Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“We all have ways of showing our patriotism, and mine is holding my country to account. I want to dissuade her from her worst, cruellest impulses, for I truly believe that if she does not evolve past them, she will not survive.”

Truth of the Divine (Noumena, #2) by Lindsay Ellis

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I don’t have it in me right now to talk about this book in the way that it deserves. This is a book that explores the fallout from First Contact (and the fallout from covering up First Contact) in practically every way possible. There was so much going on in this book (and all of it done well), I don’t even know how to start summing it up. I’m tempted to just do the bullet points thing. In fact, you know what, fuck it. I’mma […]

Homework, boys, hidden lizard people labs

School for Extraterrestrial Girls Vol. 2: Girls Take Flight  by Jeremy Whitley

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I am giving School for Extraterrestrial Girls Vol. 2: Girls Take Flight by Jeremy Whitley a 3.5 as I need the rest of the series (and there were some story flow issues that I had). This is a series where I need everything it has all at once. I can handle it! This nickel and diming Tara and her friends story is going to make me spontaneous combust! Like Tara does one day in class.   That part of the story is from book one, where we learn that Tara is […]

Cool Characters and Fantastic World-Building

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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What a lovely book. Becky Chambers came across my radar because so many Cannonballers have reviewed her books, and I’m glad I finally got around to reading them. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is bookended by the POV of Rosemary Harper, a human woman from Mars who has joined the crew of the spaceship Wayfarer as a clerk for the captain. The ship creates wormholes to aid in space travel. However, the POVs throughout the novel shift among the rest of the […]

Gini Koch encouraged me to join the team and ‘touch an alien’, so I did!

Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch

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CBR Bingo: North America – Touched by an Alien is set in the American Southwest, particularly Arizona and New Mexico. A few years ago I picked up Alexander Outland: Space Pirate by G.J. Koch and it was a blast.  Funny, fast paced, sci-fi adventure.  Afterwards, I looked for more books by the author and discovered she also wrote under Gini Koch and was impressed by the volume of books on the shelf at the bookstore.  As I didn’t know where to start, I got overwhelmed and went […]

Junior High but with magic and glitter

Kira and the (Maybe) Space Princess: (A Graphic Novel) (Magic Girls) by Megan Brennan

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Kira and the (Maybe) Space Princess: (A Graphic Novel) (Magic Girls) by Megan Brennan is a three rounded from a 2.5 rating. This is because on one level this graphic novel is a cute, manga inspired, girl power story. It is a typical “in middle school and it stinks (only I didn’t say stinks)” story. We have the outsider looking in, but wants to be on the inside. However, on the other hand these are not the nicest people in the universe. And I say […]

“The further you get from home, the weirder things get.”

The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey

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Colin Dickey is a writer on the fringe. His books are about those who fear secret societies (Under the Eye of Power), an American history of ghosts (Ghostland), and monsters/aliens (The Unidentified). In The Unidentified, Dickey meets with and explores what it is that draws people to fringe beliefs. One of his theories is that these fringe beliefs, be they in cryptids or aliens, provide us belonging, comfort, and enchantment in a disenchanted world: “Much of what attracts people to these fringe beliefs is a […]



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