Oct 05 2024

False Value by Ben Aaronovitch

Because of the way that Lies Sleeping ended, Peter Grant finds himself suspended, temporarily he hopes, from the London’s Metropolitan Police. Because expenses don’t stop just because a job does, he signs up to work in the security department of one of London’s biggest and flashiest IT start-ups, the Serious Cybernetics Corporation. The founder, an American tech billionaire who recently relocated to the UK, is clearly a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but he either didn’t get that the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation failed at everything it tried to do, or he enjoyed courting disaster by naming his newest firm after Douglas Adams’ creation. At any rate, I grew up on Hitchhiker’s and still have most of the six hours of the first radio shows committed to memory, so I got a geeky kick out of all of the locations at Peter’s new job being named for odd bits from the older work. Security staff are the Vogons. Fortunately, Peter is not asked to produce any poetry, and security is more friendly than their namesake.

False Value by Ben Aaronovitch

Another small set of details I enjoyed were the boardgames that the staff at Serious Cybernetics play on company time. Some of them were from way back — Metamorphosis Alpha gets mentioned on page 20 — and others were familiar names from more recent decades. The Hitchhiker’s references and the gaming go a ways to establish Serious Cybernetics as the kind of company that’s both old-school computing and cutting-edge tech, doing things so innovative and high-concept that nobody is entirely sure what they all are, or how they will make money in the end. Terrence Skinner, the visionary founder, likes it that way, and everyone else follows along. Except, to a certain extent, the head of security, Tyrel Johnson, an ex-policeman with a West Indies background. He has hired Peter to sniff out a rat that Johnson believes is nibbling away inside of Serious.

Then there is the matter of the top floor. Only certain people are allowed up there; nobody talks about what they are doing; and Skinner is very interested. It’s an ideal place for Johnson’s rat to be scuttling about, but Peter is not cleared for anything to do with that project. Naturally, he’s keen to find out more. He gets even more interested in when he spots a fae-adjacent person he knows from the London demi-monde trying to break into the secure area.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/05/false-value-by-ben-aaronovitch/

Oct 04 2024

Tantalizing Tales — October 2024 — Part One

It’s October already, friends, and we have a mountain of excellent reads to dive into. First up is a book from bestselling author Richard Osman, he of Thursday Murder Club fame! He’s such a hot commodity amongst mystery aficionados that I keep getting beaten by other reviewers to claiming his books over at Criminal Element, which is saying a lot since my review schedule starts filling up almost half a year in advance!

Mr Osman’s latest is the first in a brand new series featuring a father- and daughter-in-law detecting team. Bluntly titled We Solve Murders, this series debut follows Steve and Amy Wheeler as they do exactly that. They certainly have the pedigree for it. Steve is retired from the police force and thoroughly enjoying his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat. He might do the odd bit of investigative work, but his most exciting cases involve insurance fraud and lost dogs, and that’s just the way Steve likes it.

Amy, on the other hand, thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. A private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. Having taken on what was supposed to be an easy job — hunkered down on a remote island, keeping a world-famous author alive — she’s shocked when the first dead body shows up. And then there’s the bag of cash. And suddenly a killer is on the loose with Amy in their sights. In need of help, Amy sends an SOS to the only person she trusts, launching herself and her father-in-law on a breakneck race around the world as they try to stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/04/tantalizing-tales-october-2024-part-one/

Oct 03 2024

Mythos: The Illustrated Edition by Stephen Fry & Jesús Sotés

This book really does have to be seen to be believed. The mammoth illustrated version of Stephen Fry’s first Mythos book is absolutely stunning, from its foiled covers and sprayed edges to its painted endpapers and gold bookmark ribbon. And that’s even before getting into Jesús Sotés’ evocative artwork, which reimagines the iconography of the Greek myths through a lens at once reminiscent of both early Christian religious art and proto-Cubism. It’s a wealth of visual material that perfectly complements the writing, rendering this volume a must-have for any collector of world mythology.

I’d never actually read this book in any of its previous forms before landing this luxe iteration. I did have the pleasure of reading the second book in the series, Heroes, and spending far too much time musing over the ramifications of storytelling on the human psyche over the ages. Luckily for me, a lot of the toxic masculinity on display in Heroes is largely absent from this book, tho the insidious nature of patriarchal influence can scarcely be denied. To be clear, none of this sexism is at all Mr Fry’s fault! He recounts the old tales as best he can, in lively, modern language that rightly points out what absolute dicks these gods could be, as their structures of power rendered them largely unaccountable, regardless of gender. Speaking of which, it’s also of note how the ancient Greeks were far more progressive on certain ideas of gender and sexuality than some so-called liberals are today.

It’s interesting to note, too, what other mores have changed. While fratricide is still considered one of the gravest sins, a parent killing a child in order to punish the other parent was once seen as an unfortunate but justifiable act. The traditional emphasis on xenia, the most gods-beloved spirit of hospitality, is also sobering given how selectively it’s practiced in the present day. I know it’s very intellectually indulgent of me to cherry pick which ancient beliefs should still be considered of higher importance — better to base my reasoning on thoughtful humanism than blind adherence to tradition, after all — but it’s the rare religion that doesn’t believe in feeding and sheltering the itinerant, and it pains me now to see how homelessness and poverty are treated even here in the United States of America, arguably the greatest nation in the world.

You’d think this was a digression, but really, what’s the point of mythology if not to be held up as a mirror to the world we have today? Myths and stories are some of the most useful ways to pass on knowledge, so that even if you don’t have experience of an ordeal, you’ll know how to avoid it (or court it, if you’re one of those types.)

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/03/mythos-the-illustrated-edition-by-stephen-fry-jesus-sotes/

Oct 02 2024

Sea Serpent’s Heir Book Three: Queen of Mercy by Mairghread Scott & Pablo Túnica

I can’t even remember the last time I read a graphic novel series that wrapped up neatly in three books. Good show, creative team!

The Sea Serpent’s Heir trilogy concludes with this final volume, as our heroine Aella must try to rescue the demon Xir who was once bonded to her, in the aftermath of her beloved aunt Kiana’s betrayal. Having stolen Xir’s power, Kiana is using her formidable magic to disguise herself as the murdered Black Sun Mother and take command of the Church of the First Light. She plans to become an irresistible force who will never feel powerless ever again.

While Aella managed to escape the church’s stronghold with her mother Ryanna, her other aunt Zuri and the former demon hunter Bashir, she refuses to flee the city. Xir needs to be freed, and Aella will not stop until she’s made sure of their liberty, even if it means facing down an entire church and Kiana’s machinations once more.

Complicating matters is the fact that Aella is strongly against killing, a concept her pirate mother finds unfathomable. Will Aella be able to find allies willing to believe her and work with her to take down the imposter? Or will Kiana successfully carry on her deception until its too late to save innocent souls from her reign of terror?

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/02/sea-serpents-heir-book-three-queen-of-mercy-by-mairghread-scott-pablo-tunica/

Oct 01 2024

Ayo’s Adventure: Across The African Diaspora From Afro To Zulu by Ain Heath Drew & Erin Robinson

Happy October, readers! With Black History Month starting in the UK, what better time to explore a book on Africa and its diaspora?

Ayo is a young boy in America whose parents are doing a wonderful job teaching him about his heritage. While he’s proud to be a Black American with a rich generational history in the United States, he’s also tapped into the positive influences of Africa and its impact worldwide. As he’s falling asleep one night, his drowsy brain takes him on an A to Z journey through some of the major historical highlights and cultural contributions of the African diaspora worldwide.

A begins with Afro, before bouncing to Braids, hair issues that, while nominally linked to the USA in the book, are a concern for every Black person who’s ever been made to feel less than respectable for having natural hair. The book then swings down to Trinidad & Tobago to celebrate Calypso music before heading to Mali to explore Dogon culture, and from then on to the rest of the world.

Well, not the entire rest of the world: there’s precious little in Europe or Asia. While the African diaspora in Asia only gained a significant toehold in the 21st century, it does seem a little odd from a truly global perspective that no mention of their impact in Europe is made here. But that’s fine: this is a picture book from the United States, after all, and it covers so much elsewhere, especially on under-reported places in South America!

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/01/ayos-adventure-across-the-african-diaspora-from-afro-to-zulu-by-ain-heath-drew-erin-robinson/

Sep 30 2024

UFO Mushroom Invasion by Shirakawa Marina

translated and edited by historian Ryan Holmberg as part of Smudge, “a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga”.

Honestly, this was rad and creepy all at once. The original manga was published in 1976, and has been translated and repackaged here for English-speaking audiences, with illuminating essays and notes to boot. Shirakawa Marina loved both space stories and Japanese folklore, and combines them with aplomb in this tale of alien horror.

