Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You can check-out any time you like/But you can never leave!”

Hotel California by Don Bruns, Heather Graham, Andrew Child, John Gilstrap, Reed Farrel Coleman, Amanda Flower, Jennifer Dornbush, Rick Bleiweiss

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In this anthology of eight crime stories, the reader is introduced to a quite wide cast that includes multiple hitmen and detectives, a senator, an influencer – and a whole bunch of victims. I don’t read many anthologies, but I do make an exception for ones consisting of crime stories. I think the mystery genre is one of the most diverse when it comes to the way authors explore its common tropes. Hotel California‘s central theme is that each story is inspired by a song […]

*Jaws Theme* dun dun dun dun

The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

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I have an MFA in short fiction and don’t do a damn thing with it. But I love a good collection of short stories that teach me something about craft. Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Other Stories taught me the art of the ominous subtext. Jackson’s stories feature a lot of isolated or lonely people, who decidedly don’t get their happy endings. There is a dread running underneath (and sometimes overrneath…) her stories. Mundane details can say something about the character or the atmosphere. In […]

Miserable people described beautifully

Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

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Full disclosure, I did not finish. That is, Homesick for Another World is a collection of short stories, and I finished several of the stories, and I decided I got the picture of what was on offer here and it wasn’t for me. “An Honest Woman” was the last one I finished, so I made it through about half of them. Ottessa Moshfegh is an absolutely incredible observer and her use of language and specificity is just … each individual sentence is like a little […]

Platonic love is love

Common Bonds by Claudie Arsenault

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I was looking for a book about aromantic peoples. And I found a book about aromantic people called Common Bonds. As the publisher description says, this book is “featuring aromantic characters and centering platonic relationships.” The main editors are Claudie Arsenault, C. T. Callahan, B. R. Sanders, and RoAnna Sylver. It is heavy on the fantasy element, or realistic fantasy. Even if the story is more real (college students yapping away in their dorm room or hanging at the local bar) there can be supernatural […]

All signs point to… this being a pretty good anthology

All Signs Point to Yes by Cam Montgomery, Adrianne White, g. haron davis

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I’m not a huge astrology fan. Pretty much every I know comes from random internet articles, but I’m a big fan of anthologies (author speed dating!), so I hopped in hoping for the best. Luckily, each of the thirteen stories has a list of characteristics for that sign before the story starts. Yes, there are thirteen stories, the twelve traditional zodiac signs plus one that my limited googling indicates is controversial. Aries: “ruler and killer” – g. haron davis – ★★ F/NB. Not a strong […]

Dark and Light and Lots of Greys

Spontaneous Human Combustion by Richard Thomas

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In this collection, Thomas presents fourteen short works of speculative fiction which blend science fiction, fantasy, and horror together in intriguing ways. It’s hard to write this review because of the diversity of the tales. The stories touch upon a plethora of genres and themes, including familial relationships, transformation, and atonement. A common device the author uses is cyclical time loops, which often lends a dream-like quality to the story that is enhanced by his deft prose. One thing I really liked about the collection […]



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