Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Are Hot Dogs Really Just Psychedelic Sandwiches?

Under The Influence by Eliot Rahal, Stefano Simeone

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FBI Agent Cara Cole goes undercover at a university to infiltrate an alleged Internet-based cult called Hot Dog Party, which is led by a teenage influencer who had his fifteen minutes of fame as a meme. I enjoy bizarre horror, I have always liked a good story about cults, and the phenomenon of parasocial relationships is a subject I’ve been hearing more about lately. I also really do not like the taste of hots dogs. As such, this graphic novel sounded right up my alley. […]

No More Robert Bloch For Me

More Nightmares by Robert Bloch

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This is my second time reading a collection of Robert Bloch short stories and my last. His stories are never real standouts for me and there was one in particular in this collection that was so racist it turned me off of him completely as a writer. The cover is great, though, very eye-catching and a fun example of classic 1960s SF/F art. I wish they listed who did it in the copyright page, but at this time I guess it was seen as work […]

A Strong Collection of Horror Stories

The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories: Volume One by Edited by James D. Jenkins & Ryan Cagle

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Another of my Christmas Valancourt books! I was honestly impressed by this collection. It has a consistently high quality of stories and there weren’t any that I thought were especially weak. I also liked that it was a mix of Victorian and more modern stories, which felt like a good back and forth in terms of writing style. There were some legitimately scary stories in here. After slogging through so many indifferent SF/F collections from the 1960s and 1970s over the past few years, this […]

“It’s–true?” she called faintly. “It’s true?” And for the first time her voice rose strong enough to penetrate the door. “Oh, God–is it true?”

Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco

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I got this thanks to becoming aware of Valancourt Books and their publishing efforts to reprint classic horror (and other genres). My generous mom got me several titles for Christmas, and I was excited to see Burnt Offerings. I saw the movie a while ago, mainly because I love horror, Oliver Reed, and Bette Davis and from my recollections it was quite scary and in line with the novel. I could go on at length here about Oliver Reed’s ability to play fatherly and menacing so […]

Another Airport Transit Read

Sleep Donation: A Novella by Karen Russell

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This is another book gifted to me by andtheIToldYouSos last year. And this also turned out to be a great little novella to slip into my handbag for those times I was transiting through airports—this time to Indianapolis. Sleep deprivation is a brutal thing; unfortunately in the last few months, I’ve experienced a good deal of that. However, in Sleep Donation,  loss of sleep has become the new pandemic. In its most extreme form, it kills. However, there is a therapy that has been developed […]

An Interesting Queer Horror

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

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One of my favorite elements of horror from queer voices (and other marginalized identities) is the examination of monstrosity and what makes for horror. I think Mandelo comes at it from an interesting angle in this novella, and I really did enjoy the final arc with Stevie. I also enjoyed Stevie and Les’ dynamic over the course of the story, seeing that call of like to like but also hesitancy given the locale. In many ways, though, I don’t overall know how I feel about […]



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