Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I Finally Got There—I Finally Read Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

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Caution, mild spoilers ahead. I have tried not to explain too much beyond the blurb in this review, but I don’t think I can talk about Project Hail Mary properly without pulling back the curtain—just a little—on one of the major plot points. It probably won’t be a huge deal as this book has been out a while, and I suspect most people are probably already conscious of the little point I want to reveal, even if they haven’t read the book. But I just […]

Comfort re-read #2.

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Another comfort re-read. I’m beginning to sense a pattern here. I read the hardcover this time, but weirdly, I still heard the audiobook narrator’s voice in my head the whole time. I listened to that back in 2014, so I guess he was just a super memorable narrator. Thankfully, I did NOT have Matt Damon in my head in any form. Though, weirdly, all the other actors from the movie were there. Except for the main character (and Venkat Kapoor, whose race they just changed […]

I know nothing about Finnish names

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This kind of reminded me of the Greg Bear book I read recently: very detailed, drops you right in to the story without explaining much, big grand ideas about the future. This one was a little more readable. Just a little, though – it takes a long time (for me, anyway) to decipher the plot. A thief is in some kind of weird evolving prison, dying every day and being brought back to try to outwit his fellow prisoners over and over. A warrior pilot […]

Don’t Judge an Author by One Book (Especially Not This One)

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There was a guy named Pete in my high school humanities class. Pete loved renaissance festivals and Dune. He said Frank Herbert’s Dune was a great example of what sci-fi can be at its best – a teaching tool. It’s hard (and boring) for us to read someone’s thoughts on what humanity should be like. Put the story in space, though, and we’re more susceptible to new ideas. Dune has plenty to say about power, war, economics, and religion, Pete told me. The book sounded cool […]

That time Neal Stephenson murdered the planet.

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No matter what you end up thinking of this book after you’re done, I think anyone who’s read it can agree that doing so is a capital ‘E’ Experience. I’ve only read one Neal Stephenson book before (Snow Crash) and I did NOT like it. So that, combined with the fact that this book both features the end of the world (which I try to avoid because it makes me a-scared) and an 800 plus page count. Surprisingly . . . I didn’t hate it. But there […]

A cavalcade of finery, from existential nihilism to haunted funeral attire.

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I’ve fallen further behind in my reviews than I ever have. So, I’ve decided to do what I did for The Dresden Files: combine my reviews into one giant post. Is that cheating? I feel like that’s cheating. The longer I drag this out, though, the more I’m likely to fall behind. The Stranger, by Albert Camus (5 stars) Firstly, I read this because it’s one of the most frequently cited great novels from French literature. In my quest to read more classic novels this […]



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