Jun 05 2026

Tantalizing Tales — June 2026 — Part One

Happy June, everybody! The English Premier league season is over and the World Cup is right around the corner, with plenty of other things to celebrate in a world grown increasingly malevolent for people just trying to live our lives (in other words, Happy Pride!)

In keeping with that thought, we have our first selection of upcoming reads for the month, with Mollyhall Seeley’s We Hexed The Moon. Four teenaged best friends are facing down the prospect of having to grow up and grow apart now that they’ve graduated high school. During a sleepover, they jokingly decide to hex the moon. Imagine their shock when the moon does leave the sky and shows up, in mostly person-shaped form, in one of their bedrooms instead.

Unfortunately for the girls, the moon has no intention of returning to her rightful place in the heavens. Planet Earth, however, still very much needs a satellite. The moon tells the four besties that since they had the audacity to try to cast a spell on her, they’re going to have to find her a replacement: someone who’ll essentially have to sacrifice their own humanity in order to take the moon’s place in the sky while she takes over their body in turn. The girls, who are so close that they’re practically one person, are forced to splinter further apart as they reckon with what they’ve done and what they must do to fix it.

I cannot be the only person getting Diana Wynne Jones’ The Time Of The Ghost vibes from this, which is one of the biggest compliments I can honestly give a book. Bonus: there’s explicitly queer representation here as the girls not only struggle with the moon’s demand but also with the reality of the swiftly changing world around them.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/05/tantalizing-tales-june-2026-part-one/

Jun 04 2026

Notre-Dame: The World’s Cathedral by Lynn Curlee

First of all, best wishes to the author, who has hopefully overcome the bout of ill health that affected the completion of this fabulous book!

I’m a huge fan of non-fiction for children, as it’s often the most elegant and efficient way of communicating a factual subject. Authors in this field, and especially the more popular/bestselling writers, know how to talk to kids in language that is informative without being overwhelming. Heck, one of my favorite and most recommended methods of studying for Jeopardy! is by going through children’s non-fiction, which I’ve found to be uniquely capable of helping build long-lasting neural pathways by placing facts in context (my highly successful J! bestie otoh prefers Wikipedia, but he is Gen Z.)

The rest of us old timers and the actual target audience alike will find much to admire in Lynn Curlee’s latest luxe picture book, that touches on so much regarding the cultural treasure that is Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral. He briefly discusses the history of Paris and the Ile de la Cite, before detailing the centuries-spanning original design and construction. He takes us through the architectural terms and innovations of the Gothic building, as well as its original and manifold purposes: not only as a place of worship and congregation but also as a picture book of religious images. Given that the building was first proposed early in the 12th century, when literacy was still rare in the populace, this last factor felt like a necessity for both religious and political advocacy. As the Church fell out of and back into favor in France, so too did the fortunes of Notre-Dame.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/04/notre-dame-the-worlds-cathedral-by-lynn-curlee/

Jun 03 2026

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

Deeeeeep siiiiiiigh.

I know I touted this as the seminal guide to understanding the Arsenal fan — as that’s how it’s long been sold to me — but after actually reading the book, I unhesitatingly recant my endorsement. This was the most excruciating nonsense I’ve read in a long time. And here’s the thing, as someone who’s been in love with the Arsenal since 1997 — admittedly, some years after this book is set — Fever Pitch should have been right up my alley. I, too, over-identify with my beloved team and treat them like a pillar of my personality. I have suffered through many lean years in which non-Arsenal fans greeted my declaration of allegiance with either polite bafflement or outright mockery. I have gotten up at nonsense hours countless times to watch games live via satellite TV, either alone on my parents’ living room couch in Malaysia or here with my friends in the Washington DC area, well before our sports bar’s regular opening hours. I’ve traveled absurd distances both up and down the East Coast of the USA and across the Atlantic to watch my lads (and lately my ladies) play. My work and social schedules are entirely and unapologetically at the mercy of the Arsenal fixture list. So I understand the devotion that drives the often miserable conditions of being a Gooner, as we Arsenal supporters have been called long before more recent usages of the term.

Imagine then my dismay when I had to endure this absolute bollocks of a book that I was entirely predisposed to liking! The experience of reading it felt like eagerly attending a family reunion only to have to grit my teeth when an obnoxious uncle loudly insists that everyone else present — and especially the women; the misogyny in this book is through the stadium roof while also oblivious as to how it contradicts itself — can’t be real fans because we’ve never had to tough it out like he did.

