Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Rise of Sanctuary Noodles

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

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There are many reasons that Annalee Newitz’ Automatic Noodle felt like it was written for me specifically. It has cooking, which is one of my great loves and is a way I show love and feel worth when I am anxious. It has characters trying to live and be in control of their lives in a country with laws that don’t grant them full autonomy. Every one of these characters, whether we get their backstory or not, is a weirdo with enormous trauma just doing […]

A hopeful future with robots and food

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

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If you need a story of chosen family and hope and good food, Automatic Noodle absolutely fits the bill. This is a delightful novella of a near-future where California has split from the United States after war, and part of California progressiveness was to give civil rights to human equivalent embodied intelligence (HEEI) robots. But those rights are limited – they’re not able to use a bank, own property, and there’s lots of prejudice against robots (very allegorical to American attitudes towards immigrants and marginalized […]

A Future I Can Believe In

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz

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I seem to be having a bit of a #scifisummer and it has been so fun and refreshing, even when it’s tense and complicated. Sometimes the chaos goblin who runs my brain at the library is on the right track, and I’ve had some excellent grabs recently. Rocketing straight to the top of the list (get it? rockets?? science fiction???? you’re welcome), is this bonkers beauty that I finished this morning and cannot stop thinking about. In short, we’re about 50,000 years in the future, […]

What would you do to change your past

The future of another timeline by Annalee Newitz

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The future of another timeline is a time travel book. It is also a book about the ongoing struggle for equal rights. It starts in 1992, from the perspective of a time traveller who has returned to an important moment in her past, and an opportunity to change something about her past. The book is told in alternate chapters between Tess- the traveler, and Beth – the girl for whom 1992 is her current life. There are 5 Machines, that enable time travel, provided certain […]

“Nothing is inevitable, and you always have to go back farther than you expect.”

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

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CBRBingo: They/She/He – Non-binary author On their podcast Our Opinions are Correct, Annalee Newitz describes themself as a “science journalist who writes science fiction”. I love the podcast and the novels of their co-host and life partner Charlie Jane Anderson, so I thought it was time to check out Newitz’s work for the They/She/He bingo square. Timetravelling, feminist science fiction is most definitely right up my alley.  The world of this novel is a sidestep from our own, much the same, but clearly on a different timeline.  […]

“I remember a world where abortion was legal in my country. I hope you do too.”

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

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Beth and Tess live in a world where time travel is a reality. Several machines were discovered around the world, and have been there for thousands of years, but no one knows how they came to be. Time travel is regulated, but it can be abused. Beth is in 1992, a teenager who finds herself in a violent situation where a friend’s boyfriend is murdered, and the group gets a taste for it. Tess is in 2022, a traveler, studying the timeline but also trying […]



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