great new novel sent to me by our friends …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/06/26/the-record-keeper-by-agnes-gomillion-2/

Wastelands 3: The New Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams

I genuinely cannot remember the last time I read a short story collection so consistently stunning. Honestly, there’s not a weak one in the bunch, and that’s saying a lot considering there are 34 tales of post-apocalyptic life in this hefty volume. Whether the end of the world comes about due to war or infection …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/06/04/wastelands-3-the-new-apocalypse-edited-by-john-joseph-adams/

LIFEL1K3 (LIFEL1K3 #1) by Jay Kristoff

For real, that was less Romeo & Juliet meets The Terminator, as the blurb says, than it was Westworld meets the Russian Revolution (with heavy Tank Girl influences.) It was crazy, in the best possible way. I was genuinely intrigued by Jay Kristoff’s narrative choices throughout the book, and tho I didn’t necessarily like the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/30/lifel1k3-lifel1k3-1-by-jay-kristoff/

The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville

I should not have taken as long as I did to get through China Miéville’s novella, The Last Days of New Paris. The main story is less than 180 pages; the afterword tacks on another 15 or so, and I mostly did not read the notes that are appended afterward. That the words “get through” …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/03/07/the-last-days-of-new-paris-by-china-mieville/