Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Bothari43

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When writing a genre-based lim'rick / Avoid lengthy 'post-apoc'lyptic' / Though CB reviews / Have broadened my views / My fave is still chick-written sci-fic (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Bothari43's Quick Questions interview.)

Bothari43's Reviews:

“I know what’s best for you” is insulting for anyone over three years old

My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due

by 5 Comments

This one is basically an allegory about an abusive marriage, but it went to some interesting places. Dawit/David is immortal. He was made immortal by Khaldun hundreds of years ago in what would become Ethiopia. He can be hurt, but he heals. He can die, but he comes back the next morning. He’s lived multiple lifetimes, married, fathered children, learned different careers and languages. Currently, he’s married to a reporter named Jessica, with a five-year-old daughter named Kira. With this version of family, he’s actually […]

Privacy and free will? Who needs ’em if a drone brings the latest gadget right to my door!

QualityLand by Marc-Uwe Kling

by 5 Comments

A blurb on the back of the book compares this one to a Black Mirror episode, and I find I don’t have much more to say about it. That is very accurate, but it wouldn’t be one of those episodes the internet is on fire about the next day. In the (probably not-too-distant future), corporations have taken over the world, and the US has been renamed QualityLand. People are assigned levels, and the higher your level, the more perks you get (high level people can […]

Reviewing a classic and introducing a kitten!

Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

by 9 Comments

I know I’ve read Bradbury before, but I think it’s been since high school and I don’t think I ever read this one. I read this for my library sci-fi book club, and it’s been the most divisive one we’ve read since I’ve joined. Several of us thought the writing was beautiful and the stories were interesting, but several others thought it was too old and dated and sexist. Good discussion, though! Each chapter is a story of how Mars came to be colonized, starting […]

Quick Questions with a Cannonballer: postcardsandbooks

by 28 Comments

You seem to read a wide variety of genres! If you could only pick one genre to read the rest of your life (let’s say a Kindle glitch while you’re on a space station/desert island type scenario), which would it be? Oh, God! What kind of cruel and unusual punishment is this? I want to read it all!!? I’ll be honest with you, I read so many different genres because I realised a couple of years ago that I don’t actually know what I like […]

A 5-star book in a 1-star world

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk

by 2 Comments

If I had read this a few years ago, when I hadn’t quite reached the “FED UP” stage, I would have loved it. I can recognize the skill that went into this book – Polk knows exactly what they’re doing, and does it tremendously well. I will definitely seek out more of their books, but I hope there are some solidly sci-fi stories, because I don’t think I can handle more historical fiction like this. In the world of Midnight Bargain, magic exists, and people […]

A good start with a disappointing finish

Planetfall by Emma Newman

by 2 Comments

This book was SO AGGRAVATING! The first half was interesting, and it tackled mental health in a way I hadn’t seen from a sci-fi book before, and then the ending was just MADDENING. Twenty years ago, a group of scientists and pilgrims left Earth for reasons I thought would be explained but weren’t. (I thought they were fleeing from some kind of planet-ending doom, but then it seemed like not? They just got the traveling bug?) A scientist named Suh had a vision/dream of some […]



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