Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Infused with humanity

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

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CBR 14 BINGO: Star, because it takes place mostly in space BINGO: Gaslight, Scandal, Star, Monster, Bodies My experience with Ray Bradbury up to this point has been limited to Fahrenheit 451, which is a top-notch novel–at least, I remember it being so when I read it, oh, thirty years ago. Having picked up The Martian Chronicles, I’m ashamed that I’ve neglected Bradbury for so long. A science fiction writer with broad appeal, Bradbury infuses every story, even those about Martians, with humanity. The Martian […]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this book takes place in a world with a cultural assumption of bi- and pan-sexuality, and people who aren’t are considered “gender exclusive”!

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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This is going to be a short review. I read this too long ago, and have forgotten too much of it. I did like it, though! Quite a bit. I just wish I had gone into it with the correct expectations. Somehow, I’d gotten it into my head that this was a romance with some science fiction in it, rather than what it actually was, the other way around. This is waaaay more science fiction than it is romance, in a space opera sort of […]

A Fine Juggling Act With Nary a Dropped Ball in Sight.

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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I am really, really shocked at how much I liked this one! I think I have mentioned previously that I am not exactly one of the most broad readers of the romance genre, and I am not a super huge fan of the more contrived plots the genre follows. But here I am, writing up a review on a book that who’s main premise is a fake dating/arranged marriage scenario—and confessing that I really, really enjoyed it? I think what really got me on board with Winter’s […]

…seeing the way fiction can bleed into the world and leave a mark on someone’s skin.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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HALF CANNONBALL! CBR BINGO: Verse Square (BINGO! Rec’d to Time) (This book is part of the “Mandelverse” along with Station Eleven and Glass Hotel: pandemics, Shakespeare, violins, stories, airports, and heartbreaking connections between seemingly disparate characters.) I’m so late to the party on this one, but I’ll add mine to the pile of reviews. This small little novel holds four big stories spanning just as many centuries. In the early 20th century, a young man whose brother will inherit the family estate in England is unceremoniously sent to Canada after […]

Strong Writing and an Interesting World Meet the Bad Gender Politics of 60s/70s SF/F Yet Again

Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

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I read this as part of my planned effort over the next year to thin out my library by reading some of the books I’ve been schlepping from apartment to apartment with the idea that I’ll read them someday. Someday is now! This plan worked here because this book is going straight in the recycling after this review, freeing up shelf space to buy more books. Nightwings is a combination of three novellas, one of which won the Hugo in 1969. I didn’t notice that […]

…she now knew there was a darkness that succeeded her, which dismantled the pronoun without destroying its contents. She would end, but she would not be over.

Garden of Earthly Bodies by Sally Oliver

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CBR14 BINGO: Bodies square (Obviously, the title. But also, this author has a very interesting way of writing about bodies, bodily functions, and the senses. I hesitate to call it sensual because it was more than that. Oliver has a very acute awareness of how a body can react to grief, sickness, fear, and the whole panoply of emotions.) Marianne is struggling after the death of her younger sister. Never someone with a firm sense of self, Marianne flounders in apathy. Weighed down by grief and […]



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