May 2018 archive

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 Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles (Warlock Holmes #2) by G.S. Denning

I seriously underestimated my reading load (again) and spent the last few chapters of this book in a reading panic. Fortunately, it’s a good, fun read, tho I feel that the last half of the book, a mash-up of The Hound Of The Baskervilles and Warlock Holmes’ origin story, suffered from the same flaws that …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/26/the-hell-hound-of-the-baskervilles-warlock-holmes-2-by-g-s-denning/

Furyborn (Empirium #1) by Claire Legrand

You know there’s a problem with a book when you get to the end, find out it’s the first in a trilogy and groan out loud. I mean, the prologue essentially tells you the main plot of not only this book but the next (and who even knows, maybe the third given how dragged out …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/23/furyborn-empirium-1-by-claire-legrand/

A Study in Brimstone (Warlock Holmes #1) by G.S. Denning

Weirdly, given how I love and devour mystery novels, I have never really been into reading Sherlock pastiches. For that matter, I’ve never been a huge fan of the source material, having read the originals only insofar as they were available to me in the library of a paternal uncle whom my family visited in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/23/a-study-in-brimstone-warlock-holmes-1-by-g-s-denning/

An Interview With Roger Levy, author of The Rig

Q: Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did The Rig evolve? A: It came very slowly. I was processing a lot of things in my life while completing Icarus, and The Rig came in fits and starts. I wanted to say something …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/21/an-interview-with-roger-levy-author-of-the-rig/

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells

Loads of fun, in large part due to the main character/narrator of Murderbot. That isn’t actually Murderbot’s name, but it’s what our narrator chooses as a self-referential, and to tell you why would possibly tell you too much about this novella. Murderbot is a Security Unit, a half-machine half-organic being created solely to protect humans …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/20/all-systems-red-the-murderbot-diaries-1-by-martha-wells/

Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1) by Justina Ireland

Wow, I didn’t even know about the firestorm over this book and the author and her Twitter use until after I’d read and thoroughly enjoyed Dread Nation. It’s a really terrific novel: what if zombies rose after the Battle of Gettysburg, and American history took a decided turn to deal with this new existential threat? …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/19/dread-nation-dread-nation-1-by-justina-ireland/

Mani: Travels in the Southern Peleponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Mani grew in the telling. Patrick Leigh Fermor meant it “to be a single chapter among many, each of them describing the stages and halts, the encounters, the background and the conclusions of a leisurely journey … through continental Greece and the islands.” He undertook the journey, “to pull together the strands of many previous …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/14/mani-travels-in-the-southern-peleponnese-by-patrick-leigh-fermor/

Batman: Nightwalker (DC Icons Series #2) by Marie Lu

As hoped, it was better than the first in the DC Icons series, Wonder Woman: Warbringer. Maybe that’s due in large part to the fact that Batman as a mortal character needs to have his origin updated for each leap in technological progress: it’s absurd to think that this iconic character, dependent as he is …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/14/batman-nightwalker-dc-icons-series-2-by-marie-lu/

The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine — Halftime Report

One of the unexpected pleasures of The House of Government is Yuri Slezkine’s occasional playful way with words. Given the subject matter, and particularly given Slezkine’s argument that Bolshevism can best be understood as a millennarian sect that gained control of the state, a reader would be forgiven for thinking that his prose would range …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/12/the-house-of-government-by-yuri-slezkine-halftime-report/