Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

That disappointment when combining 2 great things makes them less good

Breath of the Dragon by Fonda Lee

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I really liked Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga – there was a lot going on so it took a second to get into them but once I was hooked, I couldn’t stop being impressed by what she did: it was an Asian influenced fantasy in a modern day setting with Mafia vibes, and felt very much like The Godfather movies as far as the span of the story. The series starts at a time where old and new are colliding and ends in a world […]

“Zahra and I were complete; we were the sun and the wind, the sky and the earth, life and death, above the world and untouchable.”

The Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

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I was a big fan of Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga, so when I stumbled on this novella, I was thrilled! In the sprawling Green Bone Saga, Lee crafted a dynasty in which 10s of key actors loved and hated and fought and died over several countries and thousands of pages. In The Untethered Sky, Lee narrows the scope to a single girl and her bird – well, never her bird, but the bird that she tends. I didn’t read the blurb on this book, […]

I wanted to be the monster that kills other monsters.

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

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Untethered Sky tells a lot of story in 160 pages while also feeling unrushed. Ester tells us her story with occasional bits of foreshadowing to let us know that we are hearing about something that happened in the past. How distant the past, I couldn’t tell. While I was fully invested in Ester’s story, Lee maintains an emotional distance between the story and the reader. The story opens with the moment Ester meets Zahra. Zahra is a fledgling roc, an enormous bird of prey stolen […]

My first Fonda Lee lands with a splat.

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

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Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the content of my review. I feel bad about this, but Untethered Sky was just all right for me. I never warmed to it, not for any particular reason. The book is well-written (though nothing about the writing did much for me personally), the character arcs make sense, the world-building is (theoretically) interesting, and the presence of the manticores is genuinely frightening (this is one of the few things that 100% worked for me). Maybe this […]

Believe the hype: a masterclass in tension

Jade City by Fonda Lee

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Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga books have garnered numerous SFF award nominations and have been talked about quite a lot on social media. And with good reason: this was the most stressful reading experience I think I’ve ever had. There are just so many setups for things to go horribly wrong that I almost felt relieved when they did go wrong. Kekon is an island that has thrown off the yoke of its imperial masters but still faces threats from all sides–and from within. What was a freedom […]

“The clan is my blood and the Pillar it’s master. On my honour, on my life, on my jade”

Jade City by Fonda Lee

Jade War by Fonda Lee

Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee

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  Wow Have you ever read through a new series that was so good, so engrossing, that you feel like you’re waking up the night after downing a six-pack? Like, you literally have a reading hangover? This is me with Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga. I don’t understand how this series managed to miss me personally; my first introduction was to the series was very late last year, around the release of the third book. Which turned out to be very very convenient for me, […]



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