Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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“There shall be a fire that knows your name”

Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy Book 1) by Jeff VanderMeer

May 26, 2020 by Halbs 2 Comments

I’m not adept at describing great things. Maybe at comparing great things. This book reminds me of some of my all-time favorite science fiction: the unbearable and beautiful encounter with the unknowable in Kubrick’s 2001, the complete experience of organic otherness in Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, the blissful insanity resulting being in the midst of the majesty of nature and space in Alex Garland’s movie Sunshine. This book has all of those things, and it’s also it’s own creation. If you’ve ever seen a trailer […]

Filed Under: Horror, Science Fiction Tagged With: Jeff VanderMeer

Halbs's CBR12 Review No:28 · Genres: Horror, Science Fiction · Tags: Jeff VanderMeer ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments

Literary Versed

Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer

April 7, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

I said that about the last book, but it’s even more true here. This is literary Versed. I barely remember anything from this book. The first was engaging and I really enjoyed the set up, even if the tone was somewhat distant. The second was more of what I disliked and less of what I liked. But this book was all questions and no answers, and hard as hell to follow. We don’t just have Control and Ghost Bird here, we have Saul the lighthouse […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Jeff VanderMeer

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:47 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Jeff VanderMeer ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

I’ve always bristled at it….

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

April 7, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

The blurbs on the back of this book were effusive and one even said something like “unputdownable.”  I had to put this book down so very many times because I just couldn’t get into it. I basically forced myself to finish it. We find the protagonist from the last book – the biologist, using the nickname “Ghost Bird” given to her by her husband – being interrogated by “Control” about her return from Area X. I read this book. I looked at every page. I […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Jeff VanderMeer

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:46 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Jeff VanderMeer ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

A good walk spoiled

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

April 7, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

I have to wonder if subconsciously I knew that I was gonna be trapped in quarantine because of a pandemic, because MAN are a ton of the books that I bought prior to this starting about isolation, the apocalypse, or societal breakdown. I bought this in part because I thought the covers looked interesting at the bookstore, which is my most hilarious judging of a book by its cover because I found the trilogy bound together as a remainder, so I didn’t even buy the […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Jeff VanderMeer

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:45 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Jeff VanderMeer ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Came for the cover art; stayed for the story

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

October 14, 2019 by Claire Badger Leave a Comment

I’ve confessed before that I have a habit of buying books based on their covers. I totally bought this book based on the cover. I read the summary and I was like “hm.. it’s probably YA” and I don’t tend to buy YA these days, but then I said “I don’t care- that cover art!” So, it is YA, and like the cover, it’s very, very good YA. I’d say it wears it’s inspiration from Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation trilogy proudly, and does a lot of […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Horror, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult Tagged With: Annihilation, Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation, body horror, Jeff VanderMeer, LGBTQ, rory power, wilder girls, YA

Claire Badger's CBR11 Review No:26 · Genres: Fiction, Horror, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult · Tags: Annihilation, Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation, body horror, Jeff VanderMeer, LGBTQ, rory power, wilder girls, YA ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

February 1, 2019 by LadyStardust Leave a Comment

The first of the Southern Reach Trilogy is probably very familiar to most Cannonballers, so I won’t spend too long summarizing. A group of four women experts are sent in to investigate Area X, an environmental anomaly that has subsumed and remade a section of coast and wilderness and seems to be expanding. Theirs is the latest in a string of failed expeditions, after previous groups of men have either never returned, or come back changed. The women are given no names, only titles, and […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction Tagged With: #Science Fiction, adapted into film, cbr11, horror, Jeff VanderMeer, mystery, Series, Southern Reach

LadyStardust's CBR11 Review No:1 · Genres: Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction · Tags: #Science Fiction, adapted into film, cbr11, horror, Jeff VanderMeer, mystery, Series, Southern Reach ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
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