Apr 12 2026
The Wonder Engine continues and concludes the story begun in Clockwork Boys. To recap: Three misfits have been offered reprieves from their respective criminal sentences (two death, one life in prison) if they can find a way to stop the Clocktaurs, semi-mechanical, semi-magical contraptions that are slowly but surely conquering the lands surrounding the misfits’ …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/12/the-wonder-engine-by-t-kingfisher/
Mar 31 2026
I am trying to wean myself off of the bad habit of buying books and games via Kickstarter that I don’t subsequently have the time to read and/or play. One way to do this, ofc, is to stop buying things. But another way, more pleasing to my heart if tougher on my calendar, is to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/31/nobi-nobi-trpg-collectors-box-by-takashi-konno/
Mar 22 2026
Kara’s Uncle Ed owns the Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities and Taxidermy. It’s a highlight of downtown Hog Chapel, North Carolina, and in all its glorious weirdness, it was a childhood sanctuary. Uncle Ed likes nearly everyone he meets, bless him, and he’s ecumenical in his beliefs, but he’s also getting up …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/22/the-hollow-places-by-t-kingfisher/
Feb 22 2026
Nine Goblins is not just the story of nine goblins, one elf, and some weird things that happen, it’s also the origin story of T. Kingfisher. Under the author’s real name of Ursula Vernon, she had a successful and award-winning webcomic named Digger and more than a dozen published children’s books. But she had more …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/02/22/nine-goblins-by-t-kingfisher/
Feb 01 2026
T. Kingfisher’s third Sworn Soldier novella — following What Moves the Dead and What Feasts at Night — takes Alex Easton and their* batsman Angus to America at the urgent behest of their friend James Denton, a doctor last seen by readers not far from where the House of Usher had fallen. He had returned home, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/02/01/what-stalks-the-deep-by-t-kingfisher/
Dec 28 2025
In the two most recent Singing Hills books — The Brides of High Hill and A Mouthful of Dust — Nghi Vo takes her protagonist, the historian Cleric Chih, to much darker places than in the three previous books of this series that I have read. (Those are, in order, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, When …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/28/two-from-the-singing-hills-cycle-by-nghi-vo/
Dec 24 2025
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/24/thats-dickens-with-a-c-and-a-k-the-well-known-english-author-5/
Dec 21 2025
I like seeing authors trying new things, and seeing Travis Baldree, who writes in a corner of fantasy that sometimes strikes me as authors and readers trying to connect over a menu of tags — “I’ll have a found-family, sapphic, friends-to-lovers tale with a side order of hidden magic, hold the prophecies and the Chosen One, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/21/two-short-reviews-for-december/
Dec 14 2025
Hemlock & Silver is T. Kingfisher’s latest novel, and the sixth of her works that I have read this year. I’ve already bought six more, and I have a list of which of works are being published or re-published in 2026, so I have a lot of Kingfisher to look forward to. I’m looking forward …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/14/hemlock-silver-by-t-kingfisher/
Dec 13 2025
The thing about The Incandescent by Emily Tesh as a novel about a magic boarding school in England is that it’s told from the adults’ point of view, adults who take their responsibilities seriously, and who have real lives that are separate from what is happening to the students. Boarding-school stories often assign the teachers …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/13/an-unrelated-pair-of-books-by-emily-tesh-and-lois-mcmaster-bujold/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire