Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I don’t know how a novel with a mechanical octopus could go so wrong

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

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CBR 14 BINGO: Time, because there is a watch on the cover, and a watch in the title, and it deals with the way a person’s possible futures can shift through time Note: I’ve included spoilers to explain what it was that I didn’t like about this novel. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street has all the ingredients required to create something I should love: interesting characters, a non-linear interpretation of time, steampunk-esque mechanics, a beautiful cover, a dash of feminism, and an anthropomorphic clockwork octopus. […]

“The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land…”

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

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CBR14Bingo: Hot This is a book I kept out of the library so long as a kid that I accrued a $75 fine (do I currently have two books out of the library that are also so overdue they’re going to charge me for them if I don’t return them — yes, I haven’t learned my lesson). I can’t even imagine how many times I’ve read it and I’m happy to say it holds up yet again. It has been a few years since I’d […]

A Great First (Long) Book in a (Long) Series

City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams

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After carrying this book around from apartment to apartment for thirteen years, I finally made it beyond the first hundred pages and have finished the first book in the quartet. At this pace, I should be done in about 39 more years, so there’s hope! I think this really is a case of a book needing to be read at the right time. With a long train commute and a sudden urge to read Tad Williams, the stars aligned. City of Golden Shadow is set in […]

“We’re like children . . . who burn their hands on a hot stove and then think the solution is to blow up all the stoves.”

Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse, #3) by James S.A. Corey

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Yeah, five stars. I knew this was going to happen, that I would feel the need to give this one five stars after a re-read, because this is the book that made me fall in love with the series. I’m not sure what it is about it exactly that makes me like it more than the first two books, which I like a lot (five stars worth now for #1!). This story just has such a clear purpose, a clear arc, and wild stuff happens […]

If The World Was Ending, Would You Save My Life?

Black Tide by KC Jones

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When the coronavirus burst on to the American scene in March 2020, the song If the World Was Ending was cycling through the pop station airways. Its theme of finding comfort with an unlikely person at the end of the world (presumably during an earthquake) felt appropriately melancholy, and perhaps reassuring depending on what your situation was. There’s always someone to love us and we find love in desperate moments. I don’t know if KC Jones has heard that song or not but this book felt like […]

I don’t want to review this, f*** you.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 28/30 It’s too good! I loved it too much! This is like how I put off watching The Falcon and the Winter Soldier because I love Bucky too much. My feelings, THEY CANNOT BE CONTAINED WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME CONTAIN THEM. I was going to try and re-read this before I reviewed it to try and make some thoughts more thoughtful and coherent, but I just don’t have the time right now, even though […]



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