Aoki is on a hiking trip with his classmates when he hurts his leg, necessitating that he and one of his teachers, Sada, stay overnight in a remote mountain cabin while the rest of his class returns to Shizuoka. That evening, a great crash rouses Aoki, Sada and their elderly host. The adults are shocked to find that a UFO has crashed nearby. After telling their host to go get help, Sada puts Aoki on his back and goes to take a closer look at the crash site. Despite Aoki’s pleas, Sada doesn’t want to get too close, just in case the UFO actually does pose a threat.

Nearly twelve hours later, government officials come to secure the crash site. Sada and Aoki are whisked away to a facility where they discover, to their dismay, that the truth is being covered up. Aoki’s visiting mother and sister laugh at his story of a UFO, repeating the official line that it was just a meteorite. But when the news starts reporting that other “meteorites” have been falling all over Japan and the rest of the world, Aoki and Sada both suspect that that UFO was just the herald of a far greater menace to humanity than they’d ever imagined.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/09/30/ufo-mushroom-invasion-by-shirakawa-marina/

Sep 29 2024

Mein litauischer Führerschein by Felix Ackermann

Mein litauischer Fürherschein — My Lithuanian Driver’s License — carries the subtitle “Ausflüge zum Ende der europäischen Union,” “Excursions to the End of the European Union.” He means one of the geographic ends of course, not the demise of the Union. I’m not sure I would have chosen Lithuania as the end of the Union either, since it’s nestled between Poland and Latvia. Depending on how you look at things, Estonia or Finland would have the better claim to being the end of the EU in this direction. Still, Lithuania’s frontier is part of the Union’s external boundary with direct links to Russia (westward, oddly enough) and Belarus (eastward), which turns out to be Ackermann’s relationship with Lithuania.

Mein litauischer Führerschein by Felix Ackermann

Ackermann moves with his wife and young children from Berlin to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, in the early 2010s. He is part of Germany’s sizeable apparatus of cultural diplomacy, though he is far from a functionary. Getting there requires a little backstory. In 1992, the first year after the collapse of the Soviet Union, some idealists led by Anatoli Mikhailov founded the European Humanities University in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. At the time, Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia, Belarus was not a dictatorship, and the moment seemed ripe to bring pan-European teaching and values into the former socialist bloc. EHU grew to include programs in the humanities, in modern and classical languages, and, somewhat incongruously, information technology. Anyway, democracy took root less well in Belarus than in other post-Soviet countries; the bureaucracy eventually decided that an independent university that was European and humanistic was not what they wanted, and they used various forms of chincanery to push it out. In 2004, Belarus revoked the EHU’s accreditation. In 2005, the university re-established itself in Vilnius with support from the Lithuanian government, the European Commission, Nordic countries and various foundations.

By the time Ackermann arrives, EHU has settled into the peculiar existence of a university in exile. Most of the students are from Belarus; some of the faculty commute from Minsk to Vilnius to teach. The powers-that-be in Minsk — that is, the dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko — cracked down enough to push the university across the border, but not enough to prevent both students and faculty from continuing to have a university. Ackermann himself has a position financed by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), a public body that supports scholarship from and about Germany around the world. He’s integrated into the mission of the EHU, but his external support means that he’s insulated from the financial struggles that many of his students and colleagues face.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/09/29/mein-litauischer-fuhrerschein-by-felix-ackermann/

