October 2020 archive

A(nother) Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

A Night in the Lonesome October

Just in time for the full moon falling on Halloween (the celestial alignment that drives the book’s plot), I re-read A Night in the Lonesome October. Everything I wrote about it last time holds true: it’s a romp, a hoot, a love letter to classics of Halloween and suspense, a master storyteller having fun with …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/31/another-night-in-the-lonesome-october-by-roger-zelazny/

Rowley Jefferson’s Awesome Friendly Adventure (Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid #2) by Jeff Kinney

My 9 year-old pressed this book on me immediately after he finished reading it last night, because he really wanted to discuss it with me. I read it over dinner, and was honestly relieved to find that the narrative voice was quite different from in its parent series, The Diary Of A Wimpy Kid. Granted, …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/30/rowley-jeffersons-awesome-friendly-adventure-diary-of-an-awesome-friendly-kid-2-by-jeff-kinney/

The Tech by Mark Ravine

One of my greatest joys as a book critic is finding little known indie/self-published debut novels and championing them for the world to read (see: James Roberts‘ Pardon Me, or anything by Unsung Stories but particularly Rym Kechacha’s Dark River.) As such, I’m always open to queries and will rarely turn anything down, schedule permitting. …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/28/the-tech-by-mark-ravine/

Rodrick Rules (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #2) by Jeff Kinney

I have definitely been consuming this series out of order, reading each as the whims of my 9 year-old sees fit, but I asked for this volume specifically because Jms had been talking about the Dungeons & Dragons analog played in these pages. As I’m a big old roleplaying nerd, I had to see how …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/27/rodrick-rules-diary-of-a-wimpy-kid-2-by-jeff-kinney/

Above All Else by Dana Alison Levy

When I was younger, I loved a good climb. Mostly of trees and free-standing structures, tho if I’d had a shot at a climbing wall, I’d have totally been up for that, too. So when my college roommates invited me to join the hiking club, you’d think I’d be all in. Unfortunately, club hiking required …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/26/above-all-else-by-dana-alison-levy/

Of Salt And Shore by Annet Schaap

This is like The Secret Garden but with mermaids and pirates instead, and with characters that I, at least, liked from start to finish (as a pragmatic child, I found it hard to care for any of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s insipid and annoying creations.) Billed as a sequel to The Little Mermaid, Of Salt And …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/23/of-salt-and-shore-by-annet-schaap/

Shadows Of The Short Days by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson

Imagine Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus crossed with Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist, filtered through a China Mieville sensibility of industrial magic set firmly in the history and myths of Iceland. That’s what you’re getting in Shadows Of The Short Days, Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson’s wildly inventive, deeply thoughtful debut novel, which he translated himself from its …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/20/shadows-of-the-short-days-by-alexander-dan-vilhjalmsson/

Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse

One of the things I was most impressed by in this first novel of Rebecca Roanhorse’s new epic fantasy series is how effortless it all feels. She’s created a brand new universe using the indigenous cultures of the Americas as its basis, and there isn’t a single moment of self-conscious telling instead of showing. It’s …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/19/black-sun-between-earth-and-sky-1-by-rebecca-roanhorse/

A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe

It’s been so long since I’ve read a standalone YA novel that I barely know what to do with myself at the end of A Golden Fury, in no small part due to Samantha Cohoe’s gifts as an author. Despite the ending being quite firmly The End, I’m so invested in these characters and their …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/16/a-golden-fury-by-samantha-cohoe/

An Interview with J. S. Barnes, author of Dracula’s Child

Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did Dracula’s Child evolve? I think it’s been evolving ever since I first read Stoker’s extraordinary novel at around eleven or twelve (oddly, and I suspect not entirely coincidentally, the same age as Quincey in …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/15/an-interview-with-j-s-barnes-author-of-draculas-child/