Category: Doug

Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher

Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher

Selena gets out of a bad relationship by gathering up her dog, a black lab named Copper, spending almost the last of her money, and taking a train two and a half days from the unspecified city where she had lived out into the desert Southwest to a settlement called Quartz Creek, to find her …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/25/snake-eater-by-t-kingfisher/

The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher

The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher

I’m glad that T. Kingfisher, a.k.a. Ursula Vernon, is having a publishing moment because I missed The Raven and the Reindeer entirely when it first came out in 2016. It’s a re-telling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” that is irreverent, tension-filled, funny, scary, and more than a little weird. That’s fitting, though, because …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/24/the-raven-and-the-reindeer-by-t-kingfisher/

The Sworn Sword by George R.R. Martin

The Sworn Sword by George R.R. Martin

Two years after the events of The Hedge Knight, Dunk and Egg find themselves at the ass end of nowhere, sworn to serve a knight who’s not far from a hedge himself, while much of the region struggles with a drought. The novella opens with the two of them returning from an errand to buy …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/18/the-sworn-sword-by-george-r-r-martin/

A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

I’m not really a blurb person, but as short descriptions of A House With Good Bones go — “(a) funny, (b) scary, and (c) charming. You will gulp this book down like sweet tea on a hot day.” (Charlaine Harris) and a “special blend of horror and snarky mundanity, wherein the not-so-dearly departed demand half-frozen …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/17/a-house-with-good-bones-by-t-kingfisher/

What Work Is by Philip Levine

What Work Is by Philip Levine

What Work Is was my introduction to Philip Levine, back in 1991 when it was new and I was working at the late and lamented Oxford Books of Atlanta, Georgia. Oxford was the largest independent bookstore in the Southeast, and something of a pioneer of the superstore model, bookstores that kept 100,000 or more titles …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/12/what-work-is-by-philip-levine-2/

Hänschen klein, ging allein by Hans J. Massaquoi

Destined to Witness by Hans J. Massaquoi

Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi was born in Hamburg in 1926, son of a working-class German woman and a son of the Liberian consul general in the city. The liaison that produced him did not last — both mother and father were young to be parents, and his father returned to Ireland to continue his studies in law …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/11/hanschen-klein-ging-allein-by-hans-j-massaquoi/

The Hedge Knight by George R.R. Martin

The Hedge Knight by George R.R. Martin

I found it a little hard to believe that The Hedge Knight is closing in on 30 years since its first publication in Legends, an anthology edited by Robert Silverberg. (I haven’t read it, but the table of contents looks great.) I think the conversation around the television series “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/10/the-hedge-knight-by-george-r-r-martin/

Villain by Natalie Zina Walschots

Villain by Natalie Zina Walschots

I feel kinda bad for the people charged with writing the back cover copy for Villain, Natalie Zina Walschots’ sequel to Hench. That novel showed a world with superheroes and supervillains, told from the perspective of a disposable henchperson. But Anna Tomedlov was her own person, center of her own world, and did not feel …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/04/villain-by-natalie-zina-walschots/

Spook Street by Mick Herron

Spook Street by Mick Herron

When River Cartwright’s final training exercise went publicly pear-shaped, he was only kept on the rolls of Britain’s spy service because of his grandfather, David Cartwright, a legend of the service’s Cold War days. Now, though, the Old Bastard, as he is widely known — sometimes affectionately, sometimes less so — is showing his age. It’s …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/03/spook-street-by-mick-herron/

Hugo Awards 2026: Winners

Back in April when the finalists for the 2026 Hugo Awards were announced, your Frumious Consorters talked about what we liked in the nominations, what we were excited to find out more about, and what we hoped to actually read. Curious to discover how things turned out and what the Consortium thought? Read on! Doug: …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/09/24/hugo-awards-2026-winners/