Writer, editor, translator, project manager, reformed bookseller. Currently based in Berlin, following stints in Moscow, Tbilisi, Munich, Washington, Warsaw, Budapest and Atlanta. Previously blogged at A Fistful of Euros, though that is now largely lost to link rot.
Most commented posts
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison — 9 comments
- White Eagle, Red Star by Norman Davies — 7 comments
- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch — 7 comments
- Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire — 6 comments
- The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin — 6 comments
Author's posts
One of the hazards of getting a blurb for your book from someone who has written a great book on a closely related subject is that it invites comparisons. Age of Ambition — subtitled Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China — has a blurb from Peter Hessler, whose three books on contemporary …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/04/19/age-of-ambition-by-evan-osnos/
I had almost forgotten how charming Connie Willis’ writing can be. I started reading her in the mid-1990s with Bellwether, which is another one of those books I have to be careful about picking up because I will have a very difficult time putting it down again, no matter what else I am supposed to …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/20/inside-job-by-connie-willis/
The beginning of Sourcery is very good, and the end is very good, and I am trying to think of why the middle didn’t work for me as well as Equal Rites and Mort, the two Discworld books that immediately precede it in order of publication. Equal Rites showed some of the magical power that …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/17/sourcery-by-terry-pratchett/
Delight, verve, brio, glee, panache, all of these are in Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds, the first of three books in the chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, set in what he calls “an ancient China that never was.” Here is how it starts: I shall clasp my hands together and bow to …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/15/bridge-of-birds-by-barry-hughart/
Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal is the fourth of her Glamourist Histories series, following Shades of Milk & Honey, Glamour in Glass, and Without a Summer. The series crosses Regency romances with alternate (but not terribly alternate) history and a dash of domestic magic that may yet admit of industrial applications. The teaser …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/09/valour-vanity-by-mary-robinette-kowal/
Equal Rites, the third Discworld novel, makes a big leap in quality from the second. Terry Pratchett leaves the characters who were at the hub of the first two novels and sets off to tell a completely independent tale. Having spent the second book concocting a tale of danger to the whole Disc and then …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/07/equal-rites-by-terry-pratchett/
Wasn’t this great fun? The front flap of The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison, summarizes the set-up: “A half-goblin, the youngest son of the emperor, has lived his entire life in exile, far form the imperial court and the deadly intrigue that surrounds it. But when his father and three half-brothers, who are heirs to …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/04/the-goblin-emperor-by-katherine-addison/
I find it impossible not to like John Scalzi’s public persona. He’s clever, thoughtful, straightforward, and sometimes delightfully wacky. I read Whatever, his blog, regularly, and have for years. I also liked the first collection of writings from it, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. Nevertheless, even though I breezed happily through the new collection, …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/03/the-mallet-of-loving-correction-by-john-scalzi/
I shall clasp my hands together and bow to the corners of the world My surname is Lu and my personal name is Yu, but I am not to be confused with the eminent author of The Classic of Tea. My family is quite undistinguished, and since I am the tenth of my father’s sons …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/02/number-ten-ox/
Where to start when writing about a city as vast and storied as Istanbul? In Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul, Charles King takes an inflection point in the history of a city that is itself a key inflection between East and West. Or rather, he takes a period of hinges …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/25/midnight-at-the-pera-palace-by-charles-king/
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