Feb 06 2018
The second Tiffany Aching book, A Hat Full of Sky, picks up right where the first one left off. The Lancre witches have arranged for Tiffany to learn from a witch, in something like an apprenticeship. This matches with traditions in the Chalk, Tiffany’s home region, in which girls often went “into service.” Pratchett explains, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/06/a-hat-full-of-sky-by-terry-pratchett/
Feb 04 2018
Beren and Lúthien mainly reminded me of why I never finished The Silmarillion. There is a paragraph late in the book that explains as well as any. Editor Christopher Tolkien is describing a misunderstanding that arose between his father and his father’s publisher after the apparently unexpected success of The Hobbit. Tolkien had sent the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/04/beren-and-luthien-by-j-r-r-tolkien/
Feb 02 2018
This was fun. It wasn’t deep, but it was fun. California Bones is set in an alternative present in which magic of various kinds works, and California is split into two independent polities — inexplicably not nicknamed Lo Cal and No Cal, although it is implied that southern California is colloquially known as the magic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/02/california-bones-by-greg-van-eekhout/
Jan 30 2018
One of the things I like about middle and later Discworld novels is Terry Pratchett’s willingness to start a farce and then just keep going with it, well past the point where a more cautious or less experienced author would have reined in his plot and characters. I noted this in particular in The Fifth …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/01/30/monstrous-regiment-by-terry-pratchett/
Jan 17 2018
I fucking devoured this book. It is dark and brutal and cruel and one of the most honest portrayals of what it means to be a woman with ambition when everyone around you automatically assumes you lack agency because of your youth and beauty OR views you as a threat simply because of those last …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/01/17/forest-of-a-thousand-lanterns-rise-of-the-empress-1-by-julie-c-dao/
Jan 13 2018
After reading Down Among The Sticks And Bones, I feel, honestly, that its prequel Every Heart A Doorway seems a lot flimsier in my recollection in comparison. Which is weird because I ended EHAD unsure of whether I wanted to read more about Jack and Jill: at the end of DATSAB, I was burning to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/01/13/down-among-the-sticks-and-bones-wayward-children-2-by-seanan-mcguire/
Jan 08 2018
I needed this to be good and not only did it come through, it came through with big brass bells on! Honestly, it had me from the scene where Ali was staring at the courtesans and his companion steps between them and admonishes him to look away because OH MY GOD, S. A. Chakraborty understands …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/01/08/the-city-of-brass-the-daevabad-trilogy-1-by-s-a-chakraborty/
Jan 03 2018
What a lovely start! In The Wee Free Men, the thirtieth Discworld book and the second explicitly marked as intended for young adults, Terry Pratchett introduces Tiffany Aching, a young witch who would go on to feature in four more novels, including Pratchett’s last. Likewise, he introduces a new setting, a rural area known as …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/01/03/the-wee-free-men-by-terry-pratchett/
Dec 25 2017
Hahaha, one of the other reviews of this I read said something along the lines of Lift being like DeeDee from Dexter’s Laboratory and I was all “yassss, I love her!” which prolly wasn’t the other reviewer’s intent but he sounds boring anyway. So! If you are bothered by exuberant protagonists whose primary concern is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/25/edgedancer-the-stormlight-archive-2-5-by-brandon-sanderson/
Dec 10 2017
Again, I’m somewhat mystified by why my husband thought this book would be my kind of thing. I mean, it’s definitely entertaining! This first volume provides an intriguing set-up: a horrifying virus causes the Scandinavian countries to shut their borders, often violently, against all comers. Ninety years later, a ragtag team is sent out from …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/10/stand-still-stay-silent-book-1-by-minna-sundberg/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire