Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

One of My Quickest and One of My Longest Reads This Year

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

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Several People Are Typing I had such a good time with this one! It’s told exclusively through Slack chat messages, which makes it a really fast read, and it is so funny. There is an ensemble cast, but Gerald is more or less the main character. He inexplicably finds his consciousness uploaded into Slack, and none of his co-workers at a PR firm believe him (understandably!) and assume he is just working from home and doing a comic bit. The main plot of the novel […]

“We cannot turn back time, but we can keep on living.”

Among the Burning Flowers: A Roots of Chaos Tale by Samantha Shannon

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(This is the third book in the series, and the second prequel.) Set a few years before The Priory of the Orange Tree, Among the Burning Flowers tells the story of how the Kingdom of Yscalin became under Draconic rule; told from the alternating points of view of Marosa, heir to the Yscali throne, her fiance Aubrecht Lievelyn of Mentendon, and Estina Melaugo, a former thief living elsewhere in Yscalin. This book proves why the Roots of Chaos series is  my preference in Samantha Shannon’s […]

“When history fails to shed light on the truth, myth creates its own.”

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

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No woman should be made to fear that she was not enough. This book is described as “Saint George and the Dragon but make it lesbian”;  I can somewhat see that. It does have basically the myth of Saint George and the Dragon at the heart of it; the Kingdom of Inys, one of the two main locales for the action, is basically founded on a variation of it, and it does certainly have lesbians in it. The basic story is that in the Kingdom […]

Rebellion on the rise

The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon

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In the last novel, Paige realized the only way to change the system was to lead the system so she put her name in the ring to be the next Underqueen and won the battle. She also allied with the Ranthen (the faction of Rep that doesn’t want to oppress humans) and exposed the existence of the Rephaim to the London Syndicate. While she may have won the fight and has a loyal contingent of mime lords under her, there is still grumbling in the […]

Back to a life of crime

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon

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After the events of the last novel, Paige is back in her old life in the Syndicate, London’s Underground crime ring of clairvoyants. She wants to fight back and do something about what she witnessed in Oxford and expose the oppressive authoritarian government but she doesn’t know what to do next: no one would believe her if she just told the truth as it sounds too fantastical, and the leaders of the Syndicate, who could make a difference, don’t want to hear her – too […]

Crime syndicates, clairvoyants and angelic figures

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

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I remember meaning to read The Bone Season when it came out but then before I got around to it, seemed like the reviews and reactions from people whose judgement I trust was pretty middling so I didn’t prioritize it, and never got around to it. I quite liked A Priory of the Orange Tree (and the prequel novel) so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Samantha Shannon had gone back and revised The Bone Season for its 10th anniversary and it was Narfna […]



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