Happy September, readers! We’re starting off the month with a slate of great books, including this one. ~~~~~~~ My only complaint about A Closed And Common Orbit is that it didn’t reunite us with the crew of the Wayfarer who featured so endearingly in the first novel of the series, A Long Way To A …
Category: Science Fiction
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/09/01/a-closed-and-common-orbit-wayfarers-2-by-becky-chambers/
Aug 29 2020
Buffalo Soldier by Maurice Broaddus
I read Buffalo Soldier back in May when I was recovering from acute appendicitis, and it did exactly what I needed: took me far away, into imaginary lands where people had thrilling adventures full of reversals and narrow escapes. The circumstances of my reading mean that I have not retained details as well as I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/29/buffalo-soldier-by-maurice-broaddus/
Aug 17 2020
Vader’s Little Princess (Star Wars: Darth Vader and Kids) by Jeffrey Brown
There’s going to be a bit of rambling before my review actually begins, so I apologize for that now. I went out to my Sharing Library the other day to replenish the contents, which had been looking a little low recently. Imagine my surprise when I found it stuffed to the gills with children’s books, …
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Aug 12 2020
Dark Age (Red Rising Saga #5) by Pierce Brown
With a book titled Dark Age in a futuristic series that consciously bases itself on Roman history, you know the contents are going to be pretty grim. Our hero from the start, Darrow of Lykos, is fighting a losing campaign on Mercury against the treacherous Gold-elevating Society led by the depraved Atalantia au Grimmus. His …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/12/dark-age-red-rising-saga-5-by-pierce-brown/
Aug 08 2020
The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
How does a human civilization react to news of its possible impending collapse, with the only option for survival a major upheaval touching every person in it and changing its power structure entirely? That’s the overriding question of John Scalzi’s Interdependency series. The Last Emperox is the third and concluding part of the story, following …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/08/the-last-emperox-by-john-scalzi/
Aug 06 2020
Alpha Omega by Nicholas Bowling
At about the 70% mark, I realized that Alpha Omega could slot very easily into the universe of The Matrix, serving as an entirely convincing origin story, so to speak, of that cyberpunk dystopia. The comparisons drawn between this book and Ernest Clines’ Ready Player One are poor: Mr Clines’ novel is a Spielbergian adventure …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/06/alpha-omega-by-nicholas-bowling/
Jul 21 2020
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
A searing, devastating indictment of both unquestioning loyalty and the corporate interests that use up workers in order to profit shareholders, extrapolated to their grimmest reality, Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade is both gripping and timely in this endless year of 2020. Our narrator, Dietz, grew up in the slums of Sao Paulo, eking a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/21/the-light-brigade-by-kameron-hurley/
Jul 20 2020
Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) by Tamsyn Muir
Several of my reactions upon completing this book, in no particular order: “Do I really need to read the other Hugo finalists when this may be the best book I’ve ever read ever?” “Oh gosh, I’d love to play in an RPG of this. I wonder what dice and stats system this would run best …
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Jul 16 2020
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
I’ve read a bunch of Charlie Jane Anders’ short fiction and never understood why it was so popular. I figured reading something long form would help clarify this situation and it did, but not in the way I wanted. Here’s my problem with the writing of hers I’ve read so far: there are few interiors. …
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Jul 08 2020
This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
I’m rating this book quite highly even as I found myself oddly detached from it, so I’m chalking this down to a me-problem and not to any fault of the book itself. Okay, maybe there’s a pacing issue once we discover who the seeker is: I get that the authors didn’t want to retread stuff, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/08/this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war-by-amal-el-mohtar-max-gladstone/