Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About jmsudar

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JM Sudar dreams of someday walking into a bookstore and seeing a book of his own for sale. After hearing his wife lament that she forgot to write her Cannonball review _again_, he decided to pick up a controller and give it a try himself.

jmsudar's Reviews:

Around the World in 80 Days

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

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Oftentimes when I read a book of its time I try my best to look past the weirdness that’s built into its age and meet it where it is. Honestly, Around the World in 80 Days isn’t really worth doing that. I’m conflicted about this: this is a very influential work, obviously, but it’s also one where the culture has moved effectively past its influence and the impact is dulled. This means that there’s less payoff than there should be for the racism, sexism, and general […]

The Scarlet Gospels

The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker

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I am a fan of the Hellraiser series in theory but not really in principal. I find the core concept to be absolutely horrifying, and the expanded lore surrounding Leviathan and the Order of the Gash to be outstanding. The comics seem like they do a really good job of expanding on things, but the only actual film media of the series I like is Huluraiser. Everything else is fairly lame, schlocky trash. The books are another issue. The Hellbound Heart is fantastic, and The Scarlet Gospels was […]

The Stickler’s Guide to Science in the Age of Misinformation: The Real Science Behind Hacky Headlines, Crappy Clickbait, and Suspect Sources

The Stickler’s Guide to Science in the Age of Misinformation: The Real Science Behind Hacky Headlines, Crappy Clickbait, and Suspect Sources by R. Philip Bouchard

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The Stickler’s Guide to Science in the Age of Misinformation is an excellent little foray into how to dig deeper than the headlines, which means a lot of people should read it. It’s a little pedantic at times, but since science is all about the details and the pursuit of “hmm, what else?” this makes sense. I don’t want to write an in depth review on this, in part because I’m feeling lazy and in part because the point of reading a book like this […]

How to Sell a Haunted House

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

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If I’ve read a better book than How to Sell a Haunted House this year, I don’t remember which one it is. Louise is a single mother who receives a terrible phone call from her estranged, alcoholic, college dropout brother, Mark: their parents both died in a car accident. Louise hops on a plane and arrives in South Carolina where she immediately stops Mark from gutting the house of its occupants: an unbelievable number of custom-made puppets, representing their mother’s career as a shockingly profitable […]

The Hellbound Heart

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

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Even if you haven’t heard of Hellraiser, you’ve probably seen images of Pinhead, the main antagonist of the series. He looks like BDSM taken to its perverted extreme, with a grid of cuts carved into his head and nails driven in at each intersection. It’s distressing imagery, and the series details incredibly distressing concepts. Within the universe, there exists a method of breaking into other dimensions where beings dedicated to extremes of experience exist. Pinhead leads the Cenobites, who spend eternity exploring the furthest reaches of […]

Colder

Colder by Alex Bryant

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Full disclosure: Alex Bryant is a coworker and friend of mine. The first thing you will notice in Colder is Alex’s command of language. Through multiple narrators he is able to switch voices to give strong personality to the entire cast, which includes several unearthly beings. One character in particular speaks entirely in poem form, the writing of which is a literary feat that boggles my mind. For multiple dreamlike sequences this lyrical style works perfectly, creating a surreal sense as though you are witnessing something […]



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