Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Second Chances Sometimes Are Worth It

The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

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I had flipped through The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England in a bookstore and decided it didn’t look great. I’m not a big fan of first-person narrating, and I saw a now mildly spoilery part about 2/3 of the way in that seemed dumb, so I put is back. Fast-forward about 6 months and I see the same nook at the library. On a whim, I decided to give it another chance. I’m actually kind of glad that I did. Our narrator wakes […]

The first book in an intimidatingly long series about nerdy, silly, time-travel historians, with a surprising amount of angst and drama.

Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #1) by Jodi Taylor

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“If this was one of those books, there would now be three pages of head-banging sex. The reality was that he pulled me close, whispered, ‘Mfhbnnntx,’ and I pulled his arm over me like a cover and muttered, ‘Trout,’ and that was pretty much it.” This was a lot better than I thought it would be! (I’ve seen quite a few negative or lukewarm reviews.) I had fun with it. This strange little book is one that only could have come from the bonkers ground […]

CBR15 Bingo: Take the Skies (Double bingo)

Network Effect by Martha Wells

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4.5 stars CBR15 Bingo: Take the Skies Murderbot is away from Dr. Mensah, the person it likes the most (although it would never admit this to anyone, or itself), in order to guard a research party (which includes Mensah’s daughter). The group is attacked and sucked through a wormhole, and Murderbot is really very annoyed about the sudden upheaval. When it turns out that the abduction may in fact have something to do with an old friend of Murderbot (not that it acknowledges friends, as […]

September 2023 Leftovers

Ex Machina, Book Five by Brian K. Vaughan

Windfall by Wendy Corsi Staub

The Big Bundle by Max Allan Collins

The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri

Guts and Genius: The Story of Three Unlikely Coaches Who Came to Dominate the NFL in the '80s by Bob Glauber

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Let’s please do something about climate change before it’s too late. I miss fall. And far more importantly: people’s lives are at stake. Ex Machina Book Five **** Mixed feelings on how this series ended. I think in many respects, the superhero stuff was handled better than the political angle through most of its run. That’s not something I thought I’d be saying after the first book. Making Mayor Hundred a contrarian centrist type was uninspired back then and comes off as even more annoying […]

CBR BINGO – ASIA/OCEANIA: A total and complete confusion DNF.

The Archive Undying (Downworld Sequence, #1) by Emma Mieko Candon

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Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review. – – – Firstly, here’s the extremely intriguing synopsis from Goodreads: “War machines and AI gods run amok in The Archive Undying , national bestseller Emma Mieko Candon’s bold entry into the world of mecha fiction. WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK When the robotic […]

A Satisfying Sc-Fi Read

Mysterium by Robert Charles Wilson

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CBR15Bingo: You Are Here (The characters have no clue where they are and have to figure it out.) Every year or so I pick up a used Robert Charles Wilson novel and spend an enjoyable time reading it. It’s almost always a satisfying read and I feel contented by the mystery being solved. He tends to do a good job of presenting an interesting sci-fi idea and then wrapping things up in a neat bow or a little twist. This one dealt with inter-dimensional travel […]



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