May 29 2020
Now this is more like it! John Hornor Jacobs concludes his trilogy of cowboys and Romans with style and panache, picking up the pace, tightening the narrative, and never losing the joy of pulpy adventure even as he delivers more complex characters and greater depth in this alternate world. As Infernal Machines begins, longtime partners …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/29/infernal-machines-by-john-hornor-jacobs/
May 21 2020
Giants at the End of the World is a nifty artifact, its subtitle “A Showcase of Finnish Weird” telling part of the story, and the headline of the back jacket text “Worldcon 75 proudly presents” telling the rest. The slender and compact collection of 11 stories was a present to attending members of the 2017 …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/21/giants-at-the-end-of-the-world-edited-by-johanna-sinisalo-and-toni-jerrman/
May 17 2020
I zipped through the eight stories of Saffron and Brimstone in about a day and a half when I was in the hospital and looking for something fantastical to read. The tales — one novella, a quartet of connected short stories, and three other stand-alones — all bring fantastic or horrific elements into the mundane world, sometimes …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/17/saffron-and-brimstone-by-elizabeth-hand/
May 07 2020
I’m at the stage of the stay-at-home order where I’m craving beauty but am too tired to do the gardening or art that I want to — homeschooling special needs 6 year-old twins is really, really hard, and God bless my 9 year-old for being remarkably fuss-free. So for these difficult times, a novel like …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/07/threading-the-labyrinth-by-tiffani-angus/
Apr 21 2020
Ahhhh, so lovely to slip back into the genre-bending fantasy-cyberpunk world of The Founders Trilogy, like a nice warm bath for my mind. The first novel Foundryside was one of my favorite books of 2018, and I was ecstatic to be able to get my hands on an advance copy of the sequel, which begins …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/21/shorefall-the-founders-trilogy-2-by-robert-jackson-bennett/
Mar 29 2020
This is the end of the series and what a strange and terrific end it is for the triplet queens of Fennbirn, doomed to fight each other to the death for a crown that not all of them will want. As this final entry opens, Arsinoe is attempting to bring Jules back to sanity, only …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/29/five-dark-fates-three-dark-crowns-4-by-kendare-blake/
Mar 23 2020
I unreservedly loved the first half of this book. I’ve had a problem recently with books claiming to represent the various of my identities and doing a pretty shitty job of it, so it was something of a relief to see how meticulous Natasha Ngan and the team behind Girls Of Paper And Fire were …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/23/girls-of-paper-and-fire-girls-of-paper-and-fire-1-by-natasha-ngan/
Mar 17 2020
Modern fairy tale anthologies are 100% my jam, so I absolutely devoured this 300+ page compilation of 20 short stories and poems written by some of the finest contemporary writers of speculative fiction. Absorbing and for the most part well-written, this is a book of re-told fairy tales that are far darker in nature than …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/17/cursed-an-anthology-of-dark-fairy-tales-edited-by-marie-oregan-paul-kane/
Feb 26 2020
Foreign Devils continues the cowboys and Romans mashup started in The Incorruptibles, a story that will conclude in Infernal Machines. I am very glad that I don’t have to wait for John Hornor Jacobs to write the third volume, because boy howdy is Foreign Devils a middle book. As the Ruman Empire strides through its …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/02/26/foreign-devils-by-john-hornor-jacobs/
Feb 20 2020
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did The Golden Key evolve? A. The story emerged, oddly enough, in California while I was attending the Clarion Workshop. It was the story I wrote to be workshopped the week when Catherynne Valente was teaching …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/02/20/an-interview-with-marian-womack-author-of-the-golden-key/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire