Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Come along, Pleiti, you can practice ethnography later. We have a murder to solve.”

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older

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I loved Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes. The second Mossa and Pleiti novella, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles was also a delightful read. There was a moment in the story when I thought back to a conversation I had years ago with a much younger cousin who was still in his 20s. He began expounding on his desire to live somewhere that tested his grit, a place with “real” problems, like on the gritty prestige cop shows he watched. I didn’t point out all […]

Mossa responded simply with a Classical quotation: “‘Why are men?’”

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

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This seems like a book that would bring delight to many Cannonballers. Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes was a perfect listen to transition from 2023 to 2024. Just over 4 hours long, I listened to Lindsey Dorcus’ narration instead of the booms of neighborhood fireworks, and then finished up this morning with my first coffee of the year. I knew going in that Known Successes was a sapphic scifi Holmsian mystery set on a human colony on Jupiter. What I love is that […]

“As far from God, as heaven is wide”

The Language of Bees (2009) by Laurie R. King

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CBR Bingo square: Minds: Sherlock Holmes and his wife Mary Russell are solving the mystery of Sherlock’s missing daughter-in-law and granddaughter; minds are vulnerable to influence by the predatory; Damian Adler is a surrealist artist who rejects reason in his paintings. I was given The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994), the first in Laurie R. King’s ‘Russell and Holmes’ (yes, that Holmes) series for my birthday last year, and read it in the weeks following my surgery in May. It was a hot and arid few weeks, […]

A satisfying heroine; not Sherlock Holmes

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas

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CBR12 BINGO: Red A Study in Scarlet Women has been on my radar since last year’s “Classics and Retellings” book club, when a number of Cannonballers reviewed it as an adaptation/retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous work. I was excited that CBR12 BINGO gave me an excuse to pick it up from my library. My enthusiasm arc for this novel can be visualized as a bell curve: I went from “hmm, ok but. . .,” to “wow, this is great!” back down to “mildly positive” […]

It is only unnatural in the sense that there are human beings who can do this sort of thing to other human beings.

Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabar and Anna Waterhouse

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I am woefully behind in both reading and reviewing. It is taking me FOREVER to read these days and when it takes weeks to read something I have zero interest in reviewing it right away. So, here I am, ages after reading this book, trying to come up with 250 words to say about it. KimMiE posted a great review in February, and I strongly suggest skipping this and just reading hers. Seriously. No stranger to Sherlock Holmes re-tellings, I have often mentioned in other reviews how […]

An open letter to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

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Mr. Abdul-Jabbar and Ms. Waterhouse, Thank you for hearing my plea for more volumes in your wonderful Mycroft Holmes series. As I noted in my review of the first two novels, these books bring me such pure joy that as soon as I put one down, I regret having read so quickly. On top of that, this latest novel had me thinking that surely someone must be contemplating a movie or television series so I can enjoy the stories again in another dimension. To that […]



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