Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Paul is a Blue Hippo and John is hanging upside down

Paul is Dead by Paola Baron

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Paul is Dead. How many Beatles fans know that story? Paul McCartney died at the height of Beatlemania and was replaced with a copy. And Paola Baron explores that idea in Paul is Dead, a speculation fiction graphic novel that causes questions of fame, reality, and self to have more questions than answers. I do not want to know what Baron or illustrator Ernesto Carbonetti were smoking when they created this realistically abstract, realistic-surrealism book, because John Lennon was not the only one having an […]

A fairytale for the end times

Borne by Jeff Vandermeer

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Did it take me over two years to read this book? Yes, yes it did. Had I stopped reading at the point where it was just about to get really good? Yes, yes I had. Was it worth it to get back into it and keep reading? Heck yeah. I put it down two years ago because it was weird in a way I wasn’t interested in. I was used to Vandermeer’s more sci-fi edged fever dream style of writing, but Borne had an air […]

“The three of them sat there – a Ministry agent, a half-djinn, and a cat (likely), staring out past the balcony to the sleeping city they somehow had to find a way to save.”

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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CBR14 Bingo: “Snake” – A character lies to a partner for fear of reprisal.  The same charac ter under goes physical transformation due to heritage and the gifts of a goddess, which includes healing. An alternate 1912 Cairo with lady investigators and magic?  Yes, please!  40 years previous magic was reintroduced to the world and djinn were released by the magician, al’Jahiz.  After a fraught time, djinn were integrated into Egyptian society.  They have since used their abilities to bring wonderous, magical and mechanical inventions […]

The Beginning of the End Hopefully Doesn’t Go On For Too Long

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes vol. 12 by Hideyuki Furuhashi, Betten Court, Kohei Horikoshi

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Bingo 13: Series My Hero Academia is a pretty popular well-known manga series; surprisingly it’s main manga spin-off is also quite popular; usually the spin-off is only kinda popular or short-lived. My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is kind of a prequel and it’s recently concluded, although I’m not quite to that point myself. Volume 12 definitely seems like it’s part of a final arc though, especially since a good chunk of it is what I suspect is meant to be revealing backstory. I’m guessing that giving […]

An Unexpected Delight

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

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I am going the confess here that I have been dragging my feet a little bit when it came to writing this review for this book. Light From Uncommon Stars was actually the first of the Hugo Best Novel Nominees that I read when the voting packet was first made available, and if I didn’t scrunch up and focus on my resolve this afternoon, it would have been the last one I wrote about.  This is one of the most unusual speculative fiction books I […]

Winter People – a unique take on reviving the dead

Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

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For the life of me, I really wish I could remember what site or person recommended the Winter People to me, because I want to thank them, as it was a refreshingly good read. Pet Sematary is one of my favorite Stephen King novels and this story plays with similar themes but places it in more of a historical and feminist context. The story takes place over 100 years and can switch times without warning, which I found a bit disorienting at first. You get […]



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