Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

For someone who said back in February they didn’t like sci-fi, I sure as hell am reading an awful lot of sci-fi

The Original by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal

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I have to confess I picked this book to read just because I was having a hard time finding a book with a cityscape on the cover. And this cityscape might be a little stylized, but there’s a reason for that and I’ll get into it, but let’s take a moment to celebrate Book Bingo incentivizing me to read. Hooray. The Original is a novella that was produced specifically to be launched as an audiobook, and I honestly love that concept. While I don’t think […]

The Relentless Moon- Otherwise Known As I Totally Get Why This Series Keeps Getting Nominated for Hugos

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

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The Lady Astronaut series is based around a very simple concept- Shortly after President Thomas Dewey leads the United States to victory in the space race in 1952, a meteorite strikes the Chesapeake Bay, obliterating most of the Eastern Seaboard. In the aftermath, mathematician and former WASP pilot Elma York calculates that the resulting climate change will make the planet uninhabitable within 50 years. This threat accelerates efforts to colonize space and leads to Elma joining the International Aerospace Coalition in its attempt to reach, first the Moon, then Mars. The rest of the series is about […]

An Alternate Space Race Timeline

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

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The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal My rating: 4 of 5 stars “The Calculating Stars” is set in an alternate 1950’s in which a meteor hits the Atlantic not far off the coast of D.C. this creates a set of events in which the space race is not just a mater of furthering science but of human survival. The planet is no longer stable and creating colonies on the Moon and Mars are necessary. This also means that women are also going to be […]

Two powerhouses of speculative fiction do not necessarily equal a great story.

The Original by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal

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I could’ve sworn I’d already reviewed this novel, but I apparently haven’t. I read it about a month ago, and I barely remember it. Because of that, I had to look up the plot write-up on Amazon: “In the near future, humans choose life – for a price. Injectable nanite technology is the lifeblood that flows through every individual wishing to experience the world through the lens of their own theme. While death from mortal wounds is still possible, life is made easier in a […]

I thought this one was better than the first.

The Fated Sky (Lady Astronaut, #2) by Mary Robinette Kowal

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So I never actually wrote a review of the first book in this series. I review-amnestied it late last year, in the 40+ reviews I just gave up on because I let my review backlog get Out Of Control. We read this for my IRL book club, and we were all excited to read about lady astronauts doing science and winning against misogyny, but all of us had very mixed feelings about it. I flew through the book, but also had problems with it at […]

Disappointing

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

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When my book club chose our next read, The Calculating Stars (2018) by Mary Robinette Kowal, I’d never heard of it. The premise was promising, though, and from the outside, it looked pretty good. Apparently, it is the first book in “The Lady Astronaut” series and the winner of some awards, including the Nebula and Hugo for Best Novel. In an alternate history of the 1950’s, a meteor strikes the Earth, causing tragedy and destruction as well as the promise of an inhospitable planet. The race to […]



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