Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

This Is How You Break Your Readers

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

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I don’t think Faintingviolet had even finished this book before promising to hand it off to me. And at this point in our friendship, I don’t question her if she’s recommending a book. I just accept, and this book…..holy moly, this book….. Before we get to why I was utterly destroyed at the hands of This is How You Lose the Time War, we have to go back to my first book recommendation to Faintingviolet. I had read a book called The Illuminator that wrecked […]

“Keep Reading. Keep Writing. Keep Fighting. We’re all still here.”

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

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I was intimidated by this book, which feels like a strange thing to say about a book that measures no more than 7 inches tall and less than 200 pages. But I was. A book that inspires so many positive, nay gushing, reviews that also seems to leave the reviewer at a loss for how to describe the book (see please reviews by Aquillia, andtheIToldYouSos, carriejay, and emmalita as a place to start) had me putting it on and taking it off my to read […]

“Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was a wound in a vein.”

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

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CBR 13 Bingo Square: Fauna This is How You Lose the Time War came highly recommended by Cannonballers and all sorts of ‘best of lists’, it’s even a staff pick at Mysterious Galaxy (where it completes a separate bingo square for their summer reading bingo!).  I’m happy to report that it lived up to all the hype.  This is a love story unlike any I have read before, due to the science fiction setting and non-human characters, but it contains classic elements; enemies to lovers, […]

Short story review dump (Part V)

The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick

The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick

Human Is? by Philip K. Dick

A Kiss With Teeth by Max Gladstone

Let Those Who Would by Genevieve Valentine

Mirror by Haruki Murakami

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson

Blood Son by Richard Matheson

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This is something new I’m trying this year, where I review short stories as stand alone stories, not part of anthologies or collections. Here are parts I, II, III, and IV. The Eyes Have It by Philip K Dick (3 stars) This is, so I’ve read, the shortest story in Philip K. Dick’s bibliography. And the copyright doesn’t appear to have ever been renewed, so it can easily be found online. Here it is at Project Guttenberg. It tells the story of a man reading […]

I’m a Bad Guy

Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

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I have been trying to stay away from my favorite genre with books written by white dudes, but I found Empress of Forever on a list of books with a badass  heroine, and how could I pass that up? Vivian Liao is a rich and powerful business woman used to getting her own way, until she draws too much attention to herself from the Government and needs to disappear. Instead, she sets off a chain of events where she is sent through time and space […]

As the Prophets Say, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

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I cannot explain this book. It is an enemies to lovers story divorced from time, place and humanity while also steeped in all three. Red and Blue are operatives in opposites sides of a time war. I don’t have any idea who the sides are or why they fight. I don’t know what’s at stake. There is no good guy or bad guy. None of that matters though. What does matter are the letters Blue and Red exchange. Initially it’s two enemies taunting each other […]



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