Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Exhilarating, awe inspiring, and insanely readable

A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols

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A Voyage for Madmen was a real treat, a riveting read that I devoured over the course of one day and that was all I’d then talk about to my friends for another. In recent years I’ve discovered that I have a bit of a thing for tales of people enduring extreme challenges – be they explorers, climbers, sailors or their like – and finding out what they’re really made of (this despite, or maybe because of my personally being a very cautious person). A […]

Kissing and scheming and spaceship stealing

Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik

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3.5 stars From Goodreads: As the seventh of nine children, Ada von Hasenberg knows that her only value to House von Hasenberg is as a political pawn in an arranged marriage. But after watching two of her older sisters get auctioned off to horrible men, Ada refuses to play her part. She flees off-planet and disappears for two years. Ada’s father, fed up with her rebellion, offers a bounty for her safe return. The universe is a big place, but mercs are everywhere, and Ada […]

A rollicking well-written adventure

Washington Black by Esi Edugyuan

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From a flight from slavery in an hot air balloon to surviving blizzards in the Arctic to a maritime science exposition in Victorian London, the eponymous main character in Washington Black literally covers a lot of ground.  Born into slavery on a sugar plantation in Barbados, young Washington, nicknamed Wash, is plucked from the fields by the Master’s brother, Titch, in order to assist Titch in his scientific experiments.  After a white plantation guest commits suicide, Titch foresees that Washington is likely to catch the […]

A Doctor Who twist on classic fairy tales

Time Lord Fairy Tales by Justin Richards and David Wardle

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Time lord fairy tales, like the title succinctly suggests, is a mashup of the Who-niverse and the good old (Western) fairy tales. It puts classical Doctor Who characters into sometimes well-known fairy tales other times stories that either just borrow the structure of fairy tales or that I don’t know. As an adult it was fun to guess along to identify the origin story or the original baddie. However even though the stories are all written by the same author the quality varies wildly. “Heroes […]

Lost in Translation to Graphic

Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel by Eoin Colfer, Giovanni Rigano, Paolo Lamanna

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I have read the original novel. In fact, I’ve also read all but the final novel in the original series. I was curious about the graphic novel adaptation. Given that the original Artemis Fowl is a YA novel, I figured a comic book style version would be reasonably similar. It both was and was not. The basic plot remains the same: devious genius Artemis and his loyal body guard/butler Butler devise a plan to kidnap a fairy for reasons which will not be revealed until […]

Here There Be Giant Catfish Monsters

A World Below by Wesley King

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When Mr. Baker takes his sixth grade class to the Carslbad Caverns for their end of year field-trip, he assures them they’ll find awe and adventure. Turns out they find a little too much of both. Wandering the cavern’s depths, they get caught in an earthquake that sends them deeper underground and the students find themselves split up, teacherless, and lost in the middle of the earth. As they try to find their way back, they will encounter unrecognizable wildlife, conquer their own fears, and […]



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