Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The totality of human endeavor is nothing when set against the stars.”

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch

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I’ll come across book recommendations from a variety of sources. Lots of times I’ll have read about them on my own, or found my way to them via other authors that I already like. Sometimes somebody I know will recommend something that I will actually read. Occasionally I’ll wander around one of my local libraries in a familiar section and find something decent that way. Lately I’ve stumbled on a few through YouTubers or podcasters I like, and this was one of those. The Gone […]

Fascinating Premise, Frustrating Execution

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

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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 […]

Clones in Space

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In Six Wakes, The Dormire, a generational ship travelling to colonize the planet Athena, is manned by six clones and an AI. It is the responsibility of the clones, with the help of the AI, to fly the ship, make any needed repairs and keep the cargo of humans, clones and homesteading materials safe. Clones are chosen to man the ship due to the fact that the journey to Athena will take hundreds of years.  And, unlike a human crew, when the clones die, the […]

Am I Possessed by an Alien Right Now or Not?

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Rating:4.0/5 Summary: When something goes majorly wrong on the Icarus spacecraft, rich heiress Lilac LaRoux and newly decorated General Tarver Merendsen, become trapped in a space pod. It’s only thanks to Lilac’s familiarity and mechanical skill that they get their pod to launch and narrowly evade death. After crash landing on a seemly empty, but terraformed planet, they begin their search for the ship and inhabitants of the planet. Strange visions accost the pair and they believe they’re going crazy, but maybe there’s something else […]

“Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin.”

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3.5 stars Altered Carbon is a technically great book that I liked, but didn’t completely click for me in a way that I expected it to. Its premise drew me in, and the stylistic excellence of Richard K. Morgan’s prose lends itself equally well to technobabble, gritty noir dialogue, and surrealism. He’s also created a compelling, hyper-competent lead character in Takeshi Kovacs, who plays up the strong and silent thing to great effect but also employs cutting, dark humor with aplomb. The idea is this: […]



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