Jul 04 2017
Raven Stratagem picks up right where Ninefox Gambit left off, with the star-spanning hexarchate facing threats from within and without: internal heretics who threaten to disrupt the tight control of time that enables faster-than-light travel and other sufficiently advanced technologies, external aliens bent on conquest. A swarm sent by Kel Command, the highest authority of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/07/04/raven-stratagem-by-yoon-ha-lee/
Jun 29 2017
I’ve finished marking up my Hugo ballot for 2017, and I’m satisfied with where my votes have gone. That doesn’t mean I have finished reading everything that’s on the ballot — far from it — but I have done enough in each work that I am going to read to have a sense of how …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/29/hugo-voting-2017/
Jun 21 2017
This Census-Taker, by China Miéville, did not add up for me. If it were not a Hugo finalist, if I had not read and liked close to half a dozen of his other works, I would have pronounced the Eight Deadly Words and set the book aside. Miéville is aiming for the mythic, but mythic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/21/this-census-taker-by-china-mieville/
Jun 17 2017
In an alternate universe, I’m a professional fiction author and Pierce Brown and I have beautiful literary babies together. I mean, what greater compliment can I give this series? It’s smart and beautiful and moving. It examines the compromises of society, and the ethics of war and love, and does it all with a stunning …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/17/golden-son-red-rising-2-by-pierce-brown/
Jun 08 2017
Maybe this book just suffers in comparison with the very excellent Ms Marvel that I’d also recently finished reading, but as a space opera, I felt it only really took off (if you’ll pardon the horrible pun) in the last two issues. Everything before that was mildly interesting but not compelling, though Rocket Raccoon’s reaction …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/08/captain-marvel-marvel-now-1-by-kelly-sue-deconnick-david-lopez/
May 25 2017
“As if Cordwainer Smith had written a Warhammer novel.” That blurb sold me on Ninefox Gambit. Even so, I almost bounced off of it in the first chapter. In terms of the blurb, too much Warhammer; in terms of my taste in reading, it felt too much like simple-minded war-glorifying fiction. Boom, boom! Pew! Pew! …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/25/ninefox-gambit-by-yoon-ha-lee/
May 22 2017
The two main characters of A Closed and Common Orbit are learning what it is to be human. That’s not quire correct in one case; maybe it would be more correct to say that each is learning what it is like to be a person, with a fairly wide definition of what “person” means. They …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/22/a-closed-and-common-orbit-by-becky-chambers/
May 08 2017
One of the things I particularly liked about All the Birds in the Sky is how Charlie Jane Anders chose to break up the story. It’s a two-sided, save-the-world story, and all of the basics are there: interesting leads, good counterparts, quick pacing, fun dialog, and so forth. She’s strong enough on the essentials even …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/08/all-the-birds-in-the-sky-by-charlie-jane-anders/
Apr 24 2017
Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters is a hell of a book. The premise is that amendments to the US Constitution in the 1860s preserved the Union and averted the Civil War, but at the cost of continuing to accept slavery in states that chose to keep their peculiar institution. In the 21st century, a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/04/24/underground-airlines-by-ben-h-winters/
Apr 23 2017
Okay, so I came to this book from the very excellent Amazon show, and it almost seems unfair to review it now when I’ll always have the comparison in my mind. As source material for the very excellent show, it’s very rich in subject, and I was impressed by Philip K Dick’s ability to get …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/04/23/the-man-in-the-high-castle-by-philip-k-dick/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire