Tag: Doug

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

“There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of boundary. But the idea …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/03/19/the-dispossessed-by-ursula-k-le-guin/

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

At different parts in the Discworld books, Terry Pratchett considers what might happen when something like a modern technology appears in the magical, quasi-medieval societies of the Disc. Moving Pictures was the first of these, back at the 10th book in the set, and they become more common later in the run. The Truth introduces …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/03/08/going-postal-by-terry-pratchett/

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/

The Naive and Sentimental Novelist by Orhan Pamuk

If I had read The Naive and Sentimental Novelist before reading Orhan Pamuk’s novels, I probably would not have bothered with them. That would have been a pity because most of them are very good, and one, Snow, is among the best I have ever read. So there’s a considerable gap between this collection of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/26/the-naive-and-sentimental-novelist-by-orhan-pamuk/

The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine

When it was built, the House of Government — maybe better known in English as the House on the Embankment thanks to the book by Yuri Trefonov — was the largest residential building in Europe. With The House of Government, Yuri Slezkine gives the building, its people and its first era an equally enormous treatment. The main …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/13/the-house-of-government-by-yuri-slezkine/

Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich Schiller

From the subtitle, “A Bourgeois Tragedy” to the Romeo and Juliet references that crop up in discussions of the play, it’s clear that Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love, although I am glad to see that at least some translators go with the better order of Love and Intrigue) is not going to end well …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/10/kabale-und-liebe-by-friedrich-schiller/

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett

The second Tiffany Aching book, A Hat Full of Sky, picks up right where the first one left off. The Lancre witches have arranged for Tiffany to learn from a witch, in something like an apprenticeship. This matches with traditions in the Chalk, Tiffany’s home region, in which girls often went “into service.” Pratchett explains, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/06/a-hat-full-of-sky-by-terry-pratchett/

Beren and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien

Beren and Lúthien mainly reminded me of why I never finished The Silmarillion. There is a paragraph late in the book that explains as well as any. Editor Christopher Tolkien is describing a misunderstanding that arose between his father and his father’s publisher after the apparently unexpected success of The Hobbit. Tolkien had sent the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/04/beren-and-luthien-by-j-r-r-tolkien/

Berlin by Rory MacLean

Rory MacLean gave his book on Berlin the subtitle “Imagine a City.” His American publishers changed this to “Portrait of a City Through the Centuries,” which is odd because it loses the ties to MacLean’s prologue “Imagine” and epilogue “Imagine Berlin.” Further, the book is not a portrait but rather a collection of almost two …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/03/berlin-by-rory-maclean/

California Bones by Greg van Eekhout

This was fun. It wasn’t deep, but it was fun. California Bones is set in an alternative present in which magic of various kinds works, and California is split into two independent polities — inexplicably not nicknamed Lo Cal and No Cal, although it is implied that southern California is colloquially known as the magic …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/02/california-bones-by-greg-van-eekhout/