Jul 20 2026
with wonderful illustrations by Poly Bernatene. This sequel to Cousins In The Time Of Magic finds our three young protagonists Siggy, Camilla and Jorge heading back in time for an even more personal reason than in the first book. Camilla is already having a terrible day after being humiliated at her Florida school by the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/20/adventure-in-the-city-of-stories-by-emma-otheguy/
Jul 19 2026
A Long and Speaking Silence, the seventh in Nghi Vo‘s Singing Hills cycle, takes Cleric Chih back to one of their first assignments as a chronicler, a gatherer of stories. On their way to the riverside city of Luntien a moment of inattention led to their being relieved of their purse and stipend, so as …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/19/a-long-and-speaking-silence-by-nghi-vo/
Jul 15 2026
Ooh, Naomi Novik, you crafty little devil of a writer, you! I’m always so impressed when an author sets the reader up to intensely dislike a character, only for that same character to eventually and successfully capture our hearts later on. And I get it, there were a ton of mitigating factors for why our …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/15/the-summer-war-by-naomi-novik/
Jul 12 2026
Among this year’s Hugo finalists in the four headline fiction categories — short story, novelette, novella and novel — no author has more than one nomination. I don’t think I have a particular view about this distribution. On the one hand, it’s neat when a writer has a banner year and gathers up two or even three …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/12/hugo-awards-2026-best-novelette-2/
Jul 08 2026
Ooh, boy, is Doug gonna be surprised when he reads my voting slate for this year’s Hugo Awards nominees for Best Novelette! Presented, as usual, in descending order of preference. Top of my list this year is Catherynne M Valente’s When He Calls Your Name. Perhaps oddly, it is one of the two nominees on …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/08/hugo-awards-2026-best-novelette/
Jul 06 2026
I admit, dear reader, that I was finally unable to resist the hype surrounding this series and decided to go see what all the fuss is about. And the answer is: a lot, and most of it really good! Full disclosure, the tipping point for finally getting me to pick this up was likely the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/06/dungeon-crawler-carl-by-matt-dinniman/
Jun 29 2026
accompanied in the volume I received by the short story Johnny Hollowback And The Witch, which I actually preferred. Which isn’t to say that the main novella here is at all bad! I very much preferred it to the last thing of hers I read, the wildly overrated This Is How You Lose The Time …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/29/the-river-has-roots-by-amal-el-mohtar/
Jun 28 2026
Galen, the paladin of the third Saint of Steel book, was seen in Paladin’s Strength as Istvhan’s second in command. He also had a reputation as happy-go-lucky, willing to bed more or less any man who struck his fancy, and able to catch them too. Paladin’s Hope begins less cheerfully: with a corpse. Observing the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/28/paladins-hope-by-t-kingfisher/
Jun 26 2026
Okay, but what happens neeeeeext?! That is less a complaint than a plea for Kirsty Applebaum to keep writing more books about the garden at the heart of The Strange Disappearance Of Imogen Good. The book itself opens with Imogen about to sneak into a forbidden garden, in hopes of ditching her once best friend …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/26/the-strange-disappearance-of-imogen-good-by-kirsty-applebaum/
Jun 24 2026
Unlike Doug, I knew that this would be a variation on Cinderella from the very first page, steeped as I am in my love for all fairy tale and mythological retellings. But like him I was immediately hooked by the premise that Ella, our heroine, essentially shuffles off her mortal coil on that very same …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/24/cinder-house-by-freya-marske-2/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire