Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Three books that kind of played off each other accidentally

Dispatches by Michael Herr

Koko by Peter Straub

No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker

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The post title here refers to the fact that I decided to read all three of these books before any kind of consideration about how they might be tied together. In fact, only with Dispatches did I even have any idea what the books were even about. The other two just connected in unintended ways.   Dispatches – 5/5 Dispatches is a series of memoir, oral history, and reportage pieces from the embedded journalist Michael Herr, who was in his mid-20s when he was in […]

Floating Dragon

Floating Dragon by Peter Straub

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The introduction to this book written when it was published has Peter Straub explaining that his idea for the novel was to present a scattered narrative and he was looking for a way to present that scattered story in a comprehensible if not cohesive way actually. His model then was Paul Scott’s amazing Raj Quartet, which consists of four main novels about the end of the British Raj in India and one kind of sequel that revisits side characters who stay after the British leave. […]

Abruptly and with vivid recall.

The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine by Peter Straub

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A not very good novella by Peter Straub, that might have turned into a better short story or a worse novel. Instead, we have this middle length story that is mysterious in some good ways, and wasteful and annoyingly crass in others. Ballard and Sandrine, he 65 or so, she 20 years younger…oftentimes lover, always confusing etc etc. We find ourselves on a boat trip on the Amazon on a boat in which the two lovers have been many times before, and in fact their […]

Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon. Everything comes back, like the moon.

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This is a trope-filled fantasy novel that lives and dies by its uses of said tropes. It’s a road novel and it’s a novel that has the best and worst that Stephen King has to offer. I have no clue what particularities Peter Straub brought to this one because I don’t know his work at all and there’s so much Stephen King in this one it’s hard to separate. I did like this one a lot and think that it could make a very interesting […]

Life lesson from Uncle Stevie: You always — always, always, always — fall from the topmost grid of the ceiling that you’re using for a ladder in the hall of the maximum security prison that has gone sliding down the unstable remains of a former coal mountain.

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Sleeping Beauties is a gigantic, door-stopping tome that tells the story of a world without women. What would happen if suddenly all of the world’s women were suddenly asleep, and the men were left to their own devices, without supervision and guidance from the fairer sex? How long until guns are used to make every single decision? As it turns out, less than a week. Uncle Stevie and his son Owen are trying something interesting here, but it mostly didn’t work for me. Here’s what […]

Guess who’s back? It’s Travelin’ Jack.

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Another check mark for me as I make my way back through all of the Dark Tower related content that dear Uncle Stevie has produced over the years. I’m happy to report that this one was a bit of a pleasant surprise. After being slightly disappointed by my re-read of The Talisman earlier this year, I wasn’t exactly excited about starting its sequel, Black House. I have a vague memory of reading it when it was first published, and pretty much thinking it was a mess. All […]



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