Category: Fantasy

Hugo 2025 Chat

“There are no cast-iron rules about short-story writing, even on word count. Author A.L. Kennedy … asks, ‘Where do you draw the line formally between a novella and a long short story and a short-short story and a literary letter?’ The enduring blurring of boundaries of the short form exhibit themseleves in ranging award rules on word count on what posits as sudden fiction, shorter fiction or a novelette. “I am exhilarated today to see the short story, perhaps more so in speculative fiction, pulsing with vigour and accessibility, and with no mind to perish any time soon.”

Doug Merrill: Hi everyone! Emily Lauer: Hello! Doug: Hi Emily! Doreen Sheridan: Hello, all! I can confidently say that I’m happy they started a poetry category (and that my favorite won, lol) Doug: I’m glad that there’s a poetry category, too, and glad that it seems to have gone over well this year. Now to …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/09/hugo-2025-chat/

Kill All Immortals, Vol 1 by Zack Kaplan, Fico Ossio, Thiago Rocha & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

One of the closest comics in feel to a popular action movie, tho that’s not necessarily a compliment coming from me. Kill All Immortals Vol 1 has a very specifically cinematic, Christopher-Nolan-filming-in-the-semi-dark vibe, and if that’s your thing, then you’re going to love this graphic novel, too. The action starts with a cadre of Fortune …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/05/kill-all-immortals-vol-1-by-zack-kaplan-fico-ossio-thiago-rocha-hassan-otsmane-elhaou/

A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff

I can understand why all this was crammed into one volume but I’m also kinda wishing that the copious amounts of personal growth A had to undergo here had been stretched out to at least two. Which, I know, is one of my most complimentary criticisms, that I liked something so much that I wish …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/04/a-world-worth-saving-by-kyle-lukoff/

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

When T. Kingfisher, whose real name is Ursula Vernon, was re-reading “The Fall of the House of Usher” two things struck her. The first, as she writes in her author’s note at the end of the book “was that Poe is really into fungi. He devotes more words to the fungal emanations than he does …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/25/what-moves-the-dead-by-t-kingfisher/

Of Prophecies & Pomegranates by T. C. Kraven (EXCERPT)

Hello, dear readers! Today we have an exciting excerpt for you that reimagines Greek myth in unexpected but cathartic ways. In her debut traditionally published novel Of Prophecies & Pomegranates, T C Kraven reframes the passive myth of the Goddess of Spring into a story of female agency and transformation. This modern, feminist reimagining of …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/21/of-prophecies-pomegranates-by-t-c-kraven-excerpt/

A Palace Near The Wind by Ai Jiang

One of these days, I’ll like a piece by Ai Jiang, but today is not that day. I’m just so baffled by her writing, and in a way that doesn’t even make me want to lay the blame at her feet necessarily. This is actually one of the few, perhaps only, times that I’ve questioned …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/09/a-palace-near-the-wind-by-ai-jiang/

The Betrayal by Heather Ogden (EXCERPT)

Hello, readers! Today we have a scene-setting excerpt for you from Heather Ogden’s debut Young Adult dystopian novel, The Betrayal. This first book of the The Lies We Fear series centers on Angelette Arabella, the seventeen year-old daughter of the most powerful man in Libertis, a megalopolis large enough to be considered a nation. From …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/07/the-betrayal-by-heather-ogden-excerpt/

Three from T. Kingfisher

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher

One of the things about living in a country where English is not the dominant language is that when books turn up at your local English-language bookstore, you snag them because there may not be another chance any time soon. (People will say that a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century, I am …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/04/three-from-t-kingfisher/

The Dungeonmeister Deck Of Side Quests by Jef Aldrich & Jon Taylor

subtitled 75 Mini Adventures to Empower Your Fantasy Campaign. I genuinely enjoy every Dungeonmeister product Jef Aldrich and Jon Taylor put out. A lot of this is due to the fact that I’m a busy Dungeon Master myself, so every little bit helps in bulking up my Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. This is especially true …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/02/the-dungeonmeister-deck-of-side-quests-by-jef-aldrich-jon-taylor/

Don’t Sleep With The Dead by Nghi Vo

I didn’t super love the book for which this novella is a sequel. The Chosen And The Beautiful was Nghi Vo’s somewhat uneven, I felt, retelling of The Great Gatsby. But I do enjoy Ms Vo’s writing, as well as the novella form, so was happy to dive in here. Don’t Sleep With The Dead …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/01/dont-sleep-with-the-dead-by-nghi-vo/