Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Questions without answers

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

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I think I picked up Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer sometime around when the movie loosely based on it came out in 2018. For whatever reason, I didn’t read it then, but as it’s a short book I decided to read it a few days ago. The novel follows a team of women sent to investigate a strange area known only as Area X. Previous expeditions have occurred, but usually some weird misfortune happens to the participants (in one, members killed each other, in another, killed […]

Review #9: The best of “New Weird”

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

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This was actually a re-read, I first tackled this book six or seven years ago. It was the first Jeff VanderMeer book I’d read, and I was so enamored with it that I wanted to read it again to see if it held up. Publisher’s description: “Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in […]

That’s how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in…

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

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CBR15 BINGO ( In the Wild Square: Set in an unknown apocalyptic (?) wilderness. Scientists sent to explore.) For some as yet unexplained reason, a portion of the world called Area X has been blocked off from civilization. After several decades, a new ecosystem has taken over full of marshes and wildlife. To study the phenomenon, multiple expeditions of scientists have crossed over the border to map the area and take samples. Most of the scientists never returned and those few who did were husks of […]

A fairytale for the end times

Borne by Jeff Vandermeer

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Did it take me over two years to read this book? Yes, yes it did. Had I stopped reading at the point where it was just about to get really good? Yes, yes I had. Was it worth it to get back into it and keep reading? Heck yeah. I put it down two years ago because it was weird in a way I wasn’t interested in. I was used to Vandermeer’s more sci-fi edged fever dream style of writing, but Borne had an air […]

These were 100% cover reads, but they (mostly) ended up being great!

The Tiger Came to the Mountains (The Trespass Collection, #1) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Wildlife (The Trespass Collection, #2) by Jeff VanderMeer

The Backbone of the World (The Trespass Collection, #3) by Stephen Graham Jones

Stag (The Trespass Collection, #4) by Karen Russell

A Righteous Man (The Trespass Collection, #5) by Tochi Onyebuchi

Bloody Summer (The Trespass Collection, #6) by Carmen Maria Machado

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As mentioned in this post’s title, I saw these covers and immediately went OOOOH. Click click click. Free? Okay! Also, the idea of various genres of story that deal with nature and wildlife clashing with humans appeals to me. I did four of them by audio, and all four narrators were excellent (even for the one I two-starred), and two by Kindle. If you have Prime, they are free for you. Some of them really surprised me! “Wildlife,” by Jeff VanderMeer — 2 STARS This […]

I don’t know what I’m reading but I can’t stop

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

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A biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, a linguist and a psychologist set out to explore, study, and document a mysterious plot of land overrun with a myriad of ecosystems that has shown up on Earth. They are the twelfth expedition to go into this area, dubbed Area X, in an attempt to learn its origins and its purpose. They do not know each other names, just each others roles, in order to keep the focus on the mission. Almost immediately, the expedition falls apart with […]



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