Tag: Doug

Memoirs of the Polish Baroque by Jan Chryzostom Pasek

Memoirs of the Polish Baroque

More properly: The Writings of Jan Chryzostom Pasek, a Squire of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania edited, translated, with an introduction and notes by Catherine S. Leach because a title appropriate to the era is important. If Sir John Falstaff walked off of Shakespeare’s stage and wrote his memoirs, they would read a lot …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/16/memoirs-of-the-polish-baroque-by-jan-chryzostom-pasek/

Der Verrückte des Zaren by Jaan Kross

Larger than life statue of Jaan Kross; next to that Doug Merrill holding a copy of Kross' book Der Verrückte des Zaren

The jacket copy from the Süddeutsche Zeitung edition of Jaan Kross’ historical novel The Tsar’s Madman, first published in 1978, is tough to beat for a concise summary. “In his diary, Jakob Mättik tells the dramatic story of his brother-in-law, the Baltic German nobleman Timotheus von Bock, who won not only renown in 1812 in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/07/der-verruckte-des-zaren-by-jaan-kross/

Die Känguru-Comics written by Marc-Uwe Kling

Känguru Comics

and illustrated by Bernd Kessel One of twenty-first century Germany’s best-known characters is a kangaroo. Talking, obviously, but less obviously a Communist, a fan of Nirvana (“The band?” asks Marc-Uwe Kling, narrator of the stories. “No, the Beyond,” says the kangaroo, and after a pause, “Of course the band! You like to pose unnecessary questions!” …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/06/die-kanguru-comics-written-by-marc-uwe-kling/

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

I like seeing writers stretching and trying new things. To date, and in addition to her short fiction which I have not read, Mary Robinette Kowal has published a completed series of five Regency romances with magical elements, an ongoing series of space exploration against the background of an Earth slipping into uninhabitability, a (so …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/01/the-spare-man-by-mary-robinette-kowal/

Katrina: A History, 1915–2015 by Andy Horowitz

Katrina: A History 1915–2015 by Andy Horowitz

If you worked for a while in an oil refinery in Louisiana in, say, the mid-1980s (as I did), part of your orientation was hurricane training. The briefing I attended noted that there are two places on earth where the combination of low elevation, coastline shape, concentrated population, limited escape routes, location relative to wind …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/27/katrina-a-history-1915-2015-by-andy-horowitz/

Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann

A thirty-year-old edition of Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann

Thirty years ago this spring I read half of Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain) during travels in southern Europe and stopped when I was no longer spending long stretches of time on busses or ferries, waiting for same, or otherwise doing the things that young people do when they have plenty of time and little …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/25/der-zauberberg-by-thomas-mann/

Laura Eilers, 1969–2023

Laura B. Eilers, the entirely lovely and often effervescent founder of The Frumious Consortium, died in mid-July — suddenly, absurdly, unexpectedly, and entirely too soon. She built community wherever she went. Frumious began as a project to bring together some of her friends from around the world with a slightly writerly bent, give them a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/12/laura-eilers-1969-2023/

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

One of the ways that the Folly — the secret unit of London’s Metropolitan Police Service that deals with the supernatural — is integrated into regular police work is that they receive reports concerning missing children. Apparently in previous eras, rogue practitioners used to use children for some very rogue practices. And so Nightingale dispatches Peter …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/29/foxglove-summer-by-ben-aaronovitch-2/

Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

Terry Pratchett A Life with Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes is something of a second-hand autobiography. Wilkins was Pratchett’s personal assistant from 2000 until Pratchett’s death in 2015 of a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. He was also in possession of the notes toward an autobiography that Pratchett made but never turned into a full manuscript. As time went …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/23/terry-pratchett-a-life-with-footnotes-by-rob-wilkins/

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

S.A. Chakraborty spends the first fifty or so pages of The City of Brass creating an alternative fantasy Cairo that’s so multifaceted, so lively, so enthralling and exciting that I never really reconciled to the characters’ departure. Sure, Daevabad is the fabled City of Brass. It’s full of djinn in all of their different clans; …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/21/the-city-of-brass-by-s-a-chakraborty/