Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Come for Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace, stay for PAN (Practical Automaton Number One).

My Imaginary Mary (Mary, #2) by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows

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Still not as good as the first Lady Janie book. A lot of this made no sense, and anachronisms were flying around willy-nilly, but I had a good time. My Imaginary Mary is what you get when you mix light fantasy (there are fairies! and Mary Godwin (Shelley) is one! (different kind of fairy than you’d expect)), alternate history (what if Mary met Ada Lovelace?), and a truly ridiculous sensibility (they invent the name Peter Pan for some reason?) with egregious unconcern for historical accuracy. […]

Your life hasn’t even started yet and you’re already lost?

Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi

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CBR15PASSPORT (Stamp #5: Books from different countries. Japan.) This one was an adventure for me. I don’t know a lot about Japanese literature or anime, but my kid is a Japanophile. He’s planning to minor in Japanese in college this (gulp) fall and would like to live there for a couple of years at some point (also, gulp). So, I thought of him when I saw this on the “new” bookshelf at the library and decided to give it a whirl. I asked him about it and […]

A real witch is the best kind of person

A Hat Full of Sky: A Tiffany Aching Adventure by Terry Pratchett

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This is the second book of Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series. Tiffany is a young witch living on “the Chalk,” a land full of sheep and the fairies known as the Nac Mac Feegle (NMF), or Wee Free Men. In book one, 9-year-old Tiffany teamed up with the NMF to save her brother and the world from the queen of the fairies. Her witchly abilities were evident to other witches like Miss Tick and Mistress Weatherwax, who gifted Tiffany a hat. A witch’s hat is […]

I think death must be an absolute triumph.

Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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CBR15 PASSPORT (Stamp #6: Books recommended by friends. Namely ALL of you.) When Cannonballers can’t shut up about a book, you read it. I’d like to say I’m sorry it took me so long to read it, but…nope. ‘Cause I have the opportunity to read the other two books in this trilogy without waiting for them to be published. Hee hee! Yikes! You guys were not wrong about this one. In the last year or so I have found my way back to science fiction and […]

By Order of the Pious Bleeping Men!

Priest of Bones by Peter McLean

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I think Peter McLean might owe the Peaky Blinders creators some money. To be clear: I don’t mind! I like Peaky Blinders. I found this book on a list of books to read if you like Peaky Blinders. This is absolutely Peaky Blinders set in a fantasy world. Brothers running a gang in a crap part of a crap city. Men returning from war ridden with PTSD. A nosy aunt who tries to keep the business afloat. A rival gang vying for control of the […]

“If I’m going down, I’m taking it with me. M.A.D., bitch. I’m up for Mutually Assured Destruction – if that’s what it takes.”

The Library of the Dead by TL Huchu

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Ropa, a teenage ghost-talker, is too intent on making a living to work for free. But when a ghost begs for her to seek out her missing son, she gets drawn into the magical underworld of Edinburgh and uncovers the grisly truth. Astonishingly, I have finally read a physical book! This is a series I’ve been eying for a while, and honestly I’m not sure why it took so long to get into it. Ropa is a snarky lead with a strong narrative voice; it […]



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