Aug 11 2025
This post concludes my year of reading all of Diana Wynne Jones’s books! After her death in 2011, Earwig and the Witch was published the same year, and a collection of her nonfiction writing was published in 2012. Much more recently, Moondust Books has published collections of her plays and poems! In this post I’ll …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/08/11/a-year-of-diana-wynne-jones-wrap-up/
Jan 13 2025
w Russ Wootton on letters. Okay, so about forty pages or so in, I was like, “Wait, is this an interpretation of Ultraman?!” Or a reboot or a retelling or what have you: I’m not familiar enough with the Ultraman property to say. So the very first thing I did after finishing this shocking and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/01/13/ultramega-vol-1-by-james-harren-dave-stewart/
Dec 21 2024
When I read for the Hugos, I like to write a full review for each novel and novella that I finish, but I also like to finish all of my reviews from a given calendar year by the end of that year, and so here I am. There’s not a whole lot of December left, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/12/21/hugo-awards-2024-wrapping-up/
Oct 12 2024
Dr Miss Mathilde von Zahnd runs one of the most renowned, and one of the most expensive, private psychiatric clinics in all of Switzerland. The enormous fees paid by the rich clientele — in the stage notes before the play proper, Dürrenmatt speaks of moronic millionaires, schizophrenic authors, arteriosclerotic politicians — have enabled most of the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/12/die-physiker-by-friedrich-durrenmatt/
Jan 30 2022
Terry Pratchett has neatly ruined Macbeth‘s opening for me — the eldritch screech of “When shall we three meet again?” answered by a nonplussed “Well, I can do next Tuesday” — but Kathryn Hunter’s contortions in her role as the witches and Joel Coen’s creepy direction do much to restore the story’s uncanny atmosphere. The Tragedy …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/30/from-page-to-screen-the-tragedy-of-macbeth/
Dec 24 2018
The first thing to note about Don Karlos is that I noped right out of it somewhere in the middle of the second act. My disbelief had wavered early on when Don Karlos, the crown prince of Spain, unburdens his soul to his childhood friend the Marquis of Posa. Karlos (Carl in English) says he …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/24/don-karlos-by-friedrich-schiller/
Nov 29 2018
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent queen?” is something that Elizabeth I of England does not ever quite say in Schiller’s five-act verse drama, Maria Stuart, but the sentiment lurks behind practically everything that she does say. The play begins with Mary, Queen of Scots, under house arrest in Fotheringhay, the place that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/11/29/maria-stuart-by-friedrich-schiller/
Jul 16 2018
At the opening of The Maid of Orleans, as Schiller’s five-act verse tragedy is known in English, France is divided among three parties: English troops who have taken Paris and the north in pressing their king’s dynastic claim to the French throne, southern lands held by the Valois king Charles VII, and Burgundy in the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/16/die-jungfrau-von-orleans-by-friedrich-schiller/
Feb 10 2018
From the subtitle, “A Bourgeois Tragedy” to the Romeo and Juliet references that crop up in discussions of the play, it’s clear that Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love, although I am glad to see that at least some translators go with the better order of Love and Intrigue) is not going to end well …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/10/kabale-und-liebe-by-friedrich-schiller/
Nov 16 2017
Wilhelm Tell, a five-act drama in verse, was Friedrich Schiller’s last major work. It tells the story of the start of the Swiss Confederation as the people of four inner cantons — Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden and Luzern — joined forces, swearing an oath to drive out a Habsburg ruler who is intent on limiting traditional …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/16/wilhelm-tell-by-friedrich-schiller/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire