Category: Short Stories

Hugo Awards 2021: Best Novelette Nominees

There was an incredibly strong field in this category this year! I’m going to go ahead and review these from my least favorite to the one I hope will win, starting with Aliette de Bodard’s The Inaccessibility Of Heaven. In all honesty, her overuse of the em dash is a pet peeve of mine: it’s …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/28/hugo-awards-2021-best-novelette-nominees/

The Last Line by Robert Dugoni

Wow, what a way to whet a reader’s appetite for more! Police Detective Del Castigliano has left Madison, Wisconsin for Seattle, ostensibly to pursue opportunities in Homicide, but really to get away from a failed engagement and memories of his ex. He’s partnered with hotshot veteran detective Moss Gunderson, who’s generously given him the lead …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/25/the-last-line-by-robert-dugoni/

Hugo Awards 2021: Best Short Story Nominees

There was a wealth of authors I very much enjoy reading in this slate, and new-to-me authors I was pleased to make acquaintance of! On reflection, I don’t feel that this year’s list was as good as last year’s, tho was still solidly entertaining. As with last year, I’ll go over each (mostly) alphabetically. A …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/21/hugo-awards-2021-best-short-story-nominees/

From The Neck Up by Aliya Whiteley

Bluntly, I don’t know anyone working in speculative fiction today who consistently writes such disturbingly weird shit. But not like in a gratuitous way. Aliya Whiteley doesn’t want to shock you, necessarily, but she is unafraid to plumb into the deeper, uglier parts of the human psyche to examine the monstrous and strange, to ponder …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/09/17/from-the-neck-up-by-aliya-whiteley/

Life And Other Shortcomings by Corie Adjmi

This slim volume of short stories punches far above its weight class as it examines the lives of loosely connected characters in and around the turn of 21st century America. The opening story Dinner Conversation is one of the strongest, revolving around three couples out to dinner and the weight of expectations felt by the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/25/life-and-other-shortcomings-by-corie-adjmi/

Honeycomb by Joanne M. Harris & Charles Vess

What a sumptuous delight of a novel that greatly satisfied both the craftsman and the girl-in-search-of-the-fantastic living inside me! Joanne M Harris has turned her considerable talents to a mosaic novel crafted as a compendium of fairy tales that are both wildly original yet hearken back to the tales we already know, usually giving the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/01/honeycomb-by-joanne-m-harris-charles-vess/

Love In Color: Mythical Tales From Around The World, Retold by Bolu Babalola

I finished this book of romantic short stories and thought to myself “why on earth did I think this was going to be more about myths than romance?” And then I copied the full title for this review and realized that it was because Love In Color has been marketed as such. Which is a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/13/love-in-color-mythical-tales-from-around-the-world-retold-by-bolu-babalola/

Black Panther: Tales Of Wakanda edited by Jesse J. Holland

Being a comic book fan from way back, it’s often difficult for me to find prose-form entertainment featuring my beloved comic book characters that is as compelling as the comic book versions themselves. But I love what Titan Books does with its short story anthologies and, like much of America, I’ve been made a Black …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/16/black-panther-tales-of-wakanda-edited-by-jesse-j-holland/

Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology edited by Mur Lafferty & S. B. Divya

I am not a pod(cast)person, but this anthology might change that for me! Or at least get me out of my very narrow lane of go-to things to listen to while wrapping Christmas presents or other visual-heavy artsy-crafty things. I tend to enjoy more radio-drama-type fare like Limetown or, even older than that, Sherlock Holmes …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/07/escape-pod-the-science-fiction-anthology-edited-by-mur-lafferty-s-b-divya/

Bluebeard’s First Wife by Ha Seong-nan

Happy December, everyone! Let’s start the month with a chilling read! I have a bad habit of not remembering why I picked up certain volumes, not helped by the often considerable lag time between me deciding I want to read a book and me actually getting the opportunity to read it. So I vaguely recall …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/02/bluebeards-first-wife-by-ha-seong-nan/