Sep 28 2024

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

One of the things that science fiction writers have learned how to do in the 206 years since Frankenstein was first published is how to bring their readers along with the new elements of the world that they put into their stories. Most of the time, they take care to make the fantastic elements plausible within the world portrayed by the story, and largely consistent once the rules of the game are laid out. I can’t fault Shelley for not following this practice, exactly, since in some ways she wrote the genre of science fiction into being with Frankenstein, but the stacking one implausibility on top of another throughout the novel kept kicking me out of the story to the point that I really never went back in.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The general tale is well-known enough to need very little rehearsing: Victor Frankenstein, scientist, arguably mad, takes various parts of various bodies, and uses secret knowledge that he has discovered to infuse the parts with life. Only after all of this work does Frankenstein realize that the creature is not, to put it mildly, aesthetically pleasing in his appearance. Horrified by his creation, he runs away; when he returns the creature has fled the lab. Frankenstein collapses, and when he has been nursed back to health he does not care what has happened to the creature. Several things happen, one of which is that the creation murders Frankenstein’s younger brother. He begins to wreak vengeance on Frankenstein’s whole family. Victor confronts him in the high Alps near Chamonix, and the creature extracts a promise that Frankenstein will create a mate for him and they will depart from Europe and leave Victor and his family in peace. (Neither seems to consider that this second creature might have a will and desires of her own.) Victor reneges on his promise, and the creature continues his vengeance, killing more who are near and dear to Frankenstein. Victor then turns the tables and pursues the creature to the ends of the earth. The whole is set within a framing narrative of an Arctic explorer writing letters back to his sister in England, under the supposition that his letters will somehow find their way back even if he and his crew perish. Frankenstein has pursued the creature into this uttermost north; on the expedition’s ship he survives long enough to tell his tale and then expires. The creature is last seen in the distance, headed even further north.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/09/28/frankenstein-by-mary-shelley-2/

Sep 27 2024

Heebie Jeebies by Matthew Erman & Shelby Criswell

There isn’t anything super innovative about the plot of this terrific middle grade graphic novel, but the storytelling choices that the creative team have made give it a truly profound 21st century edge.

Blue literally lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Their mom works multiple crappy jobs to make ends meet and they’re constantly bullied by a trio of mean kids. At least they have their best friend Herschel, who got held back a grade and is obsessed with his Cranky the Quillhog video game. Herschel might not be the brightest but he’s loyal and sweet. When he stands up to the bullies, the latter claim that they’re only picking on Blue because Blue could be rich like them, too, if only Blue had the gumption. Apparently, the Amberline School is built on buried treasure that hunters have been seeking for decades. Maybe Blue could be the one to finally find it.

Lured by the siren call of no longer having to struggle so hard, Blue decides to break into the school one night with faithful Herschel at their side. Despite a fairly thorough search, the friends are discouraged at finding no clues to where the treasure may be, at least until new groundskeeper Madison shows up for her shift. She’s seen some really spooky things at Amberline since she’s started, but she’s prepared to take care of a few ghosts… or so she thinks. Soon enough, Blue, Herschel and Madison will have to join forces if they want to unearth the treasure and escape the curse of Amberline alive.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/09/27/heebie-jeebies-by-matthew-erman-shelby-criswell/

Sep 26 2024

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, Pt. 3

One of the many astonishing things that Richard Rhodes does in The Making of the Atomic Bomb is to match the tone and pace of each of the major sections to their theme. It’s common enough in good novels, but uncommon in non-fiction, and vanishingly rare in a non-fiction work of this size and scope. The third and final part is just two long chapters, one on the Trinity test and the other on Hiroshima. They are tales of awe and terror. The middle section takes eight chapters to show the immense logistical effort to create what was necessary to build the first bomb, including wholly new cities and one of the world’s largest industrial plants, all in secret and in competition with everything else urgently needed to win the war. Those chapters are methodical, urgent, but also bureaucratic, tales of memos and transfers. The first section is all about understanding the atom, about the excitement of discovery. Words like “surprise” and “joy” recur throughout this part, as scientists take unusual experimental results and try to make sense of them, or propose theories about matter that can be tested, and then devise experiments to find out.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

“As his protégé James Chadwick said, [Ernest] Rutherford’s ultimate distinction was ‘his genius to be astonished.’ He preserved that quality against every assault of success…” (p. 36) Rhodes details how Rutherford’s first experimental astonishment led to discoveries in radio waves that, for a time, put him ahead of Marconi. He went on to discover radioactive half-life, the difference between alpha and beta particles, to put forward the theory that an atom’s mass is concentrated in its nucleus, to co-develop atomic numbering, and to lead the laboratory that discovered the neutron. Those are some astonishing astonishments.

“[Niels] Bohr learned about radiochemistry from [George] de Hevesy. He began to see connections with his electron-theory work. His sudden burst of intuitions then was spectacular. He realized in the space of a few weeks that radioactive properties originated in the atomic nucleus but chemical properties depended on the number and distribution of electrons.” (p. 67) Within a year Bohr wrote a three-part paper titled “On the constitution of atoms and molecules” laying out an important step forward in modeling atomic structure, one that is still taught as a gateway to more complex models.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/09/26/the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb-by-richard-rhodes-pt-3/