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 …
Tag: Novella
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/24/cinder-house-by-freya-marske-2/
Jun 06 2026
Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite
A detective on a generation starship is an interesting premise. Olivia Waite has taken the venerable concept of a slower-than-light spaceship, the Fairweather, taking humans to another star system and given it several new aspects. She has moved the launch date into a medium-distant future. The people on the ship are not desperate refugees fleeing …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/06/murder-by-memory-by-olivia-waite/
Jun 01 2026
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
Plucky robots pluck up their pluck and, having stymied the dastardly review bombers, stay right the pluck where they are. This story was not for me. +++ Doreen liked Automatic Noodle more than I did; her review is here. This was the sixth of the Hugo finalists for Best Novella that I read, and the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/01/automatic-noodle-by-annalee-newitz-2/
May 30 2026
Cinder House by Freya Marske
I should have caught on much faster than I did that this novella is a retelling of Cinderella. I mean, “Cinder” is right there in the title, and the story’s very first word is “Ella,” as in “Ella’s father died of the poison in their tea.” Ella drank less tea and might have survived, except …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/30/cinder-house-by-freya-marske/
May 26 2026
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
I was feeling very intellectually chipper last week and decided to get a head start on some of my Hugo 2026 Awards reading, beginning with a nominated novella from a podcaster I adore. Automatic Noodle is the story of a restaurant’s robot employees in a California that has successfully seceded, at some cost, from the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/26/automatic-noodle-by-annalee-newitz/
May 13 2026
The Dogs Of Venice by Steven Rowley
Choosing this to read rn was 100% due to my recent coverage of it in the latest Tantalizing Tales column reminding me that it’s a manageably quick, grown-up read. Which is just what I need while my doctors puzzle out what’s been keeping me sick since mid-January, with only occasional bursts of energy that would …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/13/the-dogs-of-venice-by-steven-rowley/
Apr 02 2026
Murder By Memory & Nobody’s Baby by Olivia Waite
Oh, boy, am I the worst person to send a speculative fiction mystery to when the mystery is, at best, mid. And that’s the thing: these mysteries could be so good, and have so much to say about the human condition as we hurtle into infinity, if the ideas were at all fleshed out and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/02/murder-by-memory-nobodys-baby-by-olivia-waite/
Mar 04 2026
Night Of The Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
It feels weird to pretend that this horror novella is about the supernatural more than it is ultimately about the unraveling of an adolescent mind. I actually forgot in the lead up to writing this review that the title has mannequins in the plural as, if you go into this book without reading anything about …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/04/night-of-the-mannequins-by-stephen-graham-jones/
Feb 22 2026
Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher
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
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher
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/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire