Dec 01 2023

Die Känguru-Comics 2 written by Marc-Uwe Kling

and illustrated by Bernd Kissel, subtitled “Du würdest es eh nicht glauben” — You Wouldn’t Believe it Anyway

This second volume of the kangaroo comics concludes the hardback publication of the odd couple’s 2020–23 run in Germany’s leading intellectual weekly newspaper. There are some nice touches in the two volumes: the first is dedicated “For me!” and the second “For you!”; the cartoons on the endpapers reverse each other; the illustrations before both title pages feature the kangaroo and Marc-Uwe in related characteristic poses. The second also has a “What Has Gone Before” that recaps the first meeting of Marc-Uwe and the kangaroo 18 years ago, though it changes the final gag just a little bit. I’m not sure that it would be enough of an introduction for someone coming to the comics with no previous knowledge of the characters, but it’s unlikely that anyone in that category will be buying this collection anyway. For long-time fans, it’s a warm and fuzzy way to remember their first encounter with this improbable human-marsupial pair.

Känguru Comics - vol. 2

This collection continues very much in the style of the first: topical commentary, meta-jokes, clever wordplay, a mix of one-day gags and longer riffs that last through a week’s worth of strips or more. Some of the one-day jokes include a return visit to a dark restaurant where Marc-Uwe and the kangaroo play rock-paper-scissors to decide who pays the bill, or a full-color “Kafka for Kids.” There’s a lengthier stretch where the two invent new Olympic sports such as judo–field hockey or pillow fight–weighlifting. For the month of the strip’s summer break, the book shows how writer and illustrator went on tour together to do a sort of comic-strip improv. They took suggestions from the audience, that Kling developed into dialog and Kissel drew while the two of them were on stage. There are also a couple of examples of cartoons they did for a charity benefit, the best of which was a poster with the legend “Yes, We Käng” featuring a headshot of the kangaroo in the style of the famous Obama “Hope” poster. For the end of 2022 there’s a lovely single-panel parody of a comedy sketch that’s a staple of German culture — a short film in English called “Dinner for One,” that’s shown every New Year’s Eve in Germany (and a couple of other places) so that it’s practically universally known here and utterly unknown in Britain. It’s a fun bit of Känguru humor that could only be realized in this medium. The last bit begins with a meta-joke about the comic form, and the follow-ups bring the excursion to a fitting, if not completely closed, conclusion.

There’s not a whole lot to add about the second volume, as compared to the first. It’s funny, it fits the characters, it explores the medium a bit. It’s not a good place to begin. The place to begin for English speakers is the print translation of The Kangaroo Chronicles; for German speakers who have somehow missed the phenomenon, the place to begin is the audio version of Die Känguru Chroniken. In either case, a treat.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/01/die-kanguru-comics-2-written-by-marc-uwe-kling/

Nov 30 2023

Uncanny Vows (Huntsmen #2) by Laura Anne Gilman

Six months after the events chronicled in the debut novel of this series, siblings Rosemary and Aaron Harker are living on tenterhooks, wondering whether the omissions in their last report have been discovered and whether they’re being sidelined from their life’s work as Huntsmen as a result. Their latest assignment from the Circle doesn’t seem to provide any answers: head north to Boston to discreetly assist a wealthy benefactor. The strange attacks on the Ballantine home seem to be mostly vandalism, until an otherwise healthy young man falls into a sleep from which he won’t wake.

Once in Boston, the Harkers and their specially bred hound Botheration find themselves stymied by the need both for discretion and to stay on the good side of the Ballantines. It doesn’t help that another Huntsman, Council darling Jonathan Scheinberg, just happens to be staying at their hotel too. He says that he’s passing through, but the Harkers aren’t the kind of people to believe in coincidences.

Aaron soon starts to feel like he’s being watched. Bad enough that the Harkers hadn’t told the Circle about the bending of the ancient treaty between humans and fey after the events in Brunson. The fey themselves couldn’t have possibly caught wind and started showing an interest in them, too, could they?

This is definitely not a book you should go into blind: reading the first, Uncanny Times, will help immeasurably in getting up to speed with who all these people are, and what and why the reasons for their otherwise relatively obscure motivations. Set on the cusp of World War I, these books revolve around Huntsmen, family lines who hunt the uncanny monsters who live side by side with humanity. Rosemary and Aaron are of the belief that only the ones who interfere negatively with humans should be hunted, and the rest left alone — a belief not shared by all of their peers. It doesn’t help that their family is under something of a pall, to do with long ago events far out of the siblings’ control.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/30/uncanny-vows-huntsmen-2-by-laura-anne-gilman/

Nov 28 2023

The Case Of The Modern Men (Bad Machinery #8) by John Allison

Having survived eight weeks of the worst emotional turmoil I’ve ever endured, what should I fall prey to next but whatever horrid ailment has seized all my children over these American holidays! After finishing my last book for work yesterday morning and staring down the barrel of many, many more books for work, I decided to rebel and read something for myself, taking an early gander at the last copy of the Bad Machinery series that I currently own, The Case Of The Modern Men.

Loyal readers will know that I usually save the Bad Machinery books for Christmas morning, when the rest of my family is all occupying themselves with presents and I get an uninterrupted hour or so of quiet reading surrounded by their burbling laughter (or the occasional squeal of frustration or rage that I’m well used to tuning out, at least on Christmas morning while their father tends to them.) But I really wanted a comfort read with pictures today, and I can’t for the life of me find the copies of Steeple that my husband bought for me last year, so I decided I’d just go ahead and read this book then order the rest to read over Christmas as usual.

And it was absolutely worth it! I was so sick today, I couldn’t even sit up for the Sennelier Monday Live sessions I usually do with my friends (tho in fairness, I was also a little intimidated that they were doing a portrait in watercolors this week: I just did my first portrait in oil pastels last week and that was a Big Deal for me. That said, I’m pretty sure my rendering of Eugene Delacroix was Not Great, so I’m hesitant to apply my shaky art theory across mediums to a non-dead person.) But reading this book was just about what I needed, even if my energy levels weren’t quite up to downing the whole thing in one go, as I usually do. I actually had to take a break between reading Parts 2 and 3 of this book to take a restorative illness nap with my also-ill youngest!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/28/the-case-of-the-modern-men-bad-machinery-8-by-john-allison/

Nov 26 2023

Underground Empire by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman

Right up front I should say that Henry Farrell, one of the authors of Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, is a friend from graduate school. Part of me read this book the way one would read a draft of a friend’s project — not that Henry has ever wanted or needed my editing — pulling at the arguments, applauding good lines, suggesting tweaks here and there throughout the manuscript. And while doing that here would be fun (for blogger/editor values of “fun”), it would be entirely beside the point for Underground Empire. The book builds on the two authors’ academic work and aims to bring their ideas to a larger audience of policy practitioners, people who influence international relations, and interested citizens.

Underground Empire by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman

If everything exceeds expectations, Henry and co-author Abraham Newman will break out of the half-academic corner, and their book will join the line of discourse-shaping works such as The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, The End of History and the Last Man, The Clash of Civilizations and The World Is Flat. In contrast to most of those works, which are almost all expansions of journal articles,* Underground Empire is better for the non-specialist to read than its underlying article for at least three reasons. First, the authors have had four more years to refine their ideas and presentation, to gather more examples, and to have seen how officials have reacted to — and sometimes made use of — their ideas in real-world international relations. Second, they have taken out most of the academic and theoretical apparatus behind their ideas. They have left in the insights, and made them approachable for a larger audience without simplifying them to the point of caricature. Third, they are willing to look forward as well as backward and sideways. Henry and Newman close with a chapter that takes the interdependences the rest of the book has described and sketches how they could be used to help create a sustainable future in which humanity overcomes many of the perils of the twenty-first century.

