Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Brief Word from Your Friendly Sentient Killing Machine

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Beck

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Though I adore me some sci-fi, I’ve muddled through so many mediocre novels that I tend to wait for awards season to come around. Last year this aerodynamic novella won everything (Hugo, Nebula, Alex, Locus) so here we are. Since the title contains the whole premise, it’s no spoiler to say that Murderbot—a hacked security construct—is our narrator. It is self-aware, competent, and thoroughly bored guarding a scientific expedition on a remote planet. (Luckily, it has hacked its systems so that it can watch future […]

Is this creepier because I’m reading as an adult?

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli

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When I first started reading this, I did not like it.  I almost passed it off as a loss entirely. The thing that turned me off was the language.  It reminded me of the words that the BFG used, and the story in general interested me from the summary, so I pressed on.  The BFG used strange words because he never went to school, and the children in the story are very young, some younger than school age, I suppose.  And I noticed that the […]

You expect me to jump up on board with you and ride off into your delusional sunset

Damsel by Elana K. Arnold

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We open on a young man on a quest. He is the prince of his land and his father has just died. To claim his kingship, he must travel to the grey land, defeat a dragon, and bring back a damsel for his bride. This is how things have always been in Harding. The farther dies and to claim his place, the son must complete this rite. Tradition in Harding decrees that the prince can be give no help to defeat his dragon, not even […]

“Master of puppets I’m pulling your strings”

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

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This is the second book in the Flavia de Luce mystery series of which there are currently ten. For those that don’t know Flavia is a precocious, motherless eleven year old with a passion for poisons who lives in a crumbling country house in the village of Bishop’s Lacy in England in the 1950s. She lives with her father who has emotionally checked out and her sisters Ophelia and Daphne who seem to despise her. Like all protagonists of mystery series, Flavia lives in a […]

So my new favorite author is. . . Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is well-known for being the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, a United States Cultural Ambassador, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom under President Barack Obama. He is also a New York Times bestselling author and, less famously but most pertinently for our purposes, an avid Holmesian. The day he decided to team with Anna Waterhouse to pen a series of novels starring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s less renowned Holmes brother, my world became […]

A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder

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This book has many of the things I love: Steampunk, electricity, Spring-heeled Jack, werewolves, a mystery, time-travel affecting the present, and the implication of liminal space. It also has a glowing recommendation from Michael Moorcock on the back. Note to self: Do not buy any other book Michael Moorcock likes.



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