Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Featured Review Archive

These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.

 

Classic Sci-Fi: Should You Read It? The Foundation Trilogy

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

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Classic Sci-Fi: Should You Read It? is a self-imposed project in which I read pre-1990 science fiction novels and categorize them as “classis sci-fi you should read,” “classic sci-fi you should read if you’re all hardcore about it,” or “classic sci-fi you don’t have to read.” For background on my project, please see the introduction to my review of 1984. Foundation Synopsis Foundation was written by prolific sci-fi author Isaac Asimov in 1951. Like his I, Robot, the text consists of interrelated short stories set […]

Frankenstein but plants and gay!

A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock

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I saw a reel on Instagram from the author talking about this book, and I was immediately sold. Frankenstein? Queer? Messy, messy characters? Sign me up! And this absolutely delivers on all fronts. The beginning of A Botanical Daughter is a little slow, but it perfectly sets the scene of Grimfern, an estate inside a greenhouse outside the closest village, and the three main characters – Gregor, botanist and lord of Grimfern; Simon, taxidermist and romantic partner to Gregor; and Jenny, local village girl whose […]

Ed Gein rocked 1950s America, and has left an indelible mark that has lasted 70 years

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? by Harold Schechter and Eric Powell

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Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs, and basically the whole career of Rob Zombie owe a great deal to Ed Gein. Officially, Ed Gein was not a serial killer. Officially, he “only” killed two women: 58-year-old Bernice Worden, the owner of a hardware store, in 1957 and 51-year-old Mary Hogan, the owner of a bar, in 1954. The general baseline used to define a “serial killer” is three or more murders. But his brother, Henry, died suspiciously in 1944 following a […]

Space horror is my jam

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

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One of my top horrors is space. Another one is under the sea (like deep under the sea). I also don’t like to fly, and caves freak me out. I never thought I was a control freak until I realized that the thing that scares me the most about these things is that I’m not in control. I can’t “get out” of whatever I’m in (space ship, submarine, airplane, etc) when I want to. As far as space, under the ocean, and caves, I have […]

Ranger 4 Lyfe

Dirty Thirty by Janet Evanovich

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I’ve written before about the hold Janet Evanovich has on me, and my undying devotion to Ranger, so my second (woohoo, I’m on number 2!) review this year is the latest installment in the Stephanie Plum series, Dirty Thirty. BEWARE SPOILERS! The plot is classic Stephanie. Wacky crime, wacky hijinks, something blows up, Lula buys a bunch of food, etc. Seriously, I’ve never been to Trenton, but I’m not sure Janet’s doing their tourism board a whole lot of good. Big Blue doesn’t make an […]

Same beginning, different stories

Clariel by Garth Nix

Brightly Burning by Mercedes Lackey

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This is a pairing of two stories that may not seem to have too much in common, but they do. At some point last year we acquired most of Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series through a humble bundle deal. I had read a few of her books over the years, but none of Valdemar. I chose at random Burning Brightly, which turns out to be a rare stand alone in the series. What struck me was the similarities in the initial set up with another stand […]



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