Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Grounded in reality, gripping science fiction: cbr12bingo White Whale

SevenEves by Neal Stephenson

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SevenEves is my “White Whale” for Cannonball bingo 12.  When it came out, my spouse raved about it and in the five years since its release, SevenEves keeps cropping up on “best of lists” and positive Cannonballer reviews.  Despite all the positivity, I was resistant to reading based on size and how that could affect my cannonball.  The White Whale square gave me an excellent reason to move it to the top of the TBR. To some extent, my title says it all.  SevenEves is one […]

“I was six years old. I was seven hundred and fifty. I was being hunted.”

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

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I have in the past frequently compared books to food because I find it helpful. I love both books and food in the way that only comes from consuming something, putting it inside yourself and making it a part of you, quite literally. There’s the immediate pleasure of the consumption itself, and then there’s the afterward, when the food or the ideas do things to you (good, bad or in between; small or large scale). I have previously compared books to cotton candy and burritos […]

Books like this are why I love science fiction. #CBRBingo – Fresh Start

Children of Time (Children of Time, #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Man, this hit me at just the right time, in just the right way. It was the perfect blend of escapism (events take place farrrr away and a verrry long time from now) and dealing with reality (humans gonna human even in the future and light years away). I almost don’t want to tell you anything about this book because if you go in unspoiled you are in for some surprises, but part of why I wanted to pick the book up is that I […]

“If you don’t like the facts, you ignore them, and if you need facts, dream up some you do like.”

Little Fuzzy (Fuzzy Sapiens, #1) by H. Beam Piper

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Reading this back to back with Scalzi’s reinterpretation was an interesting experience, not least because the differences were really clear, but what was different was somehow surprising. I’ve read several classic sf books this year, and though they have shared varying tones and subject matters, they share a certain cultural sensibility. This is a very humanist little book, conscious of questions of personhood and exploitation, but it’s also a bit paternalistic. The basic plot here, shared by Fuzzy Nation, is that Jack Holloway is a […]

Third time through liked this just as much.

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

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It was interesting to read this after finally having read Little Fuzzy, the original novel Scalzi reimagined, that forms the basis of the story of this book. They were essentially the same story, but had key differences that made them entirely different reading experiences. Scalzi’s version of the story is much less sweet, for one. It’s much more anti-capitalist, though I wouldn’t quite say anti-colonial, and it’s less about answering the central question of “What is sapience?” and more about how the Fuzzys find a […]

Everything I wanted and more.

Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5) by Martha Wells

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I loved this book so much, and that of course means I am at a loss to describe it. I also read it almost three months ago, and am only now attempting to write this review. This means BULLET POINTS. But first, I do want to say that I was very pleased with the first outing of Murderbot in novel form, as opposed to novella. I enjoyed spending a longer page count with Murderbot, whose character arc continues to develop in a pleasing fashion. I […]



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