Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You want pi million dollars,” “Yes,” I said. “Why pi?” “It’s a nice round number.” “It’s literally not.”

The Dispatcher: Travel by Bullet by John Scalzi

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I’ve listened to Zachery Quinto read all three of John Scalzi’s Dispatcher novellas, and I liked them. I think Quinto does a great job with Tony Valdez’ voice and Scalzi’s sensibilities and humor really shine in this noir-ish, fantasy-ish, sci-fi-ish series. Tony Valdez lives in a world a lot like ours, except if you murder someone, most of the time, they’ll reappear somewhere safe – naked and alive. People still die of natural causes, by suicide, and in accidents. But they don’t die by murder. […]

I would have written myself into his skin if only I could, like a prisoner marking the walls of his cell, just to prove I was still alive and that I did not drift, untouching and untouched, through a universe of empty spaces and fading stars.

Glitterland by Alexis Hall

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Nobody puts me into someone else’s head quite the way Alexis Hall does. Sometimes that’s a problem for me, like when I had to bail on Rosalind Palmer because the narcissist relationship was too visceral for me. In Glitterland, being in Ash’s head meant I was still having that visceral experience and I could see the lights of the oncoming disaster train, but I also could see how he was going to move through and repair the damage he does. It engaged my compassion without […]

A Science Fiction-ish Fantasy with Dragons to Start Your New Year

The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliott

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I enjoyed The Keeper’s Six so much. I’ve been wanting to dive into Kate Elliott, and The Keeper’s Six, a stand-alone short novel seemed perfect. First of all, the protagonist in this book is a woman older than I am. It is very rare to see a 60-year old woman as a kick ass protagonist when she isn’t also immortal. Esther is a grandmother. Secondly, this book has dragons. A dragon is the antagonist. Thirdly, this book is quite Jewish, which is refreshing. I’m hoping […]

The five purposes of prayer were taught to be service, supplication, gratitude, divination, and atonement, and it was gratitude Penric chose now.

Knot of Shadows by Lois McMaster Bujold

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I’ve enjoyed the Penric and Desdemona series enormously over the past 3 weeks. I will circle back around and review the installments I have not yet reviewed in the new year. I raced through the last 6 and they certainly deserve a reread. I think my favorite thing about the series is that it is in many ways an investigative procedural – Pen and Des investigate things and get in and out of situations without there being an over-arching antagonist or a need to save […]

Needed more mystery solving and way less age gap romance

Rhapsodic by Laura Thelassa

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The part of this book that I really liked was the supernatural PI being called into solve a mystery in the Fae Kingdom of Night. The part that I struggled with, a lot, was the King of Night, The Bargainer, falling in love with a traumatized teenage girl. Calypso “Callie” Lillis is a siren. She can compel humans to tell her things and to do things against their will. Very convenient for a private investigator. She’s in business with her longtime best friend, whom we […]

“Only once,” he warned. “Only once,” she lied.

Midnight Duet by Jen Comfort

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It’s reasonable to expect that a gender swapped contemporary Phantom of the Opera is going to be bonkers. The genius of Jen Comfort is that her bonkers romance is both almost excessively over the top and extremely well thought out. I loved Comfort’s first book, The Astronaut and the Star, though it is not without it’s faults. Midnight Duet is an even better book and I love it even more. The story is tighter without sacrificing the roller coaster about to fly off the rails […]



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