Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I may of use to you yet, my dear dragon”

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

by Leave a Comment

4.5 stars CBR15 Bingo: History (set in an alternate history, in the Victorian era) 15-word review: Introverted lady scholar goes to fictional Iceland to research faeries, followed by her handsome colleague. Official book description (because I finished this at the start of May): Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is […]

I finally understand the French Revolution.

A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians (The Shadow Histories, #1) by H.G. Parry

by 2 Comments

Okay, I always understood the French Revolution, meaning I understood why there was one, and that it got out of control because hUmAnS, but I have never before been able to hold the chronology of it in my head, or remember the various stages, or the political parties or players. And it never descended to the human level for me before, never really reached my emotions because of the ways it’s been funneled at me before. It feels sort of perverse to say that a […]

Magical Tea Mystery

A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

by Leave a Comment

I like the story, the characters, and the loose historical basis, but I don’t quite get how the magic fits into things in A Magic Steeped in Poison. Working with tea and medicinal plants certainly can involve the potential for poison, but I wish there was more detail about how the magic that can allow for tea to be used for emotions, healing, or telling the future worked. I’d settled for a little more about the historical aspect of traditional Chinese medicine; there’s an index […]

Come for Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace, stay for PAN (Practical Automaton Number One).

My Imaginary Mary (Mary, #2) by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows

by Leave a Comment

Still not as good as the first Lady Janie book. A lot of this made no sense, and anachronisms were flying around willy-nilly, but I had a good time. My Imaginary Mary is what you get when you mix light fantasy (there are fairies! and Mary Godwin (Shelley) is one! (different kind of fairy than you’d expect)), alternate history (what if Mary met Ada Lovelace?), and a truly ridiculous sensibility (they invent the name Peter Pan for some reason?) with egregious unconcern for historical accuracy. […]

Math problems on Mars.

Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier

by Leave a Comment

I said in a status update while reading Singer Distance that it was giving me Contact vibes, and that’s true. The homespun science and grungy academic feel of the book, along with a group of characters working towards contacting aliens does give me the same feelings I get watching that movie (I have the book and I really need to finally read it!), but Singer Distance also has its own unique feel. This is an alternate history where back in the late 1800s, scientists spotted a message on Mars and began […]

“Desire was not passion and passion was not love.”

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

by Leave a Comment

I have been slow to jump on the Silvia Moreno-Garcia bandwagon, mostly because I read one of her earlier books and it wasn’t for me. Then everyone lost their minds over Mexican Gothic. And I did nothing! But I’m glad I eventually gave her another shot, because this book shows me that I can like what she does, though it still didn’t perfectly gel with my tastes. SM-G is a genre hopping author, and with The Beautiful Ones, she takes on a fantastical version of […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo