Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Muderbot and I Share So Much

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

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Late last year I read Martha Wells’ All Systems Red the first book in her Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus Award-winning, and bestselling series, The Murderbot Diaries. The series features a human-like android who keeps getting sucked back into one adventure after another, even though it just wants to be left alone, away from humanity and small talk. Its perfect day is holed up somewhere dark and quiet with its entertainment feed. I can relate. I travel the last two weeks of the year to […]

A is for Autonomous

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

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Technically, I started this book in 2018, but I did the bulk of it on the first of January, so I’m giving myself a pass and starting with it. A book with an “A” title is a good place to start. Autonomous is about a future where everything is patented, and people, as individual citizens, are treated like potential property and capital rather than individuals who possess innate rights. The impetus for this change in thinking and living comes from the contradiction that exists when […]

Tony, informed, said: They love funerals.

The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick by Elizabeth Hardwick

We Live In Water by Jess Walter

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

Goodbye Mr. Chips by James Hilton

Lyra's Oxford by Philip Pullman

Elementals by AS Byatt

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New York Stories – 4/5 Stars I read Elizabeth Hardwick’s collected essays earlier this year. I also read her novel Sleepless Nights last year. This is a collection of stories that encompasses about 45-50 years worth of short stories edited and selected by Darryl Pinckney, another novelist and critic who also famously worked with and was friends with Hardwick. I read these stories in a variety of orders, and since they are not part of an intentional collection this blending and mixing up of the […]

Suddenly, he felt a paradoxical sense of loyalty…

The Complete Stories of JG Ballard by JG Ballard

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It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how to talk about 98 short stories written over 40 years. But this was an interesting and exhausting reading experience. There’s a lot going on here. So to begin at the beginning, JG Ballard was a British science fiction writer, known mostly to me via the 1995 David Cronenberg movie Crash and the Stephen Spielberg’s movie Empire of the Sun. A few years ago I saw the trailer for High Rise and was blown away. The movie itself is not […]

Post-Cannonball roundup

The Nine Taylors by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

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I actually read more books this year than I have since I can remember. I just don’t have the energy to review them all for various reasons. Last year I did a round-up of all the books I didn’t properly review, and I’d like to do the same now (I’m only counting this review as 1 book read, because even though it’s lots of books, it’s not a full review for each and there’s no overarching theme like I usually do in my multi-book reviews). […]

In the nick of time, my first ever CANNONBALL!

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

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My first ever Cannonball! I’m super proud of this, as I’ve been doing CBR for a few years (off and on) and have never managed more than a half-Cannonball before. I’m going to try to achieve this goal again next year. Now on to my final proper review of the year. Natasha Pulley’s The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is a lovely, lovely book. It sits at the crossover between historical fiction and fantasy, but just barely steps over the line into the fantastical. It is […]



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