Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Corruption and Colonization (And Kaiju)

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Yes, Robert Jackson Bennett is back! I am an unabashed fan of most of his writing, and was massively impressed when I first read The Tainted Cup, about a year ago. It was delightfully weird and just a little bit creepy; a Holmes and Watson style investigation in a Roman-style setting, topped off with some mycology-based body horror. In The Tainted Cup, the greatest threat the Empire of Khanum faced was not just the murders, but the Leviathans—kaiju-like creatures that emerge from the sea to wreak […]

Murder, Mystery and Mycology

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Wow. Not only is today a public holiday, but we’re also facing temperatures in Houston that would melt us faster than the Wicked Witch of the West. So of course this makes it an excellent kind of day to try and catch up with my sorely neglected reviews. I love most of Robert Jackson Bennett’s writing, but I had no idea what he was going to get up to after finishing The Founders Trilogy. Or when he was going to release anything after The Founders […]

Kaiju Holmes

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

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A Holmes and Watson style mystery set in a high fantasy world reminiscent of Attack On Titan or Pacific Rim. Dinios Kol is an engraver. An engraver can permanently engrave memories in their mind and retrieve them at any time by inhaling different scents. He is the brand new assistant to Ana Dolabra, a brilliant but extremely eccentric Iudex investigator who is apparently in some sort of great disgrace, banished to a backwater town by the sea walls. In a nearby town a high ranking […]

Smashy Smash

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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CBR Bingo- Strange Worlds I am glad to see a bunch of folks reading The Kaiju Preservation Society because it was great fun. Very much like his Redshirts novel where a merry band of misfits exist and wackiness ensues. It’s not completely low stakes, and it had enough tension that I almost worried a little for our misfits. These misfits are smart scientists, except for the main character, Jamie. Jamie lifts things. Jamie is pretty non descript. Most of the characters are not described in […]

CBR15 Bingo: Strange Worlds

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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CBR15 Bingo: Strange Worlds 15-word-review: Delivering food during the pandemic leads Jamie Gray to a monstrously exciting new career opportunity. Longer review: During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jamie Gray is working a dead-end job as a delivery driver for the very same company he got fired from. One day, when delivering food, Jamie runs into an old acquaintance, Tom, who remembers that Jamie’s thesis was on science-fiction and therefore thinks the job opportunity that KPS, the “animal rights organisation” that Tom works for might be a […]

Kafka Goes Kaiju

Kaiju No.8 vol. 1 by Naoya Matsumoto

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It’s rare where you have a “I have a dream and I will win” under-dog protagonist who turns out to be special who has odds to overcome, starts towards that dream, and turns out to be in his 30s. Kafka (name might have suggestions I’ll get to) Hibino is 32, works in Kaiju disposal (someone has to clean up when the heroes take down the monsters), and has dreamed of working on the Japan Defense Force (the heroic monster killers led by Kafka’s childhood friend […]



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