Mar 18 2025

A Year of Diana Wynne Jones: the mid 1990s!

In my quest to read all of Diana Wynne Jones’s books in one year, this month I read The Crown of Dalemark, Stopping for a Spell, and The Tough Guide to Fantasyland!

Seriously, this was quite a lineup for a short month: it included our first ending of a series, our first collection of shorter works, and an alphabetized guidebook to fantasy tropes! All of these were rereads for me, and I felt like I gained perspective on all of them through the context of this readthrough process.

This custom image by Marnanel Thurman shows the dates we read this book, the book’s title and the series title, "A Year of Diana Wynne Jones," with the cover of one edition of the book. The Crown of Dalemark, (1993)
In the late 1970s, Diana Wynne Jones published three Dalemark novels: first, two novels of Dalemark in a kind of early industrial revolution era, with Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet in 1975 and 1977, taking place concurrently, in a land with slow travel, magic stuff, and firearms being introduced. Then came Spellcoats in 1979, which brought us back to an origin point of the very founding of Dalemark, far in the distant and mythologized past.

Over a decade later, the series concludes with The Crown of Dalemark: we meet Maewen, a girl in an era of Dalemark that feels contemporary to the 1990s: fast trains, divorced parents, boarding school shenanigans – the whole works. She gets tricked into traveling back in time to the era of Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet, in order to aid the gods of Dalemark in restoring a rightful king to the empty throne.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/18/a-year-of-diana-wynne-jones-the-mid-1990s/

Mar 17 2025

Groomed by Jody Paschal

The global COVID-19 lockdowns were a tough time for millions around the globe, in no small part due to the confrontation many people had with whether or not they actually enjoyed living with themselves. One such person is Mylo Gunn, a fifty year-old Black American whose extra time for introspection butts up against the burgeoning #MeToo movement, exposing parts of himself he’d thought long buried.

Back when Mylo was seventeen, he met and fell and love with the beautiful twenty-five year-old April Barnes. While many of the people around him told him to be careful with her, nobody really tried to stop him from pursuing a relationship with a woman who was definitely not respecting the “half your age plus seven” years rule of dating suitability. Over time, April groomed Mylo into being the boyfriend, and later husband, she desired. Tho Mylo knew that the way she treated him was wrong, he didn’t know how to permanently extricate himself from a woman he thought he loved and, eventually, owed.

Fast-forward several decades, and Mylo is happily married to his second wife, Traci, as they ride out the lockdowns together. Looking for an athletic release when restrictions eventually ease, Mylo takes to open-air training with a group of guys he meets at a nearby track. When one of them encourages him to explore the feelings he’s started having regarding his first wife and their tumultuous relationship, he makes the first tentative steps to putting his story down on paper, little realizing the hidden connection that will later rock his world.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/17/groomed-by-jody-paschal/

Mar 16 2025

A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

A City on Mars asks in its subtitle “Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?” When I read part of the book to decide how to vote on its place in the 2024 Hugo Awards category of Best Related Work I thought that the answers were “probably not, probably not, and definitely not” but allowed for the possibility that after reading the whole thing they might be even simpler: no, no, and no. Now that I have taken time to read the full argument, I think the answers are “maybe but not for a long time, only under certain circumstances and again not for a long time, and oh hell no.” That’s not really the story the Weinersmiths wanted to tell when they started their project, but it’s the conclusion they came to after a long and fair look at many aspects of space settlement.

City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

The text is breezy and conversational, punctuated by well-chosen illustrations by Zach, but the subject and conclusions are plenty serious. The American government, along with two of the world’s richest men, are investing significant resources into promoting and achieving some form of space settlement in the nearish future. Elon Musk’s promises, and especially his timetables, on that front have turned out to be vaporware, but his company continues to push in that direction. His attitude toward law, as revealed in his actions in early 2025, shows the importance of a topic that the Weinersmiths devote considerable attention: the laws and agreements that regulate human activities in space, how those came to be, how they work in both theory and practice, and how they will shape attempts at settling celestial bodies beyond the Earth. Those are topics that tend to get short shrift in much writing about space settlement. That’s unfortunate because attempting to place a new settlement on the Moon or on Mars would be an immense social effort, and those don’t happen outside of legal and political frameworks. The Weinersmiths tackle legal and social questions last because those are the most difficult; although they don’t directly say that God gave physicists the easy problems, it’s true.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/16/a-city-on-mars-by-kelly-and-zach-weinersmith/

Mar 14 2025

Tantalizing Tales — March 2025 — Part One

I continue to be flummoxed by the concept of time, dear readers, as March comes in like a lion here in my mid-Atlantic state. It has also been, quite frankly, a tough time to be a professional reader. It feels like one catastrophe after another threatening everything I hold dear, through the diabolical intersection of short-sighted technoligarchy with ethno-nationalist fascism. Frankly, I’m exhausted (and don’t get me started on how the Daylight Savings time change during the fasting month has thoroughly messed with my circadian rhythms.)

