Apr 26 2026
In the world of the White Rat, the gods call clergy and paladins to their service. Clergy are straightforward enough; they minister to the faithful, they administer the affairs of people and property affiliated with the deity, they perform the necessary rites, and so forth. Paladins are holy warriors for their faith; filled with the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/26/paladins-strength-by-t-kingfisher/
Apr 25 2026
Come for the opening heist in a magician’s home, stay for the burgeoning civil war and Martha Wells’ willingness to keep changing the story. The Element of Fire was her first novel, originally published in 1993. (The current edition was revised in 2022, though her author’s note does not say anything about the extent of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/25/the-element-of-fire-by-martha-wells/
Apr 19 2026
Translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler Once again, I have finished a Platonov novel and I am left with the question of where to even begin. Chevengur is horrifying, and hilarious. It is surreal, and realistic; it is a blistering attack on Bolshevism, and full of characters asserting the correctness of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/19/chevengur-by-andrey-platonov/
Apr 18 2026
City of Oranges, which was published in 2006, must have been a difficult book to write, even in the comparatively less fraught time of the early 2000s. Adam LeBor — whom I knew a little bit many years ago in Budapest, so I will refer to him as Adam — attempts an open-minded and honest reckoning with …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/18/city-of-oranges-by-adam-lebor/
Apr 12 2026
The Wonder Engine continues and concludes the story begun in Clockwork Boys. To recap: Three misfits have been offered reprieves from their respective criminal sentences (two death, one life in prison) if they can find a way to stop the Clocktaurs, semi-mechanical, semi-magical contraptions that are slowly but surely conquering the lands surrounding the misfits’ …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/12/the-wonder-engine-by-t-kingfisher/
Apr 11 2026
Isn’t this neat? Tokyo is one of the world’s greatest cities, and is regularly praised for its success on a human scale even as the population of the metropolitan area has soared past 30 million. In Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City, Jorge Almazan and his team of more than two dozen researchers and editors …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/11/emergent-tokyo-by-jorge-almazan-studiolab/
Apr 04 2026
The Tailor of Panama is Harry Pendel, half of the Savile Row partnership of Pendel & Braithwaite, relocated to Panama City some years back. A large portrait of the late Arthur Braithwaite — shipped over from England at his widow’s insistence and damn the expense — presides over the premises just off the prestigious Via …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/04/the-tailor-of-panama-by-john-le-carre/
Mar 22 2026
Kara’s Uncle Ed owns the Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities and Taxidermy. It’s a highlight of downtown Hog Chapel, North Carolina, and in all its glorious weirdness, it was a childhood sanctuary. Uncle Ed likes nearly everyone he meets, bless him, and he’s ecumenical in his beliefs, but he’s also getting up …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/22/the-hollow-places-by-t-kingfisher/
Mar 21 2026
Once Upon a Russia, which carries the subtitle “Voices from a Vanished Era,” collects slightly more than 100 short essays from Westerners who lived and worked in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s a personal project, born of a 2024 reunion with a friend and colleague that “unfolded into hours of nostalgic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/21/once-upon-a-russia-edited-by-steven-a-fisher/
Mar 08 2026
Well I suppose that Jakob von Gunten is a bildungsroman because it follows its young and eponymous first-person narrator through his later school years and ends with his departure from the Institut Benjamenta. On the other hand, its 144 pages raise some doubts about whether it qualifies as a Roman, although the Süddeutsche Zeitung published …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/08/jakob-von-gunten-by-robert-walser/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire