Category: Fantasy

Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson

Reading Europe In Autumn was more disorienting than usual for an alternate history. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the protagonist of this story set in a slightly-alt near-future Europe could easily have been a slightly-alt me, and not just in the sense that the author had created a sympathetic figure …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/06/04/europe-in-autumn-by-dave-hutchinson/

Eric by Terry Pratchett

Eric plays on the Faust legend, and it read to me as a slighter work than the Discworld novels that immediately preceded it in publication. Wikipedia tells me that Eric was originally published in a larger format, fully illustrated by Josh Kirby, who did most of the covers of the UK editions of the Discworld …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/06/02/eric-by-terry-pratchett/

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Guards! Guards! , the eighth Discworld novel, introduces Captain Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork’s Night Watch, to which the book’s back cover assigns the apt adjective “ramshackle.” Pratchett is perfectly clear about what he’s up to in the novel. He dedicates it as follows: They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/05/31/guards-guards-by-terry-pratchett/

To Be Read 1

The good news is that at present I can buy books faster than I can read them. The bad news is that at present I can buy books faster than I can read (and review) them. Here are some new things that have appeared (somehow!) in the to-be-read pile, along with what some of my …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/05/27/to-be-read-1/

Jhereg by Steven Brust

A thirty-year-old fantasy adventure novel has aged less badly than a seventy-year-old Hollywood novel. That’s the first thing that struck me thinking back on Steven Brust’s Jhereg, and comparing it to the other book that I just recently finished. Though to be fair, I suppose I should check back in another forty years. I’ll mark …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/05/16/jhereg-by-steven-brust/

The End of the Sentence by Maria Dahvana Headley and Kat Howard

Of course the house is haunted. But what does it want? Who is writing the letters that seem to deliver themselves? And what does that person (?) want? Malcolm Mays, a protagonist on the run from his past, might live to find out. Or wish he hadn’t. The End of the Sentence is deliciously creepy.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/05/04/the-end-of-the-sentence-by-maria-dahvana-headley-and-kat-howard/

Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

One of the possibly apocryphal stories told about Terry Pratchett being knighted for services to literature is that he said his service was “presumably not trying to write any.” He knew better, of course, and kept right on writing literature as long as he could. Pyramids is the seventh Discworld book, and at this point …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/04/29/pyramids-by-terry-pratchett-2/

The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate by Ted Chiang

This novelette won the Hugo in 2007. I picked it up as a standalone e-book that was part of the Humble Bundle mentioned here, and it’s the first work I’ve read by Ted Chiang. It won’t be the last! The story as a whole is broken into several parts, which nest and braid together in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/04/27/the-merchant-and-the-alchemists-gate-by-ted-chiang/

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

As probably one of the slowest readers in this group, I, perhaps, shouldn’t have chosen a book that was almost 600 pages long. With the heavy academic reading I do for work, and the last two books I read being emotionally hard and challenging, I just wanted something fun to read. Mistborn filled that role …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/04/26/mistborn-the-final-empire-by-brandon-sanderson/

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

The witches from Equal Rites return in Wyrd Sisters, and it is clear that by this stage of the Discworld series, Pratchett has really begun to hit his stride. From the title page, where he says that Wyrd Sisters is “Starring Three Witches, also kings, daggers, crowns, storms, dwarfs, cats, ghosts, spectres, apes, bandits, demons, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/04/20/wyrd-sisters-by-terry-pratchett/