Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Friendship can be found in the strangest of places

Little Robot by Ben Hatke

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Ben Hatke works his magic again!  He creates a beautiful story with only a few words, and most of those are sound effects! A little girl (she doesn’t have a name) finds an abandoned robot, and he becomes her friend.  It’s her only friend, as it turns out. I’m pretty sure she’s young, too young to go to school, and spends her days escaping her trailer park home and exploring the local junkyard. (We get all of this in about eight pages and absolutely no […]

The movie Wes Anderson should have made

Your Robot Dog Will Die by Arin Greenwood

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Apparently this is the year I read all the dead dog books. So . . . sorry for that! TW: Animal cruelty, animal death. In a near future, scientists showcased exactly how terrible humans are by genetically trying to improve on animals. (As if there is anything to improve on in any animal.) Their experiments went extremely wrong, however, when dogs suddenly stop wagging their tales, and suddenly are no longer man’s best friend. As the effects of this tragedy sweep the nation and dogs […]

Fresh Perspective

All Systems Red: The Muderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

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A big thank you to Faintingviolet for suggesting the Muderbot diaries to me. I’m not a huge Sci-Fi fan, but this book was perfect. Martha Wells masterfully creates an enormous world full of technological advancement and space travel but stays close enough to character to let us non-SciFi loving people into her world. ‘Murderbot’ is a robot with more human qualities than some of the humans we meet, and every introvert’s best friend. When not doing its job as armed security, it prefers to sit […]

Who doesn’t like a sci-fi romp?

Head On by John Scalzi

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Recently on twitter, John Scalzi shared a one-star review of one of his books he found. In the review, the writer was upset that Scalzi wrote easily readable sci-fi “romps”. Like me, Scalzi had a hard time finding why writing something that could be described as a romp would be bad. Romps are usually fun, right? Anyway, all of this is to say that Scalzi’s second foray into the world he established in Lock-in is fun, slick and dare I say another romp. Head On, […]

A is for Autonomous

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

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Technically, I started this book in 2018, but I did the bulk of it on the first of January, so I’m giving myself a pass and starting with it. A book with an “A” title is a good place to start. Autonomous is about a future where everything is patented, and people, as individual citizens, are treated like potential property and capital rather than individuals who possess innate rights. The impetus for this change in thinking and living comes from the contradiction that exists when […]

Get your red hot love-bot here

Robot in Love by T. L. McBeth

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Another Valentine’s Day book review with a few spoilers. Robot in Love looks like it might be a modern fairy tale. There is a Cinderella like robot on the cover and why not? However, it does turn into a story more about tolerance to love. The robot sees the loveliest creature for afar. As you go along, you learn they are shiny. The most lovely thing they have seen. And, of course, the robot is too shy to talk to her. The illustrations do show […]



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