Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

This guy wanted to be Tolkien so very badly.

The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1) by Guy Gavriel Kay

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I was but a wee little fetus when this book was published in 1984, so I should probably give it some leeway—it was 38 years ago, times have changed, this probably seemed great back in the day, the genre hadn’t evolved yet, blah blah blah—but I don’t want to, and I’m not going to. This book is the sort of stuff new writers churn out when they are getting their own voices under them, almost nothing but imitation of things the author loves with small […]

I found this Persian-inspired fantasy intriguing.

This Woven Kingdom (This Woven Kingdom, #1) by Tahereh Mafi

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I always try to go into books with an open mind and wanting to like them; it’s not fun for me to read books I don’t like. But even so, I haven’t had great luck with YA fantasy in the past so I mostly stopped reading it. For some reason, as a genre it’s particularly vulnerable to publishing trends and the resulting books often end up feeling the same as all the other books to me, even when having seemingly original sounding premises. Also, I’m […]

A really good anthology! Emmalita and andtheIToldYouSos were not kidding.

Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices by Eds. Swapna Krishna and Jenn Northington

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This is one of the best anthologies I’ve ever read. If you like Arthuriana, this is a must read. If you like anthologies just for the variety, this collection is a winner. I don’t think I will ever give an anthology five stars, because I’ve yet to find one where I like every story, but this one comes pretty close. There were only two stories in here I didn’t like. What makes Sword Stone Table so great is that the authors chosen really had their creativity flowing. […]

It was super weird finally continuing this series.

Song of the Wanderer (The Unicorn Chronicles, #2) by Bruce Coville

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I didn’t have the experience of reading this first as a kid, so my reactions are entirely coming from adult Ashley on this one. I mentioned this in a GR status update, but having initially read that first book back in 1994, it felt incredibly strange to finally be picking up the thread of the story again after 28 years. First, my main complaint on this one, and the reason it’s getting 3.5 stars (rounded up): I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing itself, […]

Revisiting a childhood favorite so I can finally finish the series, twenty-eight years later.

Into the Land of the Unicorns (The Unicorn Chronicles, #1) by Bruce Coville

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Let’s step in to the Wayback Machine for this one. 1994! Bruce Coville was very in at the time, at least in my circles. You know, the ones featuring nine-year olds. We all coveted those books that implied our teachers were aliens, or whatever. But Coville didn’t just do wacky, humorous sff, he could also do straight epic fantasy. Enter this book, which I read approximately ten thousand times (though I settled on marking that as 10 in Goodreads). Twelve year old Cara is pulled […]

Still a perfect fantasy novella.

The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson

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I almost don’t have anything to say about this, because it just is. I’m taking away my former 4.5 star rating, and this is now just a straight five. It is a perfect fantasy novella. This takes place in Sanderson’s Cosmere (a shared universe for all his adult fantasy), but can be read completely on its own, and would also be a good introduction to both Sanderson’s work, and to high fantasy in general. Our main character is Shai, a Forger, who has just been captured […]



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