Tag: Fantasy

Black Friday: Short Stories From Africa by Cheryl S Ntumy

And now for a little counter-programming… (she says, having already bought a huge stack of gifts online.) Subtitled Fantasy and Science Fiction from a Powerful African Voice (and with a foreword by Eugen Bacon,) this collection definitely functions as both a critique of capitalism and other exploitative systems, as well as a celebration of Ghana …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/28/black-friday-short-stories-from-africa-by-cheryl-s-ntumy/

Sunder, Tome One: Small Beginnings by Pierre-Alexandre Comtois, Mark Englert & Buddy Beaudoin

Small beginnings is right, as a humble young monk finds himself plunged into an epic quest over the course of this science fantasy adventure! Zeek has only ever known life at the monastery. For the most part, he enjoys his work of transcribing books, even if he’d much rather be having adventures than copying them …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/25/sunder-tome-one-small-beginnings-by-pierre-alexandre-comtois-mark-englert-buddy-beaudoin/

A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Mountain to the North Etc by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by László Krasznahorkai belongs to the branch of literature that’s more “do unusual things with words” than “tell a story.” I picked it up on a recent trip to Frankfurt because Krasznahorkai won the 2025 Nobel …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/22/a-mountain-to-the-north-a-lake-to-the-south-paths-to-the-west-a-river-to-the-east-by-laszlo-krasznahorkai/

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

The problem with telling a story, of course, is that you already know that I’m telling you about something significant that happened. It’s not as if we sat down together and you said, “Alex,” tell me a tale where you had a pleasant trip to your homeland and the worst menace you faced was the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/16/what-feasts-at-night-by-t-kingfisher/

Hugo 2025 Chat

“There are no cast-iron rules about short-story writing, even on word count. Author A.L. Kennedy … asks, ‘Where do you draw the line formally between a novella and a long short story and a short-short story and a literary letter?’ The enduring blurring of boundaries of the short form exhibit themseleves in ranging award rules on word count on what posits as sudden fiction, shorter fiction or a novelette. “I am exhilarated today to see the short story, perhaps more so in speculative fiction, pulsing with vigour and accessibility, and with no mind to perish any time soon.”

Doug Merrill: Hi everyone! Emily Lauer: Hello! Doug: Hi Emily! Doreen Sheridan: Hello, all! I can confidently say that I’m happy they started a poetry category (and that my favorite won, lol) Doug: I’m glad that there’s a poetry category, too, and glad that it seems to have gone over well this year. Now to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/09/hugo-2025-chat/

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

When T. Kingfisher, whose real name is Ursula Vernon, was re-reading “The Fall of the House of Usher” two things struck her. The first, as she writes in her author’s note at the end of the book “was that Poe is really into fungi. He devotes more words to the fungal emanations than he does …

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Of Prophecies & Pomegranates by T. C. Kraven (EXCERPT)

Hello, dear readers! Today we have an exciting excerpt for you that reimagines Greek myth in unexpected but cathartic ways. In her debut traditionally published novel Of Prophecies & Pomegranates, T C Kraven reframes the passive myth of the Goddess of Spring into a story of female agency and transformation. This modern, feminist reimagining of …

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A Palace Near The Wind by Ai Jiang

One of these days, I’ll like a piece by Ai Jiang, but today is not that day. I’m just so baffled by her writing, and in a way that doesn’t even make me want to lay the blame at her feet necessarily. This is actually one of the few, perhaps only, times that I’ve questioned …

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Three from T. Kingfisher

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher

One of the things about living in a country where English is not the dominant language is that when books turn up at your local English-language bookstore, you snag them because there may not be another chance any time soon. (People will say that a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century, I am …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/04/three-from-t-kingfisher/

The Dungeonmeister Deck Of Side Quests by Jef Aldrich & Jon Taylor

subtitled 75 Mini Adventures to Empower Your Fantasy Campaign. I genuinely enjoy every Dungeonmeister product Jef Aldrich and Jon Taylor put out. A lot of this is due to the fact that I’m a busy Dungeon Master myself, so every little bit helps in bulking up my Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. This is especially true …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/02/the-dungeonmeister-deck-of-side-quests-by-jef-aldrich-jon-taylor/