Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Monsters live

Janus Silang and the Creature of Tabon volume one in the Janus Silang Saga by Edgar Calabia Samar

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Janus Silang and the Creature of Tabon volume one in the Janus Silang Saga by Edgar Calabia Samar, Natasha Ringor (Illustrator), and Carljoe Javier as the adaptor is more of a 2.5 than a two. There was this “niggle” as I was reading saying, “This is good, pay attention.” But another part of me was saying, “you are so missing something about this book” and therefore I cannot give it a 3 but also, there was too much I did like to just give a […]

If stealing from dragons is bad, what about stealing for them?

Never Steal from Dragons by Patrick Dugan

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Never Steal From Dragons is a fun cozy sci-fi/fantasy heist adventure. A lot of the expected tropes are present: a group of very highly skilled but very different individuals are forcibly assembled by a mysterious powerful individual who wants them to steal something in return for basically making their dreams come true; it is of course an offer that cannot be refused. Chaos, clever remarks, etc. ensues. In the world of Harmony, there are any number of beings recognizable from folklore including pixies, dragons, kitsune, […]

The Snail, the Pumpkin and the Squash

Stories of the Islands by Clar Angkasa

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Three gorgeously illustrated, feminist-twist folktales, myths, stories are included in Stories of the Islands by Clar Angkasa (Clar pronounced like Clark without the k) based their stories on the ones of their childhood, adding what might not seem at first “girl power” but will become that, to each one. There are some mature themes (the giant wants to eat the girl, the father is abusive to his daughters, a village thinks that a woman who is single with no children is odd and tells her […]

how much is folklore and how much is just a mad ramble?

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

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Alan Garner is a titan of British literature, but it took two other lions of language and a slow day in the shop for me to finally crack open one of his tales. Why did I wait so long? Treacle Walker is exactly the kind of woodsy weirdness that calls to me from the gloam. It was a snowy evening and dead quiet in the bookstore. Every task was complete, everything that could be tidied was tidy beyond tidy, and I had some time to […]

A Fey with some actual character makes some bargains with sometimes interesting results

The Narrow Road Between Desires by Patrick Rothfuss

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Full disclosure: I have only read book 1 of the Kingkiller Chronicles so far, although book 2 is physically on my tbr shelf. I have also not read the first novella set in that world, nor do I subscribe to the author’s fan sites/newsletters/Patreon/etc; I only follow a couple of (free) social media accounts. The Narrow Road Between Desires is a revision/extension of a previously published short story, per the author’s note as well as some commentary on the book’s Goodreads page; I might have […]

Land of the Rising Sun

Ancient Tales & Folklore of Japan by Richard Gordon Smith

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Smith, a Victorian traveller to Japan, compiled into this book a number of folktales that he heard from the people around him while there. I have always been interested in mythology and folklore. My great-grandmother used to tell me stories from Hindu mythology when I was four or five (though unfortunately her versions are now lost to the sands of infantile amnesia), and throughout elementary school I branched out to Greek and Norse mythology as well. I’m not sure why I love fairytales and folklore […]



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