Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

We go from military campaign to political intrigue in book two

The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaign by Django Wexler

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At the end of last year I finally got around to reading The Thousand Names: Book One of the Shadow Campaigns and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The Thousand Names is primarily about a Vordanai military campaign, in the foreign desert land of Khandar, told through a couple of perspectives.  The Shadow Throne completely switches gears and setting.  It keeps Winter Inhernglass (Lieutenant and female in disguise) and Marcus d’Ivoire’s (Senior Captain) narratives and adds two new ones; Raesinia Orboan (heir to the throne) and Duke Orlanko (Ministry of Information, spy […]

GRRM procrastinates again

Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin

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I should have realized what I was getting into. I started reading Game Of Thrones just before the HBO series began. I’ve read each of the books in the series at least twice. My husband bought me Fire and Blood for Christmas and it had been a long time since I had read anything by GRRM, so I dove right in. Firstly, let me say that I am always impressed by the world-building that is done by fantasy authors. I can’t fathom the amount of time […]

Middle book syndrome? Or just me?

The Golem's Eye (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, #2) by Jonathan Stroud

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I read the first book in this series a couple of years ago and liked it, but I never got around to finishing the series. Probably should have read it closer together . . . This was a perfectly serviceable follow up to The Amulet of Samarkand, and honestly I think my ‘meh’ reaction to it is mostly on me. The only real criticism I have of the book is that it was too long. This is supposed to be children’s/middle grade book, and it’s […]

What might happen if a fan got to live inside her favorite story.

The Fandom by Anna Day

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“What the fuck is the fandom?” — Reagan, Fangirl Every time I have seen the title of this book, or the word “fandom” in any context since 2013 (the year Fangirl was published), I have thought of this line.  And it somehow feels fitting for my reaction to this book to be precluded by a quote from another (better) book, because The Fandom just did almost nothing for me as a reader. This was actually the first book I picked out of my brand new […]

Maybe Don’t Bind Your Fate to First Hottie You Meet

Smoke & Summons (The Numina Series, Book 1) by Charlie N. Holmberg

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I’m choosy in my reading–unless of course the book is free (as this one is, for Amazon Prime members through January). The pretty flaming horse on the cover is Ireth, a powerful being from another plane that can be temporarily summoned into a human vessel. You can probably guess the requirements: good health, no piercings to mar one’s wholeness, a summoning tattoo in an extinct language, and…virginity. (Because it’s YA!) Our human vessel is eighteen year old Sandis, the favorite slave of an underworld kingpin whose gun-toting grafters […]

fabricati diem, pvnc

First Watch by Dale Lucas

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First Watch is a buddy cop movie in a high fantasy setting, where our two comically mismatched partners (a wet-behind-the-ears human and a grizzled veteran dwarf) have to find a way to get along and solve an increasingly complicated mystery in an early-modern city riven by factionalism and peopled by elves, orcs, mages, humans and dwarves.   The premise would have sold me on this book immediately… if it was 1988 and Guards! Guards! By Sir Terry Pratchett didn’t exist. Unfortunately for Dale Lucas, Pratchett’s […]



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