But at least I have books to help me through, even if they’re books that I can only look forward to reading once I finally find the time again. The first of these, timed perfectly to Women’s History Month, is Marianna Marlowe’s Portrait Of A Feminist: A Memoir In Essays. Through flashes of memory of her childhood in California, Ecuador and Peru, interspersed with scenes from the present day, Ms Marlowe details the evolution of her identity as a biracial and multicultural woman.

With her experiences being the child of a Catholic Peruvian mother and an atheist American father in a family that lived abroad for years, she confronts the realities that so many of us share, including unequal marriages, class structures, misogynistic literature and patriarchal religion. Her essays bring her to the two most important questions in feminism today: What does it look like to live a life in defense of feminism? And how should feminism continue to evolve in the present day?

I’ve heard mixed reviews of this one, which only piques my interest all the more. So many people have different ideas of what feminism means that it’s always intriguing to see how someone boldly proclaims the title of feminist for themself, especially in the context of intersectionality. I’m looking forward to getting a chance to dive in.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/14/tantalizing-tales-march-2025-part-one/

Mar 13 2025

Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder by Brandi Bradley (EXCERPT)

I’m ngl, pretty privilege is real. I don’t speak just from personal experience, but from watching pre-Crystal Palace Ben Chilwell get consistently picked for Chelsea and England despite being clearly outclassed by nearly everyone around him (this is, admittedly, a very niche example.) So when this terrific queer title came across my desk, I knew I had to share it with you readers. Even more excitingly, I have an excerpt for you so you can get a taste of what’s inside!

When a young entrepreneur is killed, everyone in town points fingers at his neo-hippie, picture-perfect, miracle-manifesting, fitness influencer ex-girlfriend Gabbi – including the victim’s best friend Jenna. As detective Lindy D’Arnaud and her partner Boggs search for a motive, they begin to wonder if this is a case of jealousy turned violent or shady business dealings gone deadly sour.

Things aren’t much clearer in Lindy’s personal life. When her wife’s ex-boyfriend – and the sperm donor to their baby – decides to move back to town, she finds herself competing with him for her wife’s affection. Can the three of them truly be a postmodern family in Western Kentucky, where living as a queer person is already challenging enough?

Told through the shifting perspectives of Lindy, Gabbi and Jenna, Pretty Girls Get Away With Murder is a page-turner brimming with quick wit and juicy gossip. But don’t take my word for it, check out this excerpt — from Gabby’s occasionally incisive, occasionally completely oblivious perspective — for yourself!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/13/pretty-girls-get-away-with-murder-by-brandi-bradley-excerpt/

Mar 12 2025

Bitsy Bat, Team Star by Kaz Windness

Bitsy Bat loves school, but is a little worried when new kid Enzo Owl threatens to take the Fastest Flier title away from her. Concerned that her friends will no longer think she’s special, she hyperfocuses on proving that she’s the best. But when race day comes and one of her classmates winds up in trouble, will she be able to sacrifice her ego and remember the importance of being a good friend?

Fairly standard description of any kids’ book trying to teach its readers the importance of being a good team player. What makes Bitsy Bat, Team Star stand out, however, is the fact that both Bitsy and Enzo are neurodivergent in ways that present differently, with classmates who may also have different learning challenges. I never really realized until reading this how few kids’ books feature multiple children with special needs. At best, you can find just one such child navigating everyday life, but that’s definitely not the case in the real world. I’m not even the most involved parent when it comes to my kids’ school life, but I do know that there are entire classes of sweet, hard-working kids who just need some extra support in getting through the school day.

So it’s super refreshing to read this picture book and find such excellent representation of autistic kids and kids with disabilities. The challenges they face are pretty universal — in this case, fighting insecurity, jealousy and selfishness — but with care taken to show how neurodivergency makes it harder for some kids to self-regulate their involuntary responses. More importantly, it models the sensible way to help kids learn how to cope with their big feelings, so that they can grow up to be better adjusted friends and adults.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/12/bitsy-bat-team-star-by-kaz-windness/

Mar 11 2025

Dreamover by Dani Diaz

Oh, young love! Amber and Nico have been best friends since the third grade, along with the other member of their little trio, Drew. During the last week of eighth grade, all three of them go on a field trip to Funnerland with the rest of their class. Their good friends Stella and Grace (who happen to be a couple as well) hang out with them as they enjoy the beach and boardwalk.

While Drew, Stella and Grace snooze on the sand, Amber and Nico hit the arcades, where they eventually (and adorably) admit their feelings for one another. The summer that follows is the best of their young lives, as they sink into the wonders of young love and first romance. Amber wistfully wishes that that summer could last forever.

Alas, high school is both imminent and inevitable. The upperclassmen make fun of all five of them, and Nico withdraws even further into himself. But perhaps of more concern for their friendships is the way that Amber and Nico begin cutting themselves off from the rest of their friends. Texts go unanswered, and group hangs devolve into one absenting themself to spend time with the other. Their friends try to be understanding, but the tension is still there.

Amber and Nico are happy to continue their tradition of sleepovers from back before they were romantically involved, tho their parents still do keep a weather eye on them. But one night, after a particularly intense video game session, the couple falls asleep on the couch in the basement. They wake to find themselves in the video game, and set off on a series of adventures that, at first, seem like everything they’ve ever wanted. As real world concerns filter into their dreams, however, the young lovers’ fears and insecurities will come to the forefront. Will they and their relationship be able to survive what they discover about one another?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/11/dreamover-by-dani-diaz/

Mar 10 2025

True Gretch: Young Adult Edition by Gretchen Whitmer

with Lisa Dickey. Subtitled Lessons for Anyone Who Wants to Make a Difference.

Despite being fairly politically informed, I wasn’t super familiar with Governor Gretchen Whitmer until the news of her attempted kidnapping and murder made national headlines. Even then, her policies didn’t (and still don’t, as most if not all of my Midwestern friends are from every state but Michigan) affect my daily life, so I didn’t pay much attention beyond acknowledging that she’s thankfully on the right side of history in her continued dedication to progressive causes.

And then this book landed on my desk, and y’all! I have a crush!

Because Big Gretch, as she’s fondly known on social media, is delightful! Granted, this is an autobiography, where the charm is of necessity turned up to 11. But in addition to the usual flattering chapters about herself and her life and career to date, she takes on a surprising number of honest but unfashionable stances that she simply doesn’t have to. Whether it’s about admitting mistakes or being able to say “I’m sorry”, her honesty, decency and commitment to public service shine through in a way that feels both genuine and unfortunately rare in this current political climate.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/10/true-gretch-young-adult-edition-by-gretchen-whitmer/

Mar 07 2025

Whatever Happened To Frankie King by Jay Neugeboren & Eli Neugeboren

I don’t even remember how I first heard about Frankie King, the 1950s basketball phenom who seemingly disappeared from his own life before being revealed decades later as the bestselling author of cozy cat mysteries written under a female pen name. But I did read Jay Neugeboren’s terrific article for The American Scholar on the subject, and was absolutely enthralled by the mystery of it all. I was thus super excited to hear that Mr Neugeboren was coming up with a graphic biography that would dive even deeper into the subject.

So it’s a pity that the graphic format does not end up serving the story that Mr Neugeboren chooses to tell in these pages. I hesitate to blame this on the format, especially as the book has terrific momentum in the beginning before stalling out around the time that Frankie quits basketball, almost as if echoing its subject’s trajectory. Writing for comics is not an easy or necessarily intuitive skill, after all. The decision to cut from perspective to perspective is executed in a way that’s nowhere near as smoothly done as in Mr Neugeboren’s original article, especially given how the narrative also shifts haphazardly back and forth in time in this longer-form book. Capping the story after Frankie’s death with another oral history from someone who went to school with him could be considered a recapitulation of the theme… if there wasn’t then a coda specifically about a scene from one of his books, followed by an arguably unnecessary synopsis of the entire biography. Sure this is a great way to write a symphony — and arguably a standard way to write a scholarly paper — but for the graphic novel format, it feels weirdly condescending both to readers and to itself. It’s as if the author did not expect to be able to grip the reader’s attention enough with the many diversions in the body of the text, thereby necessitating multiple recaps. The organization of the book is all a bit of a head-scratcher, and one that only highlights how little we really know about our protagonist and the seemingly odd choices he made throughout his relatively long and storied life.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/07/whatever-happened-to-frankie-king-by-jay-neugeboren-eli-neugeboren/

Mar 06 2025

I’m Lucky To Have My Parents by Radostina Nikolova & Yana Popova

What a moving, necessary book. I fully admit that I’m not terribly cognizant of the existing literature on the topic in the English language, but I’m super glad that Papercutz had this translated from the original Bulgarian (courtesy of Borislava Pancheva) in order to reach a wider audience.

That topic is how kids can deal with parents who no longer want to be married to each other and who, indeed, go on to start new families with other people. The book begins simply enough with a young girl enjoying spending time with each of her parents, who have their strengths and weaknesses but who nonetheless love their daughter with all their hearts. Their child narrates how sometimes her parents get along, but more often don’t. She does her best to bridge the gap between them, and is heartbroken when that isn’t enough to keep them together.

Their separation makes her sad and angry, and has her questioning why they can’t all be happy again together. Mom does her best to explain that sometimes people want different things, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t love their daughter very much. More importantly, Mom tells her that it’s okay to feel all her feelings and to express them.

And soon our narrator does find herself experiencing happiness again, as her parents move on from one another but always, always ensure that their daughter knows that she is loved and supported, no matter how their family changes and grows. It’s a very important lesson, not only for kids but for parents who might need reminding that kids are people in their own right, not just vestiges of former partners and relationships. Don’t even get me started on people who leave kids behind when they split up. As Cher’s dad said in Clueless, one of the best movies ever, “You divorce wives, not children.”

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/06/im-lucky-to-have-my-parents-by-radostina-nikolova-yana-popova/