Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The best worldbuilding doesn’t show the seams.”

Finder: Chase the Lady by Carla Speed McNeil

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Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder series is one of those series where I bring it up to people and they stare at me blankly. It is one of the best pieces of near-future alternate universe science fiction worldbuilding and storytelling out there and it feels like a precious secret, which is frustrating considering how amazing these books are, and how long they’ve been coming out (26 years). It feels like these should be as critically well-regarded as Bone, which came out around the same time and is similarly […]

Community, Queer Romance, Near-Future SF….What More Could One Want?

The Short While by Jeremy Sorese

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This was a really nice surprise to read, as I had no real expectations going in besides being a follower of Jeremy Sorese’s illustrative work on Twitter. I knew he dealt with queer themes and I like his art style, so when I saw on Twitter that he’d done a graphic novel, I looked at the excerpt and decided to buy it. Pricey at US$30, but it is 432 pages and a mixture of illustration, comic panel style sections, and text, so you are getting […]

All Aboard the Murderbot Bandwagon!

All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

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Another shoutout to Emmalita for the gift of these two books, the first in Martha Wells’ Murderbot series. The Murderbot Diaries have been reviewed often and glowingly here on CBR and my reviews will not be much different! I am loving this series and will absolutely be reading the rest.  Murderbot is the name that the main character has given itself. It is a SecUnit, i.e., a security unit, that is a hybrid of robotic and human parts. SecUnits are equipment rented out to research […]

“In the stories, there was a sense of justice. Everything had a purpose…I thought if those heroes and heroines from the stories could keep going forward into the darkness, so could I.”

Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson

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Cytonic is the third book in Brandon Sanderson’s “Skyward Series”.  Here are reviews for book one Skyward and book two Starsight .  In my review for Starsight I wondered if the pandemic would affect Cytonic being released in late 2021, fortunately through what sounded like a lot of hard work editing and deadlines, he and his team succeeded.  When I set out to read Skyward I thought it was a standalone novel and had mixed emotions to find out it wasn’t.  Excited because there was more but a little […]

What would you do with a spaceship full of psychic cats?

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

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It might end up sounding like I didn’t like Chilling Effect, but I want to be clear from the beginning that this was a fun and mostly entertaining read. The basic premise might sound familiar: space-ship captain and rag-tag crew/found family go about their existence but then everything changes when they are faced with a seemingly impossible mission and chaos/adventure ensues. The same goes for most of the characters, including Eva Innocente, tough captain with some sort of tragic past who can’t seem to get […]

“One human female, slightly rumpled and creased from a long time in storage. Expert pilot, trash at basically everything else.”

Cytonic (Skyward, #3) by Brandon Sanderson

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How many left turns can one book series take? Not that I’m complaining. I wish book four was right now. And will I finally give five stars to a book in this series? I guess I will find out by the time I finish writing this review. (You are already aware if you are reading this right now. Writing is like time travel!) This is book three in Sanderson’s YA sci-fi/space opera series, Skyward. I liked the first book just fine, but book two, and […]



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