Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Slight case of second album syndrome

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

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Picking up where The Fifth Season left off, Essun is in Castrima-under getting to grips with comm life and the various personalities within it,  trying to understand just what happened to Alabaster, what his relationship is to the stone eater who accompanies him, and why he wants to teach her to manipulate the obelisks that litter the sky. Meanwhile, we pick up her daughter Nassun’s thread and follow her journey, alongside the father who killed her younger brother for his orogeny, as he takes her […]

What’s the plural of apocalypse?

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

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So insanely readable that I devoured it in a day, The Fifth Season is the fantastic opener to a really  interesting trilogy that’s a dystopian mix of sci fi and fantasy – I am ridiculously excited to get my hands on the next part. In a world where the apocalypse has already happened – quite a few times, actually – and is littered the ruins of the dead civilisations that came before them, those that remain know that each geological incident could preface the next […]

How can we prepare for the future if we won’t acknowledge the past?

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

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I did it! I finished the trilogy!!! It feels a little weird to be proud, I mean, I’ve read a trilogy before, but because I started this journey with an arched eyebrow toward fantasy I feel like I have come out on the other side as a little different, a true fantasy fan. And that credit goes to the awe-inspiring Jemisin. I went down a bit of an internet rabbithole reading about her because she is so cool and smart and found an early AMA […]

Hold on to your butts (and your obelisks)

The Obelisk Gate (Broken Earth #2) by N.K. Jemisin

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Imagine me, standing up, doing a slow clap standing ovation. That is how I feel about this trilogy. It’s been a while since a series has gripped me so thoroughly, and this coming from someone who doesn’t ready a lot in the genre of epic fantasy science fiction. And I guess this book is all of these? But it also transcends definition in a lot of ways because it is SO MANY THINGS. And how does she do all of these things well? I DON’T […]

Odds and ends and ramblings

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I have never before hit my CBR goal and then just stopped, but 2020 has sapped my motivation and willpower and wordpower. So these aren’t real reviews, but I did want to do a brief round-up of some of the books I’ve finished recently, because one was SO GOOD I needed to add my voice to the chorus of praise, and because one was SO disappointing I needed to growl about it for a sec. So here’s my Cannonball Lightning Round:   So You Want […]

The Best of the Trilogy

The Stone Sky by NK Jemisin

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  While the whole Broken Earth series was incredibly deserving of the Hugo award, the Stone Sky, in particular, was a feat of literary perfection (at least in my opinion). As I’ve said with both of Jemisin’s previous novels, her ability to successfully deploy second person POV continued to astound me in this last chapter of her epic, and while hints are given in book two of who this narrative voice is, it all comes roaring to the surface in book three. As with any trilogy, […]



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