Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Imagination is hungry, and needs to be fed.”

You Like It Darker by Stephen King

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I have long maintained that, for me, Stephen King’s short stories and novellas hit harder than most of his books. I just like them more; they are snappier. While I do enjoy taking my 1,000-plus-page journey to Derry in IT, sometimes it’s nicer to have a story come in, do its thing, and then leave. You Like It Darker is Stephen King’s latest short story collection and is a mix of previously published stories (something I did not realize until I was like, “Wait… have […]

Last Defender of Camelot – one of Zelazny’s best

Last Defender of Camelot by Roger Zelazny

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After finishing a book I really hated, I needed to cleanse my palate, so to speak. The song Guinevere from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young came on and I realized it had been a while since I had re-read The Last Defender of Camelot. It does not disappoint. Is the style a bit dated? Sure. Are there some problematic passages in “Damnation Alley”? Without question, especially the Nazi ones and the handling of female characters in that story (one reason why this received 4 stars […]

“The making of this book was thus a process of discovery; as I think the reading of it will be.”

Interfaces by Edited by Ursula K. LeGuin and Virgina Kidd

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I was hoping that Ursula K. LeGuin being one of the anthology editors would counterbalance the fact that this anthology came on the tail end of the 1970s (published in 1980), but I still felt like the overall quality was iffy and reflective of all my prior stated issues with this era of SF/F. LeGuin and Kidd’s taste did lead to more stories that I enjoyed, but I still skimmed in sections and this wasn’t a keeper for me. Interfaces is a themeless anthology, and […]

Fragile Things A Solid Collection of Stories from Gaiman

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

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So, and interesting story on why I re-read this collection. Being the Gaiman nerd I am, I purchased a 1st edition immediately when it came out and then had Neil sign it for my son who was very young at the time. That son is going to college in a few weeks and I decided to read the collection again before he leaves as a reminder of days gone by. My impression of the work has not changed, it is a good short story collection […]

My high hopes for horror were halted

Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez

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I read another one of Enriquez’s collections of short stories, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, earlier this year. I loved that collection so much. In my review, I called it the ‘most effective collection of short stories I [had] ever read’ and a ‘knockout’. I figured that Things We Lost in the Fire would be similar. Unfortunately that is not the case. In Things We Lost in the Fire, we have the same elements in each short story present in the collection of short stories in The Dangers […]



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