Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Longs and Shorts

The Big Book of Reel Murders by Ed. Otto Penzler

My Head! My Head! by Robert Graves

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty

The Twits by Roald Dahl

Heart by Jade Anouka

Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny

The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes

The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch

The Ophelia Network by Mur Lafferty

Deep Hole by Don Winslow

Legal Immigrant by Alan Cumming

Our Town by Thornton Wilder

The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder

The Cube by Adam Rapp

Endgame by Samuel Beckett

Pale Sister by Colm Toibin

Enemies, A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer

by Leave a Comment

The Big Book of Reel Murders – Edited by Otto Penzler – 4/5 The concept of this collection is still mostly pulpy stories (though with some other older stories and more contemporary stories not really pulpy) that were made into films. It should really be called “Reel Crimes” as not every story involves a murder, but the concept mostly works. It ends up being a little frayed throughout as apparently it’s just much easier to get some rights to stories than others, so like the […]

Fascinating Premise, Frustrating Execution

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

by 3 Comments

I’ll start with the setup: This book has a really fascinating premise. Humans have figured out cloning technology and its use is now fairly widespread. There has been unceasing civil unrest over the idea, and there are now certain rules that clones (or those looking to become clones) have to abide by, but human clones are now more or less ubiquitous. Basically when you die, a new you, at the peak of your physical form, is woken up and downloads all the memories of your […]

A Joyous Reintroduction to My True Love

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

by 2 Comments

Long ago, I accepted my own propensity for being terrible at doing certain things “on time.” Especially if it has to do with sending mail or letters, holidays, birthdays, cards, and actually writing things down… I will probably drag my feet, get wrapped up in emotions, focus too much on perfectionism, and fail at accomplishing my postal-related goals. Six Wakes was one of my beautiful, shiny, inspiring Xmas exchange gifts from MsWas. Guess who didn’t write a post when she got her box? Me. Shameful, […]

There’s more disappointment when you have high expectations

by Leave a Comment

My book club is comprised of approximately six to ten women, almost all of them lawyers (or ex-lawyers) and one electrical engineer. There is almost always a wide range of opinions on the books we read, but the lone engineer is often on her own. She is also the primary motivator in forcing us to occasionally read science fiction. We read Ancillary Justice four years ago on her recommendation, and most recently we read Six Wakes (2017) by Mur Lafferty. Again, this is not a book I’d heard of […]

Killer Amongst Us

by 2 Comments

Bingo Category (Round 2): Snubbed Given how many of my reads lately are books I picked up due to other Cannonballers, I could probably find a book for each bingo category that would also be Cannonballer.  Six Wakes is another one that can be added to that list.  I enjoyed narfna’s review but it wasn’t an immediate buy for me until it showed up as Kindle Deal of the Day – who can resist $1.99? This one was a slow burn for me.  The concept and […]

Locked room murder mystery, in space!

by 4 Comments

I stayed up entirely too late finishing this. It was really very hard for me to put down, and that alone earns it the privilege of being bumped up to four stars. I did have some quibbles with it, but in the end they were minor, and I was compelled by the book to finish (always a good sign). Six Wakes, to boil it down, is about six clones on a generation ship who wake up to find that they have all been murdered, and […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo