Raising Demons is perfect. There are two other books I can think of that I regularly describe as perfect – Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint and Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera — and now I have a third. It is possible that if I took out my jeweller’s loupe, I could find an imperfection, an infelicitous word here, …
Category: Doug
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/08/26/raising-demons-by-shirley-jackson/
Aug 24 2015
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
Charles Stross’ Laundry series began as an unholy mashup of H.P. Lovecraft, The Office, and spy thrillers, told through the eyes of an initially low-level functionary. Bob, as you know, is Bob Howard, a systems administrator who stumbles onto the secret congruencies between higher math and applied magic. Paraphrasing Clarke’s Third Law, in the world …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/08/24/the-annihilation-score-by-charles-stross/
Jul 29 2015
Romanticism and Positivism – The History of Polish Literature by Czeslaw Milosz
What could Polish literature do after Pan Tadeusz, a poem that Milosz said, “gradually won recognition as the highest achievement in all Polish literature”? For starters, literary eminence was contested by Mickiewicz’s contemporaries. “Besides his unrequited love, the other passion running through [Juliusz] Słowacki’s life was his desire first to equal, then to compete with, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/29/romanticism-and-positivism-the-history-of-polish-literature-by-czeslaw-milosz/
Jul 27 2015
Simple Storys by Ingo Schulze
Writing in the mid-1990s in post-Communist Poland, Andrzej Sapkowski produced The Time of Contempt. Writing in the mid-1990s in post-Communist eastern Germany, Ingo Schulze produced Simple Storys (the plural is not correct in German either; it’s symptomatic of the anglicisms and pseudo-anglicisms that entered the language at that time). The two books could hardly be …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/27/simple-storys-by-ingo-schulze/
Jul 24 2015
The Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski
The Time of Contempt picks up the story of Geralt of Rivia an unspecified, but not terribly long, time after the events of Blood of Elves. Sapkowski opens the novel by following a royal messenger through several errands, and he uses that device to deliver to readers a quick burst of exposition about the state …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/24/the-time-of-contempt-by-andrzej-sapkowski/
Jul 07 2015
Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett
The Bursar shrugged. “This pot,” he said, peering closely, “is actually quite an old Ming vase.” He waited expectantly. “Why’s it called Ming?” said the Archchancellor, on cue. The Bursar tapped the pot. It went ming. (p. 145) It’s a throwaway joke, of course, but it’s a perfect one. Not only can readers hear the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/07/moving-pictures-by-terry-pratchett/
Jul 02 2015
Od Magic by Patricia A. McKillip
How do you pronounce the first word of the title? I asked a couple of friends who had read Od Magic before me, and their first response was a pause, and then, “Hm.” Online Scrabble has since taught me that “od” is an actual English word, somewhat archaic, meaning “a hypothetical power once thought to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/02/od-magic-by-patricia-a-mckillip/
Jul 01 2015
Yendi by Steven Brust
Yendi is the second book published in Steven Brust’s long-running Vlad Taltos series. It takes place after the prologue of the first book, Jhereg, and a fair amount of time before that one’s main story begins. As I noted previously, “Vlad’s world is a high-magic setting, with death often no more than an inconvenience (though …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/01/yendi-by-steven-brust/
Jun 28 2015
Lock In by John Scalzi
A long time ago, John Grisham came to the bookstore where I was working to sign copies of his second book from a major publisher, The Pelican Brief. His first, The Firm, had been an enormous hit, and there was every indication that the second would sell in mass quantities as well. No movies had …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/06/28/lock-in-by-john-scalzi-2/
Jun 24 2015
More concerning The History of Polish Literature by Czeslaw Milosz
I thought that the next bit I wrote here would be about something lighter, or at least something fictional, but Milosz has well and truly grabbed and held my attention. The middle section that I have just finished, particularly the nearly 100 pages (out of 530 in the main text) Milosz devotes to Polish Romanticism, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/06/24/more-concerning-the-history-of-polish-literature-by-czeslaw-milosz/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire