Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Personhood in Sci-Fi

Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon

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Volatile Memory fulfills the “purple” square on CBR17 bingo. Generally speaking, I don’t consider myself a sci-fi reader, but Volatile Memory kept coming across my feeds because it’s sapphic and I finally gave into the promo, and I’m glad I did because this ended up being a really interesting story. I’d put it in the same conversations as books like Automatic Noodle and The Stars Too Fondly for the ways it explores transness and gender through presentation as well as whether memories make a person […]

Quite a Grab Bag

Waiting for the Fear by Oguz Atay

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cbr17bingo Black A collection of stories from an unusual author, a Turkish writer who lived from 1934 to 1977.  Some of them are fables, some are mystical, and a few are more realistic.  For me, some resonated, and some were impenetrable.  And a few had a sly sense of humor. Like Not Yes Not No, which cracked me up.  A young man gets a job answering letters to a paper asking for personal advice (think Dear Abby).  M.C. writes in to state he has written […]

Read about Cabin Head and Tree Head along with Automobile Head, Volcano Head, Library Head, Trash Can Head, Pool Head and more

Cabin Head and Tree Head, Book #1 by Scott Campbell

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cbr17bingo Review Don’t judge a book by its cover does not apply to Cabin Head and Tree Head, Book #1 by Scott Campbell. You see this cover and you know exactly what you will be getting into. It is odd, not necessarily a good quirky, and really off beat. And if that is your thing, then go for it. Even though everyone at work seemed to be reading and enjoying it a lot, I kept passing it by. The whole look turned me off to […]

Dystopia Now

Radicalized by Cory Doctorow

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CBR Bingo: White I picked up Radicalized a short time after it was published in 2019, fully intending to read it, but for various reasons never got around to it. I’ve read some of Cory Doctorow’s work before, both full length novels and shorter essays. I think he usually has really good ideas, but these don’t always translate well into stories, where his characters often feel like they are lecturing the reader. Radicalized isn’t a novel, but a collection of four short stories (I think? I’m […]

Whisper Sweet Nothings About Chopin All Day Long

The Unforgivable and Other Writings by Cristina Campo

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This collection of short stories was the product of an unusual author.  Campo, born in Italy in 1923, had been a sickly child (heart condition) and grew up secluded by her wealthy family in a villa in Tuscany.  In the 1960s, she moved to Rome, and lived in a convent for long periods of time until her untimely death in 1977. Some of her earlier work borders a little too closely to twee for my taste, and I do not share her enthusiasm for Catholic […]

“He was, after all, still a trainee, even if he was simultaneously head of HR.”

Human Resources by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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In this short story, Tchaikovsky explores the somehow already well trodden field of AI, and specifically the ways in which technology replacing people might create (or exacerbate) a crisis of meaning and community. Tim was hired on as an intern at Holring and Baselard’s HR department, and within the year found himself the last remaining member of it. Everyone else have been made redundant by various AI modules. Everyone Tim interacts with, in fact, is an artificial intelligence of some kind, that have all been […]



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