What are their ideas? Henry and Newman take readers on a journey to some key places of the early twenty-first century. In short, after the end of the Cold War new global institutions were built around the idea of networks. I use the passive voice advisedly, because in contrast to the institutions that states made after the end of World War II, the ones that emerged from the aftermath of the Cold War were not grand designs. The World Trade Organization evolved from the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. The builders of the internet gave the network of networks characteristics, not a detailed plan. International banks found solutions to pressing business problems; what they came up with was not what anyone would have done if they were building a global financial system from the ground up, it was what held together well enough until the next crisis came along.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/26/underground-empire-by-henry-farrell-and-abraham-newman/

Nov 24 2023

Eagle Drums by Nasugraq Rainey Hopson

For the longest time, Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. It’s an occasion for people to gather and reflect on all the things they’re thankful for, which is in my opinion the most meaningful reason people can come together. But then, ofc, I learned about the American holiday’s terrible origins in colonization and betrayal, whitewashed over the years to make the day more palatable to larger, more gullible swathes of the populace, amongst whose number I had once been.

While I’m still grateful for the ability for loved ones to get together and count our blessings, I also think that it’s important for those of us who live here in the United States of America — and by extension Canada — to acknowledge and honor the First People who shared their bounty with others, asking nothing in return (and in far too many cases getting less than nothing, or receiving just outright cruelty or evil in exchange.) So I’m really glad that Nasugraq Rainey Hopson wrote this book, that talks about the origins of the Inupiaq Messenger Feast, a tradition of several native tribes of Alaska that has much in common with the modern celebration of Thanksgiving.

As legend has it, Pinay was the youngest of three brothers who lived with their parents in a rich part of the North. One by one, his older brothers disappeared, leaving him only an ornately carved bow hewn by the eldest and decorated by the middle brother with scenes indicating good hunting. Pinay himself grew to be an expert hunter, honoring the land and working with his parents to store the the food — meat, fish and vegetables — they collected to see out the lean seasons.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/24/eagle-drums-by-nasugraq-rainey-hopson/

Nov 22 2023

Explosive Chemistry by Paige E Ewing (EXCERPT)

Hi readers! As we head into the holiday weekend, check out this excerpt from a freshly published work of speculative fiction.

Explosive Chemistry is an urban fantasy, paranormal slow-burn romance set 30 years into a hopeful future where fossil fuels are obsolete. Liliana, a reluctant spider-kin fortune teller, is faced with the task of solving the mystery of who killed four soldiers at Fort Liberty. Follow along as Liliana bands together with an irritating Fae Colonel as they defend their close friends, an oak goblin doctor and a fairy with a penchant for machine guns, from becoming the next victims. Including a neurodivergent main character and a diverse cast of quirky companions, Explosive Chemistry is the second installment of the Liliana and the Fae of Fayetteville series that started with Precise Oaths.

