Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

After I finished this book, I needed a nap, a hug, and a warm plate of brownies.

Death's End (Remembrance of Earth's Past, #3) by Cixin Liu, transl. by Ken Liu

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Whoa, Nelly, I have such mixed feelings about this book. Part of me wants to give it five stars for sheer scope and ballsiness, and the magnitude of the ideas he’s working with here. (Also, Ken Liu is back as the English translator, and I vastly prefer his work to the guy who did book two.) The other part of me wants to plant my feet in the middle of the room, cross my arms, and just bellow the word “NO” into the air so […]

Short story review dump (Part III)

Mono no aware by Ken Liu

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu

The Hofzinser Club by Michael Chabon

The Baboon War by Nnedi Okorafor

Childfinder by Octavia E. Butler

The Five-Forty-Eight by John Cheever

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Mono no Aware by Ken Liu (5 stars) Mono no aware is a Japanese phrase meaning “the pathos of things”. It’s the bittersweet feeling of sadness at the impermanence of things, a careful blend of appreciation and sadness that nothing can last forever. It’s the phrase I didn’t know that I needed in my life – but I think I do, because I experience it fairly often. I think it’s one of the reasons I love Haruki Murakami’s work so much. There is a delicate […]

Dandelions Grow Strong in the Harshest Conditions

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The Grace of Kings has been on my radar for some time now, and though I was excited about it I wanted to wait a little bit in order to have a chance at getting the whole series at once instead of waiting, forever, between books. I didn’t quite make it, the second book is out but the third is not. Ah well, such is life. Anyway, this book was featured on Unbound World’s list of 100 best fantasy novels of all time, making it […]

A Lopsided Rivalry – the Book Blurb Was a Bit Off on this One

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Bingo Square: Snubbed! (Nebula Finalist) I am a huge fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, and both epic historical fiction and epic fantasy series.  As a result, this type of novel was going to appeal to me even if I have been hesitant about reading it for no logical reason – I became aware of Ken Liu because of the praise he received as the translator of The Three Body Problem, and was needlessly worried that his novels would have a similar focus […]

What’s the title of this book? I didn’t hear the first 20 times you said it.

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The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu is one of those books that I bought because I loved the cover. Love the font, love the image, love the finish. It’s a book that felt great in my hands when I picked it up. The story is meant to be an Asian take on traditional fantasy. Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu are young men living under the regime of an emperor who took over the seven kingdoms of the Islands of Dara, Garu from a middle […]

A Paper Heart

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The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Ken Liu. I highly, HIGHLY enjoyed this book and even the stories that were less successful were still really enjoyable. There are 15 stories in this collection, and there was only one that I didn’t really enjoy. That’s a pretty astonishing for a collection of short stories. But most successfully, this has made me extremely excited for Liu’s novel The Grace of Kings. I’m having a hard time picking out a favorite […]



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