Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

She was for the birds

Birdlore: The Iridescent Life of Florence Merriam Bailey by Jess Keating

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Online reader copies have pretty much become the way that I read future publications as fewer physical reader copies are finding themselves in my hands. And one that I am glad I read, regardless of the format, is Birdlore: The Iridescent Life of Florence Merriam Bailey by Jess Keating and some far out illustrations by  Devon Holzwarth. Due in mid-March 2025, I am excited to tell you about it so you can go to your local independent bookstore and pre order copies. Yes, copies. You […]

Dr Strangelove, My Favorite Skynet, Jonathan Swan.

The Red Queen by Isobelle Carmody

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Apologies, this is going to be a long one.  It took me a while to get here. After close to thirty years and seven volumes, I finally made it to The Red Queen –  the final entry in The Obernewtyn Chronicles. And I rather wish it wasn’t. This isn’t just some kind disappointment at hitting the end of the series, this is also me lamenting that we didn’t get an eighth volume—or a more hardline editor.  Let’s start with the positives: the first half of […]

Taking Time to Stop and Smell The Radioactive Countryside.

The Sending by Isobelle Carmody

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So I’m getting close to the endgame now with my re-read of The Obernewtyn Chronicles. As a reminder, the first book in the series, Obernewtyn , was published in the late eighties, while the book that I initially thought was going to be the final installment, The Stone Key, was published in 2008.  The Stone Key, as it transpires was not the last book at all—in fact, very little page-time had been spent on Elspeth’s final quest to disarm the Sentinel. Instead, it was more […]

‘Futuretellers Ken th’ Danger of Dreams Best’

Ashling by Isobelle Carmody

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In my previous reviews for the Obernewtyn Chronicles, I made the twin observations that Obernewtyn is a very contained story and it’s The Farseekers where the series starts to find its feet. Now I can state that it’s in the third volume, Ashling, where the plot starts to learn to run. Ashling takes place about a year after the events of The Farseekers, and we open with Elspeth rescuing a gypsy woman from being burnt at the state by the Herder Faction. While the woman is […]



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