Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Most unique ‘First Contact’ sci-fi I have ever read

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, Ken Liu (translator)

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It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair.  To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race.  This thought determined the entire direction of Ye’s life. The Three-Body Problem has been on my TBR list for years.  It was on many best of lists when published in English and my husband loved it.  Unfortunately, the first time I tried to […]

Beautiful story of sexual identity awakening and first love

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

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And then she asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?” Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a beautiful glimpse into a moment in time of a sexual identity awareness and first love, amidst the Red Scare of McCarthyism in 1950’s San Francisco.  Sexual feelings awaken for the first time within Lily Hu but everything she has been taught says it […]

“Sure, why not take your mortally wounded lover and shove her into an ancient machine of uncertain effectiveness? What could go wrong?”

Blood of the Chosen: Burningblade & Silvereye Book Two by Django Wexler

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Wexler continues writing excellent sci-fantasy.  I love the melding of energy swords and healing magics.  A highly, technically advanced civilization that has fallen.  Magic is held in the hands of a few, tech is tightly controlled and scrounged from remnants of the previous age.  Life is very different depending on where you live, within the Republic, in the splinter kingdoms, or outside on the fringes. Blood of the Chosen picks up immediately after the events of  Ashes of the Sun.  A potentially humanity ending calamity […]

Fallen highly advanced civilization, tech magic vs. bio magic, and two siblings on opposite sides of the divide.

Ashes of the Sun: Burningblade & Silvereye Book One by Django Wexler

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More than 400 years ago there were two powerful entities, the Chosen and those who are now called ghouls.  The Chosen wielded a magical power called deiat.  With deiat they powered technological marvels like sky fortresses and more mundane blaster pistols.  The ghouls channeled a biological magic called dhak.  With dhak they could do amazing feats of healing and creation of bio constructs for any application.  Dhak could also be twisted to create horrible monsters, plaguespawn, as creatures and humans could be hybridized.  400 hundreds […]

Overall good but appreciated the stories by characters that aren’t Harry Dresden in particular.

Brief Cases by Jim Butcher

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Last year I listened to the first Dresden Files short story collection, Side Jobs, to be able to listen to the excellent narration by James Marsters (on the recommendation of ardaigle!).  Marsters is a great narrator but he fell short when it came time for Karrin Murphy’s story at the end of the book.  For the next collection of short stories, Brief Cases, they brought on two female narrators, Cassandra Campbell and Julia Whelan for stories from Anastasia Luccio and Molly Carpenter’s POV.  No disrespect to […]

Kaiju fun and a great standalone from Scalzi

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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The Kaiju Preservation Society is a fun romp and a refreshing reset of Scalzi, for me.  His most recent works, “The Interdependency Saga” (a trilogy), left me feeling ‘meh’.  My review for the second book had me questioning whether I was cooling on Scalzi.  I still have yet to read the third.  When Scalzi announced this book, I was intrigued by the name and that it would be a standalone novel.  The Kaiju Preservation Society was preordered, and I’m grateful I did because it provided much […]



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