Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Please, Re-read the Previous Book First

Queen Demon by Martha Wells

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So, I did mention I had more than one Martha Wells book to attend to today, and this is the tricker one to write about. I read Witch King  earlier this year, and while I very much liked it, there were, I thought, some notable flaws. Witch King had a dual narrative, with each of the two branches separated by over fifty years. And within these fifty years, there have been some significant political changes that are sometimes a little hard to grasp because of […]

Demonology

Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

Fiend by Alma Katsu

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I read two books last week, both horror, both the kind of horror that used its tropes to tell a larger tale… Play Nice**** I’ve confessed my love for Rachel Harrison’s work many times in this space. If you don’t count Stephen King — who I don’t exclusively read for horror — Harrison is my favorite horror writer. I love her textured takes on womanhood and the decisions women have to make at critical moments of their lives. I’m glad I was cued into her […]

“No other bosses but mine and my opponents’ can have your soul jerked out of your body and sent to the deepest fiery pits to suffer for eternity. Unless you work for Walmart.”

The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

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Not a big fan of this book. It was written like a mashup of the Johnny Dollar radio show (which is where I think Tad Williams got the idea to name the main character “Bobby Dollar”) and the Kolchak tv series. Very Sam Spade, hardboiled detective, old film noir, complete with gangsters, dames, booze, shoot-outs, and double crosses; heck, it even has a golden stand-in for the Maltese Falcon. The big change is that instead of detectives, cops, and gangsters, you have angels and demons, […]

Kai didn’t recognize this place at all; it was a memory of somewhere he had never been

Witch King by Martha Wells.

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With the new Murderbot adaption airing right now, I’ve been on the look out for more of Martha Wells books. The only other works of hers I’ve read have been The Books of the Raksura Series, which were mostly quite good—very different from Murderbot—but sort of a mixed bag overall. But one thing you cannot accuse Martha Wells of is lacking in creativity. Witch King is, again, vastly different from any of her previous novels, both in setting and narrative style. But it also shares […]

Diabetes and demon summoning, oh my!

Mixing Magics by Clare Edge

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I was semi-recently diagnosed as T2 diabetic, so as soon as I saw Ber’s story I knew I needed to get my hands on it, even as my experiences are different from hers (and not just because she accidentally summons demons with her finger sticks lol), and I loved Accidental Demons so much. I’m so glad I was able to read Mixing Magics early and now have the opportunity to scream at everyone to pick it up. Mixing Magics picks up about a month after […]

Well, I’ve gotten this far, why not just continue.

Hijack the Seas: Seismic (Cassie Palmer #13) by Karen Chance

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How to sum up the thirteenth book in a series that has no end in sight? Okay, let me try: Cassandra Palmer, former ward of a vampire mobster, now Pythia, top seer in the world, Oracle of Delphi, is in the battle for her life. The daughter of a human mage and Artemis, aka Hel (because apparently all gods do double or triple duty with all world religions), Cassie has to stop Zeus/Odin and the other gods from breaking into our world and destroying everyone. […]



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