Apr 02 2023
The October Man begins with what I have come to think of as a hallmark of Ben Aaronovitch‘s Rivers of London: a death that is in nearly equal measure grisly, fascinating and supernatural. This novella offers “a suspicious death with unusual biological characteristics.” (p. 4) The narrator’s local police liaison adds, a few pages later, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/04/02/the-october-man-by-ben-aaronovitch/
Mar 22 2023
This is a strange, arresting book that one hundred percent works better as a novel(la) than as the lyric game it purports to be. Ostensibly a collection of spells and games created and played by two young girls living within recent memory, the short descriptions take common childhood games of the West and give them …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/03/22/lilancholy-by-john-battle/
Mar 21 2023
This delightful children’s book tells the tale of a young dragon, Long, going to dragon school for the first time. He’s super excited to be there, until he discovers that all of the other dragons breathe fire. Where he’s from, dragons only breathe water. Worse still, his professor’s assignment is for students to learn to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/03/21/long-goes-to-dragon-school-by-helen-h-wu-mae-besom/
Mar 19 2023
In Phoenix Extravagant, Yoon Ha Lee transposes the colonial history of Japanese rule in Korea to the Empire of Razan’s conquest of Hwaguk six years before the book’s beginning. Lee uses the framework to tell a story of an artist getting caught up in politics and history, only to discover they had been in it …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/03/19/phoenix-extravagant-by-yoon-ha-lee/
Mar 07 2023
What an absolutely delightful addition to the Choose Your Own Adventure canon! And, sneakily, a perfect Easter-time read for any kid who loves animals, especially magical ones. You, the reader, are spending Easter Sunday at your aunt’s place, Glitterpony Farm, at the beginning of spring break. Your mom thinks it’s a good idea for you …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/03/07/glitterpony-farm-by-tina-connolly-norm-grock/
Feb 26 2023
How to talk about We Never Talk About My Brother? First, note that it predates Bruno by more than a decade. But then what? Considering the astonishing range in this volume’s nine stories and single sequence of poems? Praising the characters’ odd corners that mark them as real people even when they’re inhabiting the best-known …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/02/26/we-never-talk-about-my-brother-by-peter-s-beagle/
Dec 29 2022
So many weeks and months gone by, and still none of the right words about Aspects. John M. Ford sold his first story to one of the “big three” science fiction magazines before turning 20. Ford wrote a Star Trek novel from the point of view of the Klingons years before The Next Generation brought …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/29/aspects-by-john-m-ford/
Dec 24 2022
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/24/thats-dickens-with-a-c-and-a-k-the-well-known-english-author-2/
Dec 14 2022
This novella opens with Celeste, a faro dealer in the mining town of Goetia, surveying her table of mostly fellow Fallen, as the descendants of those who lost the rebellion against Heaven are known. Society in the post-Rebellion world is strictly divided between the Fallen and the Elect, the descendants of the righteous, who are …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/14/tread-of-angels-by-rebecca-roanhorse/
Nov 14 2022
Was absolutely delighted to find this in my Sharing Library, and can’t wait to get my eldest to read it before putting it back in for the next lucky household to enjoy. Our heroine Danielle is having a hard time adjusting to life in the seventh grade. Sixth grade was fine as she had the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/14/making-friends-making-friends-1-by-kristen-gudsnuk/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire