Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“…I hunt monsters. And I got a sword that sings.”

Ring Shout or Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times by P. Djeli Clark

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P. Djeli Clark continues to amaze me with his writing. In this short novel, he leaves behind the “steampunk” and adds plenty of horror to a story set in 1922 Macon, Georgia. As with his previously reviewed works, Clark creates a world where magic is real and plenty of strong women of color stand ready to wield it. Ring Shout or Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times focuses, unsurprisingly, on American racism and white supremacy. I think we all accept that Klansmen are monsters, […]

A good read for Mardi Gras

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djéli Clark

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P. Djéli Clark won a 2019 Alex Award for The Black God’s Drums, which was also a finalist for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. The Alex Award is given to 10 books annually by the Young Adult Library Services Association to books written for adults that appeal to readers aged 12-18. This is a short but riveting, action-packed novel set in New Orleans, 1884. As with his previous two works set in 1912 Cairo (A Dead Djinn in Cairo, The Haunting of […]

Steampunk Cairo!

A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djeli Clark

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark

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I only recently became aware of award-winning author P. Djeli Clark, although he has been writing sci-fi/fantasy novellas and novels for at least 5 years. Novels that involve djinn are especially interesting to me, and when a couple of different folks (including our own Emmalita) mentioned Clark within days of each other, I decided to check him out and I downloaded EVERYTHING!! These first two offerings feature not just djinn and magical entities but also Cairene investigators whose backstories and interactions will, I hope, be […]

I’ve got the music in me!

Soul Music: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

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Soul Music is the third novel in Pratchett’s Discworld “Death” series, and as in the previous two novels, we see Death abruptly abandon his duties and behave, or try to behave anyway, as a human would in his attempt to deal with an unexpected problem. Unlike the previous novels though, Death this time has an able replacement — his granddaughter Susan. This does not mean, however, that there won’t be trouble, and in Soul Music, the trouble has to do with a young musician and […]

“…it’s a wonderful afterlife.”

Reaper Man: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

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If we knew when we were going to die, people would lead better lives. IF PEOPLE KNEW WHEN THEY WERE GOING TO DIE, I THINK THEY PROBABLY WOULDN’T LIVE AT ALL. In which I continue with my reading of Terry Pratchett, focusing on the Death novels. Reaper Man is the second Death novel, i.e., a Discworld novel featuring Death as a main character. In Mort, Death took on an apprentice so that he could go off and try to experience human emotion for himself. In […]

Death takes a holiday

Mort: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

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After reading Hogfather and Good Omens for CBR10, (and thank you, Malin, for gifting them to me way back when) I meant to read more Pratchett. Those two books were enormously entertaining reads and Pratchett has written dozens of novels. The problem is knowing where to begin, since a number of the them form their own series within the Discworld. I consulted one of the many tables out there called “How to Read Pratchett” and opted to begin with the Death novels, the first of […]



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