Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Riveting and Original Thriller

Underground Airlines by Ben Winters

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Bingo: Green Every day is two worlds; every day we split into two.” I often can’t remember when or why I picked up a book for my TBR. I’ve had Ben Winters’s Underground Airlines for quite a while, but I don’t know what led me to the book. A review? Browsing in the bookstore? However I came across it, I don’t think I realized how good it would be. It is the 21st century and four states–the Hard Four–still allow slavery. This came about through […]

Assorted Short Fiction II

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

The AI Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole

A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell

Yard Work by David Koepp

Anonymous by Uzodinma Iweala

There's a Giant Trapdoor Spider Under Your Bed by Edgar Cantero

The Remedy by Adam Haslett

Falls the Shadow by Skip Horack

Screwball by Simon Rich

The Beckoning Fair One by Dan Chaon

Q&A by Ben Winters

Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry

Decorum at the Deathbed by Josh Malerman

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Night of the Mannequins – 3/5 Stars – Stephen Graham Jones This is a newish novella from Stephen Graham Jones that you’ll have to roll with the bad title and go with it because it does some very interesting things. It has a significant flaw by the end, and the way I will describe that is that it either doesn’t trust the audience or trust itself to make the more interesting choice. The plot involves a group of teenagers, friends and frenemies, who friend works […]

Episode 1-25: The More Things Change, The More Things Stay the Same

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https://killingmykindle.com/2018/07/03/episode-1-25-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/ Wherein I review: 94. Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters 95. Moonbreaker (Secret Histories #11) by Simon R. Green 96. Vanishing Games (Jack White #2) by Roger Hobbs 97. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill Another white guy writes about the black experience, and I guess I’m becoming okay with it, because they’re doing a damn good job of it.  Simon Green starts to bring the Droods into a crash landing in the Nightside.  Roger Hobbs keeps his Ghostman going strong.  And Jenny Offill […]

Nothing Harder to Go Through with Than a Vanishing Act

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I’m of two minds on Underground Airlines. On the one hand, judging it strictly on its own merits, it’s an thought-provoking and interesting book. The basic premise is that the Civil War never happened, and slavery was never abolished. It still exists in the United States in four southern states (the “Hard Four”). The story centers around Victor, an escaped slave who was caught by the government and now works for them as a sort of bounty hunter, tracking down other escaped slaves. In Underground […]

A Modern Spin on the Underground Railroad

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Underground Airlines made a lot of Best of 2016 lists, and I was lucky enough to snap it up at the library before the hold list got too long. It’s a story about what the world would look like if the Civil War had never happened, and slavery was still legal in America. Not surprisingly, it’s kind of a horrifying look. The protagonist is something of a bounty hunter, tracking down escaped slaves before they can make it to Canada and freedom, and his personal […]

In which I project my hypocritical political ire…

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Set in an alternate United States, in which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated before taking office, the Civil War was never fought, and slaves were never emancipated, Underground Airlines is the story of a young black man (who goes by various names) working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshal service. His job? Hunting escaped slaves in contemporary America. First, this was a very well-written book. It’s in the style of a hard-boiled detective novel, and the world building by Ben Winters is fairly well […]



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