Guys like this, for real, are the reason no one likes football fans or wants to be one of them.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/03/fever-pitch-by-nick-hornby/

Jun 02 2026

Channeling Marilyn by Mima Tipper (EXCERPT)

Hello, dear readers! In conjunction with her birthday yesterday, today we have an immersive excerpt from a Young Adult novel featuring the ghost of Marilyn Monroe herself!

From the publicity materials:

“High school senior Lexa Donovan longs to be more than a bit player in her own drab life—and when she’s chosen to be part of her school’s spring production of Bus Stop, she thinks her wish has come true. But her thrill turns to panic when she’s tapped to play the leading role, sexy showgirl Cherie. One thing tall, plus-size Lexa knows for sure is that she is the exact opposite of the most famous Cherie ever: sex-goddess Marilyn Monroe.

“Lexa wants out before she makes a fool of herself in front of everyone. But then something entirely unexpected happens: The spirit of Marilyn Monroe appears—ready and willing to be Lexa’s personal acting coach—and talks her out of quitting.

“Soon, Lexa’s life becomes a screwball comedy, with her bouncing between Marilyn’s acting “help,” her crush on her gorgeous co-star Brian, and her unexpected attraction to the mysterious Jeremy Leith. Comedy shifts to drama, though, as Lexa’s fear of humiliation—fueled by Brian’s jealous girlfriend—morphs into full-on stage fright. A fright that grows dangerously intense when Marilyn starts having decidedly un-spiritish feelings that have nothing to do with Lexa or the play.

“Before the curtain rises on opening night, Lexa and Marilyn will have to learn to trust their own hearts and act on what each truly needs to move on—in life and in death.”

Read on to see how Lexa first comes to Marilyn’s attention!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/02/channeling-marilyn-by-mima-tipper-excerpt/

Jun 01 2026

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Plucky robots pluck up their pluck and, having stymied the dastardly review bombers, stay right the pluck where they are.

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

This story was not for me.

+++

Doreen liked Automatic Noodle more than I did; her review is here. This was the sixth of the Hugo finalists for Best Novella that I read, and the third that I have written about.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/01/automatic-noodle-by-annalee-newitz-2/

May 30 2026

Cinder House by Freya Marske

I should have caught on much faster than I did that this novella is a retelling of Cinderella. I mean, “Cinder” is right there in the title, and the story’s very first word is “Ella,” as in “Ella’s father died of the poison in their tea.” Ella drank less tea and might have survived, except that the whole house gave a shudder when its master died, and that was exactly the moment when Ella, weak and dizzy from the poison, stood at the top of the stairs. She fell and cracked her skull on the seventh step.

Cinder House by Freya Marske

People who picked up on the retelling faster than I did — or who read any description of the book at all — may have wondered how a dead girl is supposed to dance with a prince. Therein, of course, lies the tale. Ella’s stepmother, who poisoned the tea, is sufficiently wicked for any fairy tale. Marske makes her motivation understandable by showing her as a shrewd businesswoman who is terrified of falling back into the poverty from which she rose, but she seems to take murder in stride so that while she is understandably wicked, wicked she remains. Marske also suggests that Ella’s mother did not die a natural death, and so perhaps these two fairy-tale parents were well matched in their wickedness. At any rate Marske does not show any scenes of the marriage prior to the fatal tea-time; she is interested in examining and upending only certain parts of the Cinderella story, and what the parents got up to is not one of them.

The step-sisters are not yet as wicked as their mother, although one of them clearly has ambitions. Ella, for her part, is surprised to be a ghost, though returning to consciousness and manifesting take a bit of time. As Marske explains

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/30/cinder-house-by-freya-marske/

May 29 2026

Tantalizing Tales — May 2026 — Part Five

Hello, readers, and welcome to the last Tantalizing Tale of May! It’s been a very low energy day for me today, but I’ve got a big weekend planned, so hopefully it’ll all work out (cue Sampha’s Indecision because iykyk!)

Our first pick for upcoming reads this week is Lee Goldberg’s Murder By Design, the intriguing debut of the Edison Bixby series. Our hero is a former LAPD detective turned insurance investigator, with a stellar record in both professions. Edison is handsome, rich and, after a traumatic brain injury, impulsively rude.

Wally Nash is the struggling actor (and narrator of this tongue-in-cheek novel) hired to keep Edison in check as they investigate insurance claims together. As Wally is inclined towards method work, he hopes that tagging along with Edison will give him enough material to help land his big Hollywood break.

Their first case together involves the falling death of a woman at the mall. Video evidence corroborates what dozens of witnesses saw: Caroline Crowley took a deadly misstep that led to her plunging down a staircase to her doom. But Edison is convinced that her death was not only intentional but meticulously designed, with the features of the mall itself used as the murder weapon. Soon it’s a race against time as Edison and Wally have to expose and catch a killer cunning enough to manipulate his surroundings into becoming literal death traps for the people on his hit list.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/29/tantalizing-tales-may-2026-part-five/

May 28 2026

Hugo Awards 2026: Best Poem

Honestly grateful to the Hugo Awards for continuing this category after last year’s trial balloon, and thereby forcing me to think more about and read more poetry.

I’ve discovered that, generally speaking, there are two kinds of poetry I enjoy. One is the story in verse, structured much like a short story but with far stricter word choices. The other is the imagist poem, which attempts to capture a moment in the proverbial thousand words or less. Both categories are represented here, with some poems attempting both, to varying degrees of success.

Closer to the story side was my personal favorite of the bunch, Jennifer Hudak’s The World To Come. Since I generally read the list of nominees in alphabetical order (if I hadn’t encountered them in the wild already,) hers came last, and I’ll freely admit that I was perhaps a little dejected by the time I got to it. None of the other poems had really wowed me, and when I opened this file, I was less than convinced that a poem that began with a verse from Isaiah would manage it either. But this meditation on resurrection was beautiful and subversive and perfectly speculative, and was by far my top choice for this year’s award.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/28/hugo-awards-2026-best-poem/

May 27 2026

To The Last Gram by Shreya Davies & Vanessa Wong

I am a naturally vindictive person, but disordered eating is a hell I wouldn’t wish on even my worst enemy.

To The Last Gram tells the story of Divya, who realizes from an early age that she isn’t as petite as most of the other girls around her. Perhaps shockingly for an Asian kid growing up in Singapore, neither her parents nor her friends try to shame her into being skinnier: society does that all on its own. After the government, via her secondary school, essentially tells her that she’s fat and needs to manage her weight with the help of an obesity clinic, Divya develops an eating disorder. Her parents do their best to try to help her be healthy, but they’re woefully unprepared to deal with the psychological challenge; and no shade to them because it is A Lot.

This book chronicles Divya’s struggles to get back to healthiness, and is so rawly told, so intimate in the details, that it’s hard to believe it’s entirely fiction. Divya takes great pains to exonerate her parents of any blame, squarely and correctly placing the responsibility for her sickness on a society that drums into the heads of its citizens — and especially young people — an irrational fear of being anything but skinny. Gaining weight is too often seen as a moral failing that opens you up to public ridicule worse than actually committing any crimes. Physical health is given less importance than aesthetics.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/27/to-the-last-gram-by-shreya-davies-vanessa-wong/

May 26 2026

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

I was feeling very intellectually chipper last week and decided to get a head start on some of my Hugo 2026 Awards reading, beginning with a nominated novella from a podcaster I adore.

Automatic Noodle is the story of a restaurant’s robot employees in a California that has successfully seceded, at some cost, from the United States. As the book opens, all the store’s robots have been deactivated. Flooding reawakens the emergency protocols of the manager, who was formerly a soldier in the war. As he tries to figure out what’s happening, he awakens the rest of his staff. Soon, they discover that the restaurant chain that owned them decided to close their location and shut them down in the process. Unwilling to disband, they decide to take over running the restaurant for themselves, meeting all of their challenges head-on in a heartwarming story of the American dream, more or less.

It’s clear that this is meant to be an allegory for immigration and civil rights. Trouble is, you have to buy in first to the (unfortunately inconsistent) depiction here of Artificial Intelligence being so far advanced as to have granted robots enough sentience that they’ve developed free will and earned a limited form of citizenship. Perhaps this story would have landed better in a time frame where generative AI isn’t busy dismantling the livelihoods of millions worldwide, solely for the purpose of enriching the already wealthy. It’s just hard for me as a reader (and a member of an ethnic minority, and someone whose career was made precarious by gen AI) to mentally traverse robotics’ uncanny valley and accept the humanity of created objects that are also somehow fully autonomous of their investors.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/26/automatic-noodle-by-annalee-newitz/