Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Slime-y Politics

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime vol 21 (manga) by Fuse, Taiki Kawakami

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Bingo 6: Politics In the world today, I don’t want to have to deal with real-life politics, so I won’t. I’m going to have a look at a manga volume that emphasizes the treachery of fantasy politics. The general premise of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime was initially an almost middle age ordinary guy being reincarnated in a fantasy world as the titular slime (weakest of beings). It quickly transitions to the slime (who takes the name Rimuru) becoming a leader of […]

The Limits of a Good Metaphor

King of Immortal Tithe by Ben Alderson

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Listen: it’s fundamentally really tricky to pull off a romance when the premise for their connection is that this is the ONLY person who can physically touch you and not die. Our basics here are fairly simple: our ingenue protagonist is abducted in a kind of marriage trade to a fae prince whose touch drains people’s life force, causing instant death. Except it doesn’t work on our hero. Possibly because he’s already dying. And that creates an instant connection. But that premise only goes so far, right? […]

How to Bang Your Dragon (Without Necessarily Knowing Her Personally!)

Treasured by Poppy Woods

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Listen: if you want to bang the dragon that sorta kinda grave-robbed your mother, go for it. Have fun! Dragons are sexy! But if you want to decide that the dragon that sorta kinda grave-robbed your mother is now the LOVE of your LIFE, you probably need to have a little more going for your relationship than that she’s: 1) hot And 2) here. Don’t get me wrong: the sex is good. Aside from a somewhat creepy start to the first sex scene, the sex […]

There is Such a Thing as Having TOO MUCH of a Type!

Lord of Eternal Night by Ben Alderson

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Okay, so, full disclosure: I’m trying to burn through my Kindle Unlimited backlog list, because I’m cancelling my subscription next month, because I hate a price hike. (The new fees system also charges readers more to pay authors less, which is corporate greed at its finest. But, theoretically, this review isn’t supposed to be my Rant About the Evils of Capitalism, but I digress). Lord of Eternal Night is your typical monster-y romance: ingenue protagonist gets sacrificed to the monster, finds out they’re not so monsterous after all, […]

CBR15 Bingo: Strange Worlds

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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CBR15 Bingo: Strange Worlds 15-word-review: Delivering food during the pandemic leads Jamie Gray to a monstrously exciting new career opportunity. Longer review: During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jamie Gray is working a dead-end job as a delivery driver for the very same company he got fired from. One day, when delivering food, Jamie runs into an old acquaintance, Tom, who remembers that Jamie’s thesis was on science-fiction and therefore thinks the job opportunity that KPS, the “animal rights organisation” that Tom works for might be a […]

Ancient spells and nonsense.

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

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CBR15 PASSPORT (Stamp #12: Different Genres, High Fantasy) Forging ahead with the Throne of Glass series. This is the second book and I’m still here for the world-building (I think). I can fly through these books pretty quickly and the plot is interesting enough to keep me going and yet…I’m finding them kind of fluffy and a wee bit repetitive. Not a great sign for book 2 in an 8 book series. I’m interested in how this world fits in with the other Maas book […]



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