Read on for the action-packed excerpt!

~~~~~~~

She drew out a line of silk and picked up a pebble, encasing the stone in silk on one end. She stepped back behind a tree trunk, waiting for the right moment.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/22/explosive-chemistry-by-paige-e-ewing-excerpt/

Nov 21 2023

Indigo Children Vol 1 by Curt Pires & Rockwell White

with art by Alex Diotto, Dee Cunniffe & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

Fifteen years ago, the preternaturally gifted kids collectively known as the Indigo Children disappeared. Reporter Donovan Price has never let the story go, and continues to search for any trace of them. His latest lead is a video tape, where one of the kids, Alexei, describes their group as the only survivors of a holocaust on Mars. They fled their dying planet and came to Earth to prevent more annihilation from happening to an (implied: inferior) people.

Ofc, no one who knows anything about the Indigo Children wants to talk to Donovan. An anonymous source leads him to Russia, where one of the people on the tape is in hiding. When an assassin attempts to kill Donovan and make it look like a suicide, the journalist realizes that he’s going to have to call in the big guns… or at least, the biggest gun available to him. Their journey leads them to a secret that could change the world forever, as the Indigo Children are recovered, reunited and ultimately threatened from within.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/21/indigo-children-vol-1-by-curt-pires-rockwell-white/

Nov 17 2023

Pokémon Oracle by KJM

an Unofficial Trading Card Divination system.

I was wandering around one of my local bookstores, People’s Book in downtown Takoma Park, browsing while I waited for a free Tarot reading when I spotted this zine nestled amidst other esoterica. People’s Book, btw, is the only local store I know with an entire zine section, so mad props to the owners for recognizing this oft-overlooked corner of publication!

Being a bit of a Pokemon fan and an even bigger fan of Tarot, I felt I had to buy this zine to take home and peruse. Readers, it is a delight. The slender volume tells you exactly how you can use Pokemon cards in place of a Tarot or Oracle deck to get in touch with your intuition, using the pictures, types and movesets, among other descriptors, to find answers for the questions you’re not really sure how to resolve otherwise.

Alas, then, that I should get home and discover that the only Pokemon cards easily accessible to me are the ones my eldest got from our coolest neighbor at Halloween. I’ve bought that kid at least two full decks in his lifetime so far, but those were the only ones I could find (which may not be entirely his fault: my aunt has been living with us since August and LOVES to rearrange things.) Since the only cards I had available to me were mostly dark and ghost types, it didn’t feel like I was giving myself the most comprehensive reading, especially as I was trying to do the bespoke Pokeball spread included in the book. So I turned to the distributor of the Pokemon Oracle, Twenty Two Zines — whose website offers professional readings by Pokemaster Lynn Sueker — for help!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/17/pokemon-oracle-by-kjm/

Nov 16 2023

Challah Day by Charlotte Offsay & Jason Kirschner

This delightful picture book shows, in rhyming verse, the joys of baking challah together as a family in anticipation of Shabbat (or really any occasion!)

A charming family of four plus a corgi get together to bake their recipe for challah, showing how teamwork and not taking things too seriously help them not only make a delicious meal — featuring the traditional braided bread of the title — but also host loved ones around the table. While the family and traditions are unabashedly Jewish, the messages of working together as a family and taking joy in cooking and dining together are universal.

The expressive, slightly retro illustrations perfectly complement Charlotte Orsay’s lively verse, tho I’ll admit that the former restaurant industry professional in me blanched when the dog gripped one end of the challah dough for the kids to braid. I did really love how the kids took care to help their parents with tasks, and even amuse each other while their parents were busy cooking and cleaning. It’s a wonderful lesson in being proactive for young (and even some older!) readers.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/16/challah-day-by-charlotte-offsay-jason-kirschner/

Nov 14 2023

Chaos Terminal by Mur Lafferty

Alas that I did not receive this book in time to pitch it for work, as I had with its predecessor Station Eternity, the first book in the Midsolar Mysteries. As that latter was my favorite book of 2022, I knew I had to sneak this into my reading schedule sooner than later, and am so glad I did!

This is not, weirdly enough, simply because it’s the excellent sci-fi murder mystery that it is. It’s not even because of the amazing Tina, whom I adore. No, it’s because Mur Lafferty threw in some free therapy there when Mallory Viridian, our heroine, is getting one of her suspects, Reggie, to explain why he’s being so awful to his husband Max. Mal listens with calm neutrality, then gently dissects what Reggie is doing, in a way that made me (the Max in the relationship) better understand that I am not the problem. So if you, too, want a dose of free therapy with your classic mystery in space, then you absolutely need to read this terrific novel.

Even if you’re not as desperately in need of therapy as I am, I do recommend this book, with the caveat that maybe you want to read Station Eternity first. There’s a lot of interesting backstory to Mal and her abilities that is first explored and explained in SE, and finding out retroactively just isn’t as fun. That said, there may be spoilers for SE in the rest of this review, as these are now treated as established facts in Chaos Terminal, so consider yourself warned.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/14/chaos-terminal-by-mur-lafferty/